Lifeboat Foundation

Our gut microbiome helps us out every day by processing the fiber we can’t digest. The bacteria ferment the fiber into key chemicals known as short-chain fatty acids, or SCFAs, that are essential for human health. SCFAs fight inflammation, help kill dangerous bacteria, protect the lining of the gut, and can even help prevent cancer.

In a new study, the John Denu lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin Institute for Discovery has learned that the fatty acids butyrate and propionate also activate p300, a crucial human enzyme that promotes the unspooling of DNA. This unwound DNA allows more genes to become active and expressed, which ultimately affects human health.

A study by Wisconsin Institute for Discovery researchers challenges long-held beliefs, with potential implications for physiological processes and diseases such as propionic acidemia, autism spectrum disorder and Alzheimer’s disease.

Three resonators operating at different frequencies read a 3×3 matrix of quantum dots. © 2022 EPFL

Biochemistry and cryptography.

Artificial intelligence drug design company Iktos, and South Korean clinical research biotech Astrogen announced today a collaboration with the goal of discovering small-molecule pre-clinical drug candidates for a specific, undisclosed, marker of Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Under the terms of the agreement, whose value was not disclosed, Iktos will apply its generative learning algorithms which seek to identify new molecular structures with the potential address the target in PD. Astrogen, which has a focus of the development of therapeutics for “intractable neurological diseases,” will provide in-vitro and in-vivo screening of lead compounds and pre-clinical compounds. While both companies will contribute to the identification of new small-molecule candidates, Astrgoen will lead the drug development process from the pre-clinical stages.

“Our objective is to expedite drug discovery and achieve time and cost efficiencies for our global collaborators by using Iktos’s proprietary AI platform and know-how,” noted Yann Gaston-Mathé, president and CEO of Paris-based Iktos in a press release. “We are confident that together we will be able to identify promising novel chemical matter for the treatment of intractable neurological diseases. Our strategy has always been to tackle challenging problems alongside our collaborators where we can demonstrate value generation for new and on-going drug discovery projects.”

For the first time, astronomers have detected a newborn star and the surrounding cocoon of complex organic molecules at the edge of our Galaxy, which is known as the extreme outer Galaxy. The discovery, which revealed the hidden chemical complexity of our Universe, appears in a paper in The Astrophy.

For the first time, astronomers have detected a newborn star and the surrounding cocoon of complex organic molecules at the edge of our Galaxy, which is known as the extreme outer Galaxy. The discovery, which revealed the hidden chemical complexity of our Universe, appears in a paper in The Astrophysical Journal.

The scientists from Niigata University (Japan), Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (Taiwan), and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is the largest ground-based facility for observations in the millimeter/submillimeter regime in the world. ALMA comprises of 66 high-precision dish antennas of measuring either 12 meters across or 7 meters across and is an international partnership between Europe, the United States, Japan and the Republic of Chile.

These self-powered robots, which were inspired by water-walking insects, delivered chemicals while partially submerged in a solution.

Summary: Researchers have identified a novel biomarker for depression and antidepressant response. The biomarker can be identified and monitored through blood samples.

Source: University of Illinois.

Researchers are one step closer to developing a blood test that provides a simple biochemical hallmark for depression and reveals the efficacy of drug therapy in individual patients.

Bluetti says its first-generation sodium-ion battery excels in thermal stability, fast-charging capacity, low-temperature performance, and integration efficiency, despite slightly lower energy density than its lithium-ion counterparts. The solar generator and battery’s chemical components also feature more abundant materials than traditional lithium-ion batteries, lowering prices and alleviating concerns about resources scarcity.

The NA300 solar generator delivers a 3,000Wh capacity, considerably less than the 5,100Wh of the company’s EP500 Pro model. But the generator capacity shouldn’t be a big issue for consumers, as it supports up to two B480 battery modules (4,800Wh each), which brings the total capacity to 12,600Wh. The unit, recharged by solar panels, can serve a family’s electricity needs for several days or even a week during grid failures or natural disasters.

It is said that the sodium-ion solar generator seamlessly inherits all the style and appearance settings of its predecessor – EP500 Pro – especially four 20-amp traditional wall plugs, as well as a 30-amp L14-30 output port, driven by the built-in 3,000W pure sine wave inverter.

The previously elusive methanediol molecule of importance to the organic, atmospheric science and astrochemistry communities has been synthetically produced for the first time by University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa researchers. Their discovery and methods were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on December 30.

Methanediol is also known as formaldehyde monohydrate or methylene glycol. With the chemical formula CH₂(OH)₂, it is the simplest geminal diol, a molecule which carries two hydroxyl groups (OH) at a single carbon atom. These organic molecules are suggested as key intermediates in the formation of aerosols and reactions in the ozone layer of the atmosphere.

The research team—consisting of Department of Chemistry Professor Ralf Kaiser, postdoctoral researchers Cheng Zhu, N. Fabian Kleimeier and Santosh Singh, and W.M. Keck Laboratory in Astrochemistry Assistant Director Andrew Turner—prepared methanediol via energetic processing of extremely low temperature ices and observed the molecule through a high-tech mass spectrometry tool exploiting tunable vacuum photoionization (the process in which an ion is formed from the interaction of a photon with an atom or molecule) in the W.M. Keck Laboratory in Astrochemistry. Electronic structure calculations by University of Mississippi Associate Professor Ryan Fortenberry confirmed the gas phase stability of this molecule and demonstrated a pathway via reaction of electronically excited oxygen atoms with methanol.