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Category: biological

Space Station Microbes Harvest Metals from Meteorites

Most microbes aboard the International Space Station can extract valuable metals like palladium from meteorite material in microgravity, showing potential for sustainable space resource mining.

How can microbes be used to help enhance human space exploration, specifically on the Moon and Mars? This is what a recent study published in npj Microgravity hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated how microbes could be used to harvest essential minerals from rocks that could be used to enhance sustainability efforts on long-term human missions to the Moon and Mars. This study has the potential to help scientists develop new methods for improving human spaceflight, which could substantially alleviate the need for relying on Earth for supplies.

For the study, the researchers sent meteorite and microorganism samples to the International Space Station (ISS) where astronauts conducted a series of experiments to ascertain how microorganisms could harvest essential minerals, specifically platinum and palladium, from the meteorite samples. Concurrently, the researchers also conducted the same experiments on Earth to compare the results under microgravity and terrestrial environments.

The goal of the study was to ascertain whether microorganisms could be used on future long-term space missions to harvest precious metals for construction of space habitats. In the end, the researchers and astronauts found that the microorganisms not only successfully extracted metals like palladium and platinum but also had minimal fungal residues typically that results from such processes. This lack of fungal residue was found to be more prevalent under microgravity conditions.

One of the astronauts stuck in space after Starliner malfunction to be on Cape Cod Feb. 20

She is an inspiration!

NASA astronaut Sunita “Suni” Williams, a Needham native with Falmouth ties, will speak about her experiences during a recent space mission at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 20 at the Marine Biological Laboratory’s Falmouth Forum, according to a community announcement.

The lecture, titled “So Much Space… So Much Time!,” will take place in the Cornelia Clapp Auditorium in Lillie Laboratory, 7 MBL St., Woods Hole. It is free and open to the public.

Williams and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore remained aboard the International Space Station after thruster failures on their spacecraft. They returned to Earth on an alternate vehicle. Williams will share videos and personal accounts to highlight the rapid commercialization of space and the challenges it presents.

Chitosan-nickel biomaterial becomes stronger when wet, and could replace plastics

A new study led by the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) has unveiled the first biomaterial that is not only waterproof but actually becomes stronger in contact with water. The material is produced by the incorporation of nickel into the structure of chitosan, a chitinous polymer obtained from discarded shrimp shells. The development of this new biomaterial marks a departure from the plastic-age mindset of making materials that must isolate from their environment to perform well. Instead, it shows how sustainable materials can connect and leverage their environment, using their surrounding water to achieve mechanical performance that surpasses common plastics.

Plastics have become an integral part of modern society thanks to their durability and resistance to water. However, precisely these properties turn them into persistent disruptors of ecological cycles. As a result, unrecovered plastic is accumulating across ecosystems and becoming an increasingly ubiquitous component of global food chains, raising growing concerns about potential impacts on human health.

In an effort to address this challenge, the use of biomaterials as substitutes for conventional plastics has long been explored. However, their widespread adoption has been limited by a fundamental drawback: Most biological materials weaken when exposed to water. Traditionally, this vulnerability has forced engineers to rely on chemical modifications or protective coatings, thereby undermining the sustainability benefits of biomaterial-based solutions.

UT San Antonio to launch nation’s first open-access neuromorphic computing hub

To tackle this challenge, the MATRIX AI Consortium for Human Well-Being at UT San Antonio plans to launch a new initiative that establishes a national hub for “neuromorphic” computing available for public use.

Neuromorphic computing is a revolutionary approach that mimics the human brain’s structure to process information with a fraction of the energy used by traditional computers. Unlike standard processors that crunch data in a fixed sequence, neuromorphic chips operate like biological neurons. They are event-based, meaning that they activate only when there is something new to process, saving energy between events.

The initiative, called THOR: The Neuromorphic Commons, is funded by the National Science Foundation. THOR will make the promising technology available for researchers nationwide to explore and conduct experiments, serving as the largest-ever full-stack neuromorphic platforms to be open to the public.

20-Year Mystery Solved: Scientists Discover an Entirely New Way Cells Transport Bile Acids

A long-standing mystery in bile acid biology has been solved. Bile acids are often introduced as digestion helpers, but they are also powerful chemical messengers that help coordinate metabolism throughout the body. To do their jobs, these cholesterol-derived molecules must be shuttled efficiently

Microscopic robots that sense, think, act, and compute

Extremely cool paper describing optically programmable ~0.3 mm robots with onboard computation and autonomous locomotion! These tiny rectangular machines carry solar cells, optical receivers, electrokinetic actuators, and more. As demonstrations, the authors programmed them (i) to report local temperature by doing a coded dance and (ii) swim towards warmth before stopping and rotating upon reaching a location with a certain level of heat. This is amazing and I hope such devices are further improved so they can be used in biological applications! Love it!

(https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.adu8009)

Autonomous submillimeter robots are built with onboard sensing, computation, memory, communication, and locomotion.

Hologram processing method boosts 3D image depth of focus fivefold

Researchers from the University of Tartu Institute of Physics have developed a novel method for enhancing the quality of three-dimensional images by increasing the depth of focus in holograms fivefold after recording, using computational imaging techniques. The technology enables improved performance of 3D holographic microscopy under challenging imaging conditions and facilitates the study of complex biological structures.

The research results were published in the Journal of Physics: Photonics in the article “Axial resolution post-processing engineering in Fresnel incoherent correlation holography.”

One of the main limitations of conventional microscopes and 3D imaging systems is that, once an image or hologram has been recorded, its imaging properties cannot be altered. To overcome this limitation, Shivasubramanian Gopinath, a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Tartu Institute of Physics, and his colleagues have developed a new method that enables to capture a set of holograms with different focal distances at the time of acquisition, instead of a single image. These can then be computationally combined to produce a synthetic hologram that offers a much greater depth of focus than conventional approaches, and allows for post-processing of the recorded image.

The insect-inspired bionic eye that sees, smells and guides robots

The compound eyes of the humble fruit fly are a marvel of nature. They are wide-angle and can process visual information several times faster than the human eye. Inspired by this biological masterpiece, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed an insect-scale compound eye that can both see and smell, potentially improving how drones and robots navigate complex environments and avoid obstacles.

Traditional cameras on robots and drones may excel at capturing high-definition photos, but struggle with a narrow field of view and limited peripheral vision. They also tend to be bulky and power-hungry.

New perspectives on how physical instabilities drive embryonic development

Multicellularity is one of the most profound phenomena in biology, and relies on the ability of a single cell to reorganize itself into a complex organism. It underpins the diversity in the animal kingdom, from insects to frogs, to humans. But how do cells establish and maintain their individuality with such precision? A team led by Jan Brugués at the Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life (PoL) at TUD Dresden University of Technology has uncovered fundamental mechanisms that shed light on this question.

The findings, published in Nature, reveal how cells establish physical boundaries through an inherently unstable process, and how different species have evolved distinct strategies to circumvent this process.

During early development, embryos divide rapidly and with remarkable precision, while reorganizing into many individual units. This requires the cell material (known as cytoplasm) to be partitioned into compartments in a highly orchestrated manner.

Driven electrolytes are agile and active at the nanoscale

Technologies for energy storage as well as biological systems such as the network of neurons in the brain depend on driven electrolytes that are traveling in an electric field due to their electrical charges. This concept has also recently been used to engineer synthetic motors and molecular sensors on the nanoscale or to explain biological processes in nanopores. In this context, the role of the background medium, which is the solvent, and the resulting hydrodynamic fluctuations play an important role. Particles in such a system are influenced by these stochastic fluctuations, which effectively control their movements.

“When we imagine the environment inside a driven electrolyte at the nanoscale, we might think of a calm viscous medium in which ions move due to the electric field and slowly diffuse around. This new study reveals that this picture is wrong: the environment resembles a turbulent sea, which is highly nontrivial given the small scale,” explains Ramin Golestanian, who is director of the Department of Living Matter Physics at MPI-DS, and author of the study published in Physical Review Letters.

The research uncovers how the movement of the ions creates large-scale fluctuating fluid currents that stir up the environment and lead to fast motion of all the particles that are immersed in the environment, even if they are not charged.

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