Bhupendra Singh ChundawatCurrently, more than 300 million people around the world rely on desalinated water for part or all of their daily needs. That demand will only grow with larger populations and improved standards of living around the world. Accessing the oceans for drinking water, however, requires desalination technologies that are complicated and expensive. The most commonly … Read more
Lab-based mimicry allowed an international team of physicists including Carnegie’s Alexander Goncharov to probe hydrogen under the conditions found in the interiors of giant planets — where experts believe it gets squeezed until it becomes a liquid metal, capable of conducting electricity. Their work is published in Science. Hydrogen is the most-abundant element in the … Read more
New work from Carnegie’s Ethan Greenblatt and Allan Spradling reveals that the genetic factors underlying fragile X syndrome, and potentially other autism-related disorders, stem from defects in the cell’s ability to create unusually large protein structures. Their findings are published in Science. Their work focuses on a gene called Fmr1. Mutations in this gene create … Read more
The complete sequence of the huge wheat genome is published this week, and the enormous dataset will accelerate innovation in breeding resilient and disease resistant crops to feed a growing global population. Wheat is the most widely-cultivated crop on Earth. It provides more protein than meat in the human diet, and contributes about a fifth … Read more
Imagine the foul smell of an ash tray or burning hair. Now imagine if these kinds of smells were present in your life, but without a source. A new study finds that 1 in 15 Americans (or 6.5 percent) over the age of 40 experiences phantom odors. The study, published in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head and Neck … Read more
Methane released by thawing permafrost from some Arctic lakes could significantly accelerate climate change, according to a new University of Alaska Fairbanks-led study. The study, which was published Aug. 15 in the journal Nature Communications, focuses on the carbon released by thawing permafrost beneath thermokarst lakes. Such lakes develop when warming soil melts ground ice, … Read more
MIT scientists have uncovered a sprawling new galaxy cluster hiding in plain sight. The cluster, which sits a mere 2.4 billion light years from Earth, is made up of hundreds of individual galaxies and surrounds an extremely active supermassive black hole, or quasar. The central quasar goes by the name PKS1353-341 and is intensely bright … Read more
