structure

We May Finally Know Why Whales Don’t Drown When They Gulp Down Krill

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Baleen whales are heavy drinkers. In just ten seconds, these giant mammals can down over five hundred bathtubs of ocean water, filtering out roughly 10 kilograms of krill in a single swig.   All they have to do is open their mouths and lunge forward at roughly 10 kilometers an hour (6 miles per hour). The … Read more

Local Bubble: Huge gas structure that contains the solar system mapped for first time

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The solar system lies inside a structure called the Local Bubble some 1000 light years across – and a map of its surface shows it is the site of star formation Space 12 January 2022 Artist’s illustration of the Local Bubble with star formation occurring on the bubble’s surface Leah Hustak (STScI) The star-forming regions … Read more

Bacteria: Microbes form complex structures like those seen in animals

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Bacterial biofilms, slimy collections of microbes, can develop concentric rings containing cells with different biological features Life 6 January 2022 By Alex Wilkins Bacillus subtilis, a soil bacterium, can create concentric rings when it forms a biofilm Kwang-Tao Chou Bacterial biofilms contain a level of structural organisation that we thought was unique to plants and … Read more

Astronomers Discover One of The Biggest Structures Ever Seen in The Milky Way

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Roughly 13.8 billion years ago, our Universe was born in a massive explosion that gave rise to the first subatomic particles and the laws of physics as we know them. About 370,000 years later, hydrogen had formed, the building block of stars, which fuse hydrogen and helium in their interiors to create all the heavier … Read more

We May Finally Have The Basis of a Dog Allergy Vaccine

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Scientists are working hard to make pet-related sneezes and sniffles a distant memory, and there’s promising news from researchers analyzing the potential for a vaccine against dog allergies.   In what’s being described as a first step in developing such a vaccine, a team in Japan has identified certain parts of molecules that may be … Read more

Biggest science news of 2021: DeepMind solves 98.5 per cent of human protein structures using its AlphaFold model

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In July, DeepMind announced that its AlphaFold model had worked out how most of the proteins in our bodies fold. Pushmeet Kohli tells New Scientist that there is more to come Technology 15 December 2021 By Matthew Sparkes A 3D model of a fruit fly protein from DeepMind DeepMind IT TOOK decades for scientists to … Read more

The Brain’s Secrets May Be Hidden in Its Folds And Wrinkles. How Are They Made?

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The human brain has been called the most complex object in the known universe. And with good reason: It has around 86 billion neurons and several hundred thousand miles of axon fibers connecting them.   Unsurprisingly, the process of brain folding that results in the brain’s characteristic bumps and grooves is also highly complex. Despite … Read more

Black hole jet boasts double helix structure molded by powerful magnetic fields

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An extraordinary galactic jet ejected from a supermassive black hole boasts a corkscrew-like helical structure, new ground-based telescope views reveal. The black hole lies at the center of an elliptical galaxy called Messier 87 (M87), which is located roughly 55 million light-years from Earth. The black hole — the first, and only, black hole ever … Read more