Stephen Hawking was right about black holes
Apparently, black holes are not bottomless pits: something always escapes. Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking's theory is confirmed.
Search Results for: Nature
Alzheimer's, soon the vaccine
The Alzheimer's vaccine will be ready within 5 years. A good result, for a disease that scares many people. The development of a vaccine against Alzheimer's could be a matter of years now, as emerges from a study by Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, published in the journal Nature. The first tests on humans will be carried out by 2018. And it doesn't end here. In the future, Alzheimer's disease could be diagnosed early, with ad hoc tests, perhaps a blood test... Read more
Here are the three Earth-like planets
Latest news from space: three 'twin' (or almost, let's say similar) planets of Earth potentially capable of hosting life have just been identified. These are planets that revolve around a dwarf star cooler than the Sun, called Trappist-1, which is located just 40 light years from us, in the constellation Aquarius. The discovery is sensational, and was announced in Nature by an international group of astronomers led by the Institute of Astrophysics and Geophysics of the Belgian University of Liège. “Thanks to telescopes… Read more
The graphene and gold patch for diabetics arrives
Technology for the medical field is increasingly cutting edge. And for chronic diseases such as diabetes, giant strides are being made: today we present this high-tech patch in graphene and gold, designed specifically for diabetics. As we know, diabetics must monitor their blood glucose levels daily and possibly inject a dose of insulin, and this is an operation that requires a lot of time, energy and money. A team of Korean and American researchers thought… Read more
The new anticancer drug that destroys metastases
Cancer is no longer as scary as it used to be, because many people recover from this disease and also because research is making giant strides, including Italian research, to try to defeat the pathology with new technologies. In recent news, for example, a new drug composed of nanoparticles capable of directly penetrating the metastases caused by breast cancer in organs such as the lungs and liver has been developed, destroying them completely. For now, the new… Read more
3D printing of human organs and tissues is reality
We have all asked ourselves at least once: but what is 3D printing for? To many things, including the faithful reproduction of human organs and tissues. Will organ donation become a distant memory? Reading the latest news, it seems so. The news was broken by the team at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, whose researchers have found a way to print "living" tissues and organs that can function properly when implanted in the body of ... Read more
Energy from nuclear fusion less distant with the laser as hot as the sun
A team of scientists from Imperial College London has probably made the possibility of obtaining unlimited energy from nuclear fusion less distant thanks to a theoretical model of a laser that can develop 10 million degrees Celsius (probably a higher temperature than what is found to the center of the Sun) in 20 quadrillionths of a second: practically instantaneously. The development represents a step forward towards the dream of obtaining energy from thermonuclear fusion: a clean, sustainable and unlimited source… Read more
Dear CERN, your accelerator is out of date
A team of researchers has developed the first prototype of a miniature particle accelerator, which uses terahertz waves instead of radio frequencies. A single accelerator module is just 1 centimeters in size, and a millimeter thin. Terahertz technology could allow the miniaturization of the entire apparatus: this is the objective of the group led by Franz Kärtner, of the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science. The prototype was presented with an article in the scientific journal Nature. The author hypothesizes numerous fields of application of accelerators… Read more
HIV has been eradicated in monkeys
In an article published last week in Nature the extraordinary results of research conducted by two different laboratories. A mixture of HIV type 1 monoclonal antibodies is capable of eliminating the AIDS virus from the bodies of primates in just 3 days without leaving a trace. The protagonist of the undertaking is the N332-glycan-dependent monoclonal antibody PGT121 mAb which is the main proponent of a very rapid decay of virus levels even in long-infected primates. No yes… Read more
At Christmas make a small gesture: save the world
The future of man is threatened by his own activities: if consumption habits, compulsiveness and illicit activities are not curbed, the near future will be full of unknowns and threats for the entire human species. In the meantime, it is above all animal species that pay the costs. The report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, an organization that monitors the environment and suggests proactive solutions to guarantee its defense, is very recent: 25% of all mammals ... Read more
In nanomachine towards the future
It's not the first and it won't be the last. Scientists from the University of Groningen (Holland) and the Empa research center (Switzerland) have created a nanometric transport system equipped with four motor units (translation: a “namomachine”). It's electric, four nanometers long and every half turn of the wheels has to fill up... It works thanks to a scanning tunneling microscope positioned above it, which transmits a tiny electric charge that causes reversible structural changes in the wheels (translation: … Read more
Repairing the damage of time will 'cure' you from old age
Day after day this ambitious goal is starting to become reality thanks to the progress of biomedical research. For several years, researchers have believed that the cells most damaged by aging, called "senescent", damage the surrounding tissue causing many of the pathologies characteristic of old age. These cells, which have stopped dividing due to the ravages of time, continue to secrete large quantities of molecules, many of which are toxic, in the surrounding environment. In a study recently published in the prestigious journal Nature, scientists from "Mayo ... Read more
IBM declares war on antibiotic resistant bacteria
IBM and the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore have designed a new type of polymer capable of identifying and destroying antibiotic-resistant bacteria and preventing their evolution. The most interesting feature of this nanostructure is that it is biodegradable and does not accumulate in tissues: it can be easily eliminated from the body, unlike previous polymer-based solutions. The material, used as a real 'invisible missile', destroys the cell membranes of bacteria: it has a ... Read more
