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2 months ago | 
snexplores.org | Kathryn Hulick |Payal Dhar |Liz Kruesi
Free educator resources are available for this article. Register to access: Client key* E-mail Address* Already Registered? Enter your e-mail address above. A robot whirs along a library shelf. Instead of books, this shelf holds napkin-sized squares of flat, clear glass.
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Jan 6, 2025 | 
cen.acs.org | Payal Dhar
Cancer immunotherapy drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors take the brakes off the body's immune system, allowing it to find and attack cancer cells. One such checkpoint protein, programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1), has proved to be a successful immunotherapy target. But this therapy is effective in only some patients, and scientists haven't known why. A recent paper shows how preclinical mouse studies may be confounding researchers.
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Dec 18, 2024 | 
cen.acs.org | Payal Dhar
Biological cells process data and perform computations all the time. They take inputs in the form of external stimuli and produce specific responses. Recently, scientists have been looking at ways to use that mechanism to program certain behaviors in cells. In one new study, researchers built an artificial neural network using proteins and used it to classify signals in cells.
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Dec 17, 2024 | 
cen.acs.org | Payal Dhar
Nearly all black plastics get sent to the landfill or get incinerated because their pigment makes them difficult to sort in plastics recycling plants. As a result, the recycling industry pays little to no attention to black plastics when devising strategies for recycling waste material. But a new study describes a simple method to break down polystyrene that takes advantage of the very pigment that makes these plastics a problem in the first place ( ACS Cent. Sci.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
sciencenews.org | Payal Dhar
ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and other AI tools whip up impressive sentences and paragraphs from as little as a simple line of text prompt. To generate those words, the underlying large language models were trained on reams of text written by humans and scraped from the internet.
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Nov 19, 2024 | 
cen.acs.org | Payal Dhar
Those bamboo sheets you splurged on may not be as environmentally sound as their label claims. A recent study finds that microplastics from biobased fibers like viscose and lyocell are more toxic to earthworms than those from petrochemical-based polyester ( Environ. Sci. Technol. 2024, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.4c05856). There's a push to switch from polyester to what might be perceived as more environmentally friendly or sustainable alternatives, like fibers made from the cellulose in plants.
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Oct 24, 2024 | 
cen.acs.org | Payal Dhar
DNA has tremendous potential as a data storage medium, but the process of synthesizing DNA from scratch is time-consuming. It has to be done one nucleotide at a time in a specific sequence. New research now demonstrates an alternative approach, a synthesis-free method that uses a universal DNA template to encode data.
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Oct 16, 2024 | 
snexplores.org | Payal Dhar
accelerate: To experience a change in velocity (speed). amber: Fossilized tree resin (not sap). Researchers think most of this gemstone likely comes from conifers, or evergreen trees that bear cones. bacteria: (singular: bacterium) Single-celled organisms. These dwell nearly everywhere on Earth, from the bottom of the sea to inside other living organisms (such as plants and animals). Bacteria are one of the three domains of life on Earth. base: (in genetics) A shortened version of the term nucleobase.
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Sep 4, 2024 | 
cen.acs.org | Payal Dhar
For the first time, a multidisciplinary team of researchers have demonstrated a proof of principle of all the capabilities needed for a functioning computer-storing, retrieving, processing, erasing, and rewriting data-using nucleic acids. With this primitive computer, the researchers were able to solve simple chess and sudoku problems ( Nat. Nanotechnol. 2024, DOI: 10.1038/s41565-024-01771-6).
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Aug 20, 2024 | 
snexplores.org | Payal Dhar
Have you ever struggled with a task because having two arms just wasn’t enough? If so, you might appreciate a new device that could lend a helping hand — literally. You strap on this robotic arm, then control it with the muscle you use to breathe. Right now, the robotic arm is worn in the middle of your chest. But it could go above your shoulders or at your side. It all depends on “what you want to do with it,” says engineer Giulia Dominijanni.
