Tag Archives: Proteins

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – July 6, 2023

Volume 619 Issue 7968

nature Magazine -July 6, 2023 issue: Shape shifters – DNA origami allows useful supramolecular structures to be created from templates. But the process has its limitations, with most structures confined to two configurations: folded or unfolded.

Fungi bacon and insect burgers: a guide to the proteins of the future

Stylised illustration showing a shop display of alternative protein products with signs saying 'New' and 'Try today'.

Humanity needs to eat less meat. Here are seven alternatives.

Would you eat a burger enriched with mealworms? Fake bacon sliced from a mass of fermented fungi? Milk proteins extruded by microbes? Maybe you already have. Dozens of companies are now banking on these alternatives to animal protein becoming a regular part of your diet.

Mini-antibodies given mighty powers can stave off influenza

Influenza A virus, TEM image.

Complexes formed from ‘nanobodies’ and an antiviral drug halt infection in its tracks.

A dynamic duo comprising an antiviral drug joined to an antibody fragment provides strong protection against the two main types of influenza that infect humans, according to research in mice.

Research Preview: Science Magazine – Oct 14, 2022

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How SARS-CoV-2 battles our immune system

Meet the protein arsenal wielded by the pandemic virus

Evidence backs natural origin for pandemic, report asserts

Authors were dropped from broader Lancet review

A viral arsenal

SARS-CoV-2 wields versatile proteins to foil our immune system’s counterattack

Hydrogen power gets a boost

A fuel cell gains more power from ion-conducting, porous covalent organic frameworks

Science: Reviving Retinas, Floral Chocolates, First Life From RNA + Proteins

Reviving retinas to understand eyes

Research efforts to learn more about diseases of the human eye have been hampered as these organs degrade rapidly after death, and animal eyes are quite different to those from humans. 

To address this, a team have developed a new method to revive retinas taken from donors shortly after their death. They hope this will provide tissue for new studies looking into the workings of the human eye and nervous system.

Research article: Abbas et al.

8:05 Research Highlights

A technique that simplifies chocolate making yields fragrant flavours, and 3D imaging reveals some of the largest-known Native American cave art.

Research Highlight: How to make a fruitier, more floral chocolate

Research Highlight: Cramped chamber hides some of North America’s biggest cave art

10:54 Did life emerge in an ‘RNA world’?

How did the earliest biochemical process evolve from Earth’s primordial soup? One popular theory is that life began in an ‘RNA world’ from which proteins and DNA evolved. However, this week a new paper suggests that a world composed of RNA alone is unlikely, and that life is more likely to have begun with molecules that were part RNA and part protein.

Research article: Müller et al.

News and Views: A possible path towards encoded protein synthesis on ancient Earth

17:52 Briefing Chat

We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, the ‘polarised sunglasses’ that helped astronomers identify an ultra-bright pulsar, and how a chemical in sunscreen becomes toxic to coral.

Nature: A ‘galaxy’ is unmasked as a pulsar — the brightest outside the Milky Way

Cover Previews: Science Magazine – December 17

Science: Endometriosis Insights, Deep Learning That Predicts RNA Folding

News Intern Rachel Fritts talks with host Sarah Crespi about a new way to think about endometriosis—a painful condition found in one in 10 women in which tissue that normally lines the uterus grows on the outside of the uterus and can bind to other organs.

Next, Raphael Townshend, founder and CEO of Atomic AI, talks about predicting RNA folding using deep learning—a machine learning approach that relies on very few examples and limited data.

Finally, in this month’s edition of our limited series on race and science, guest host and journalist Angela Saini is joined by author Lundy Braun, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and Africana studies at Brown University, to discuss her book: Breathing Race into the Machine: The Surprising Career of the Spirometer from Plantation to Genetics.