Carrying And Releasing Nanoscale Cargo With ‘nanowrappers’

Studying DNA Breaks to Protect Future Space Travelers

Genes in Space logo. May 9, 2019 Earth’s atmosphere shields life on the ground from cosmic radiation that can damage DNA.  Astronauts in space have no such protection, and that puts them at risk. An investigation on the International Space Station examines DNA damage and repair in space in order to help protect the long-term health of space travelers. An organism carries all of its genetic information in its deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA. This blueprint for life takes the form of specific sequences of nitrogen bases: adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine, represented by the letters A, C, G and T.

Image above: The miniPCR device, used to make multiple copies of a particular strand of DNA in space. Image Credit: NASA. One type of DNA damage is double strand breaks, essentially a cut across both strands of DNA. Cells repair these breaks almost immediately, but can make errors, inserting or deleting DNA bases and creating mutations. These mutations may result in diseases such as cancer. Genes in Space-6 looks at the specific mechanism cells use to repair double strand breaks in space. The investigation takes cells of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to the space station, where astronauts cause a specific type of damage to its DNA using a genome editing tool known as CRISPR-Cas9. The astronauts allow the cells to repair this damage, then make many copies of the repaired section using a process called polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with an onboard device, the miniPCR. Another device, MinION, is then used to sequence the repaired section of DNA in those copies. Sequencing shows the exact order of the bases, revealing whether the repair restored the DNA to its original order or made errors. The investigation represents a number of firsts, including the first use of CRISPR-Cas9 genetic editing on the space station and the first time scientists evaluate the entire damage and repair process in space.

Image above: The student team that developed the Genes in Space 6 experiment. From left to right: David Li, Aarthi Vijayakumar, Michelle Sung, and Rebecca Li. Image Credit: Boeing. “The damage actually happens on the space station and the analysis also happens in space,” said one of the investigators from miniPCR Bio, Emily Gleason. “We want to understand if DNA repair methods are different in space than on Earth.” This investigation is part of the Genes in Space program. Founded by miniPCR and Boeing, the program challenges students to come up with DNA experiments in space that involve using the PCR technique and the miniPCR device on the station. Students submit ideas online, and the program chooses five finalists. These finalists are paired with a mentor scientist who helps them turn their idea into a presentation for the ISS Research and Development Conference. A panel of judges selects one proposed experiment to fly to the space station. “We want to inspire students to think like scientists and give them the opportunity for an authentic science experience that doesn’t cost them anything,” says Gleason. More than 550 student teams submitted ideas last year. The Genes in Space-6 investigation student team includes Michelle Sung, Rebecca Li, and Aarthi Vijayakumar at Mounds View High School in Arden Hills, Minnesota, and David Li, now a freshman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Their mentor is Kutay Deniz Atabay at MIT.

Image above: The Genes in Space 6 student team. Image Credit: GENES IN SPACE. Other investigators include Sarah E. Stahl and Sarah Wallace with NASA’s Johnson Space Center Microbiology group in Houston; G. Guy Bushkin, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge; Melissa L. Boyer, Teresa K. Tan, Kevin D. Foley, and D. Scott Copeland at Boeing; and Ezequiel Alvarez Saavedra, Gleason, and Sebastian Kraves at Amplyus LLC, in Cambridge. Amplyus is the parent company of miniPCR Bio. “One thing the investigation will tell us is yes, we can do these things in space,” said Gleason. “We expect to see the yeast use the error-free method of repair more frequently, which is what we see on Earth; but we don’t know for sure whether it will be the same or not. Ultimately, we can use this knowledge to help protect astronauts from DNA damage caused by cosmic radiation on long voyages and to enable genome editing in space.” The procedures used in this investigation may have applications for protecting people from radiation and other hazards in remote and harsh locations on Earth as well. Related links: Genes in Space-6: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7893 miniPCR: https://www.minipcr.com/ MinION: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/biomolecule_sequencer Genes in Space program: https://www.genesinspace.org/ Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Michael Johnson/JSC/International Space Station Program Science Office/Melissa Gaskill. Greetings, Orbiter.ch Full article

NASA blasts off Mars lander, InSight

Vandenberg AFB CA (AFP) May 05, 2018 NASA on Saturday blasted off its latest Mars lander, InSight, designed to perch on the surface and listen for “Marsquakes” ahead of eventual human missions to explore the Red Planet. “Three, two, one, liftoff!” said a NASA commentator as the spacecraft launched on a dark, foggy morning atop an Atlas V rocket at 4:05 am Pacific time (1105 GMT) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, m Full article

Polymer researchers discover path to sustainable and biodegradable polyesters

There’s a good chance you’ve touched something made out of the polyolefin polymer today. It’s often used in polyethylene products like plastic bags or polypropylene products like diapers.

As useful as polyolefins are in society, they continue to multiply as trash in the environment. Scientists estimate plastic bags, for example, will take centuries to degrade.

But now, researchers at Virginia Tech have synthesized a biodegradable alternative to polyolefins using a new catalyst and the polyester polymer, and this breakthrough could eventually have a profound impact on sustainability efforts.

Rong Tong, assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and affiliated faculty member of Macromolecules Innovation Institute (MII), led the team of researchers, whose findings were recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

One of the largest challenges in polymer chemistry is controlling the tacticity or the stereochemistry of the polymer. When multiplying monomer subunits into the macromolecular chain, it’s difficult for scientists to replicate a consistent arrangement of side-chain functional groups stemming off the main polymer chain. These side-chain functional groups greatly affect a polymer’s physical and chemical properties, such as melting temperature or glass-transition temperature, and regular stereochemistry leads to better properties.

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Biomimicry

Brittle starfish shows how to make tough ceramics

Nature inspires innovation. An international team lead by researchers at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, together with ESRF -the European Synchrotron, Grenoble, France- scientists, have discovered how a brittle star can create material like tempered glass underwater. The findings are published in Science and may open new bio-inspired routes for toughening brittle ceramics in various applications that span from optical lenses to automotive turbochargers and even biomaterial implants.

A beautiful, brainless brittle star that lives in coral reefs has the clue to super tough glass. Hundreds of focal lenses are located on the arms of this creature, which is an echinoderm called Ophiocoma wendtii. These lenses, made of chalk, are powerful and accurate, and the deciphering of their crystalline and nanoscale structure has occupied Boaz Pokroy and his team, from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, for the past three years. Thanks to research done on three ESRF beamlines, ID22, ID13 and ID16B, among other laboratories, they have figured out the unique protective mechanism of highly resistant lenses.

As an example, take tempered glass. It is produced by exerting compressive pressure on the glass which compresses it and leaves it more compact than in its natural state. Glass tempering is performed by rapidly heating and then rapidly cooling the material. In this process, the outside of the material cools more quickly than the inside and thereby compresses the inside. Ophiocoma wendtiilenses are created in the open sea, at room temperature, unlike tempered glass. “We have discovered a strategy for making brittle material much more durable under natural conditions. It is ‘crystal engineering’ and tempering without heating and quenching – a process that could be very useful in materials engineering,” explains Pokroy.

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‘Junk’ DNA Plays Crucial Role in Holding Genome Together: Study

Jagannathan et al propose that chromocenter and satellite DNA serves a fundamental role in encapsulating the full complement…more Image credit: Lisichik.

Bio-Inspired Material Interacts with Surrounding Tissue to Promote Healing.

A research team from Imperial College London, led by Dr Ben Almquist, has developed a new molecule based on so-called traction force-activated payloads (TrAPs) which allow materials to talk to the body‘s natural repair systems and thereby activate healing processes. “Creatures from sea sponges to…

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It seems nuCLEARer now

The Sun’s Energy Doesn’t Come From Fusing Hydrogen Into Helium (Mostly)

“It might surprise you to learn that hydrogen-fusing-into-helium makes up less than half of all nuclear reactions in our Sun, and that it’s also responsible for less than half of the energy that the Sun eventually outputs. There are strange, unearthly phenomena along the way: the diproton that usually just decays back to the original protons that made it, positrons spontaneously emitted from unstable nuclei, and in a small (but important) percentage of these reactions, a rare mass-8 nucleus, something you’ll never find naturally occurring here on Earth. But that’s the nuclear physics of where the Sun gets its energy from, and it’s so much richer than the simple fusion of hydrogen into helium!”

Ask anyone where the Sun (or any star) gets its energy from, and most people will correctly answer “nuclear fusion.” But if you ask what’s getting fused, most people – including most scientists – will tell you that the Sun fuses hydrogen into helium, and that’s what powers it. It’s true that the Sun uses hydrogen as its initial fuel, and that helium-4 is indeed the end product, but the individual reactions that take place to turn hydrogen into helium are surprisingly diverse and intricate. There are actually four major reactions that take place in the sun: fusing two protons into deuterium, fusing deuterium and a proton into helium-3, fusing two helium-3 nuclei into helium-4, and fusing helium-3 and helium-4 in a chain reaction to produce two helium-4 nuclei. Note that only one of those reactions actually turns hydrogen into helium, and that’s not what makes up either the majority of reactions or the majority of the Sun’s energy!

The Sun fuses hydrogen into helium, but that’s not the only thing that powers it. Come find out how the Sun really works today!

Solar System 10 Things to Know: Planetary Atmospheres

Every time you take a breath of fresh air, it’s easy to forget you can safely do so because of Earth’s atmosphere. Life on Earth could not exist without that protective cover that keeps us warm, allows us to breathe and protects us from harmful radiation—among other things.

What makes Earth’s atmosphere special, and how do other planets’ atmospheres compare? Here are 10 tidbits:

1. On Earth, we live in the troposphere, the closest atmospheric layer to Earth’s surface. “Tropos” means “change,” and the name reflects our constantly changing weather and mixture of gases. 

It’s 5 to 9 miles (8 to 14 kilometers) thick, depending on where you are on Earth, and it’s the densest layer of atmosphere. When we breathe, we’re taking in an air mixture of about 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen and 1 percent argon, water vapor and carbon dioxide. More on Earth’s atmosphere›

2. Mars has a very thin atmosphere, nearly all carbon dioxide. Because of the Red Planet’s low atmospheric pressure, and with little methane or water vapor to reinforce the weak greenhouse effect (warming that results when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from the planet toward space), Mars’ surface remains quite cold, the average surface temperature being about -82 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 63 degrees Celsius). More on the greenhouse effect›

3. Venus’ atmosphere, like Mars’, is nearly all carbon dioxide. However, Venus has about 154,000 times more carbon dioxide in its atmosphere than Earth (and about 19,000 times more than Mars does), producing a runaway greenhouse effect and a surface temperature hot enough to melt lead. A runaway greenhouse effect is when a planet’s atmosphere and surface temperature keep increasing until the surface gets so hot that its oceans boil away. More on the greenhouse effect›

4. Jupiter likely has three distinct cloud layers (composed of ammonia, ammonium hydrosulfide and water) in its “skies” that, taken together, span an altitude range of about 44 miles (71 kilometers). The planet’s fast rotation—spinning once every 10 hours—creates strong jet streams, separating its clouds into dark belts and bright zones wrapping around the circumference of the planet. More on Jupiter›

5. Saturn’s atmosphere—where our Cassini spacecraft ended its 13 extraordinary years of exploration of the planet—has a few unusual features. Its winds are among the fastest in the solar system, reaching speeds of 1,118 miles (1,800 kilometers) per hour. Saturn may be the only planet in our solar system with a warm polar vortex (a mass of swirling atmospheric gas around the pole) at both the North and South poles. Also, the vortices have “eye-wall clouds,” making them hurricane-like systems like those on Earth.

Another uniquely striking feature is a hexagon-shaped jet streamencircling the North Pole. In addition, about every 20 to 30 Earth years, Saturn hosts a megastorm (a great storm that can last many months). More on Saturn›

6. Uranus gets its signature blue-green color from the cold methane gas in its atmosphere and a lack of high clouds. The planet’s minimum troposphere temperature is 49 Kelvin (minus 224.2 degrees Celsius), making it even colder than Neptune in some places. Its winds move backward at the equator, blowing against the planet’s rotation. Closer to the poles, winds shift forward and flow with the planet’s rotation. More on Uranus›

7. Neptune is the windiest planet in our solar system. Despite its great distance and low energy input from the Sun, wind speeds at Neptune surpass 1,200 miles per hour (2,000 kilometers per hour), making them three times stronger than Jupiter’s and nine times stronger than Earth’s. Even Earth’s most powerful winds hit only about 250 miles per hour (400 kilometers per hour). Also, Neptune’s atmosphere is blue for the very same reasons as Uranus’ atmosphere. More on Neptune›

8. WASP-39b, a hot, bloated, Saturn-like exoplanet (planet outside of our solar system) some 700 light-years away, apparently has a lot of water in its atmosphere. In fact, scientists estimate that it has about three times as much water as Saturn does. More on this exoplanet›

9. A weather forecast on “hot Jupiters”—blistering, Jupiter-like exoplanets that orbit very close to their stars—might mention cloudy nights and sunny days, with highs of 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1,300 degrees Celsius, or 1,600 Kelvin). Their cloud composition depends on their temperature, and studies suggest that the clouds are unevenly distributed. More on these exoplanets›

10. 55 Cancri e, a “super Earth” exoplanet (a planet outside of our solar system with a diameter between Earth’s and Neptune’s) that may be covered in lava, likely has an atmosphere containing nitrogen, water and even oxygen–molecules found in our atmosphere–but with much higher temperatures throughout. Orbiting so close to its host star, the planet could not maintain liquid water and likely would not be able to support life. More on this exoplanet›

Read the full version of this week’s Solar System 10 Things to Know HERE.

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Eric Magnus Lensherr-sphere

Magnetospheres: How Do They Work?

The sun, Earth, and many other planets are surrounded by giant magnetic bubbles.

Space may seem empty, but it’s actually a dynamic place, dominated by invisible forces, including those created by magnetic fields.  Magnetospheres – the areas around planets and stars dominated by their magnetic fields – are found throughout our solar system. They deflect high-energy, charged particles called cosmic rays that are mostly spewed out by the sun, but can also come from interstellar space. Along with atmospheres, they help protect the planets’ surfaces from this harmful radiation.

It’s possible that Earth’s protective magnetosphere was essential for the development of conditions friendly to life, so finding magnetospheres around other planets is a big step toward determining if they could support life.

But not all magnetospheres are created equal – even in our own backyard, not all planets in our solar system have a magnetic field, and the ones we have observed are all surprisingly different.

Earth’s magnetosphere is created by the constantly moving molten metal inside Earth. This invisible “force field” around our planet has an ice cream cone-like shape, with a rounded front and a long, trailing tail that faces away from the sun. The magnetosphere is shaped that way because of the constant pressure from the solar wind and magnetic fields on the sun-facing side.

Earth’s magnetosphere deflects most charged particles away from our planet – but some do become trapped in the magnetic field and create auroras when they rain down into the atmosphere.

We have several missions that study Earth’s magnetosphere – including the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, Van Allen Probes, and Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (also known as THEMIS) – along with a host of other satellites that study other aspects of the sun-Earth connection.

Mercury, with a substantial iron-rich core, has a magnetic field that is only about 1% as strong as Earth’s. It is thought that the planet’s magnetosphere is stifled by the intense solar wind, limiting its strength, although even without this effect, it still would not be as strong as Earth’s. The MESSENGER satellite orbited Mercury from 2011 to 2015, helping us understand our tiny terrestrial neighbor.

After the sun, Jupiter has by far the biggest magnetosphere in our solar system – it stretches about 12 million miles from east to west, almost 15 times the width of the sun. (Earth’s, on the other hand, could easily fit inside the sun.) Jupiter does not have a molten metal core like Earth; instead, its magnetic field is created by a core of compressed liquid metallic hydrogen.

One of Jupiter’s moons, Io, has intense volcanic activity that spews particles into Jupiter’s magnetosphere. These particles create intense radiation belts and the large auroras around Jupiter’s poles.

Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon, also has its own magnetic field and magnetosphere – making it the only moon with one. Its weak field, nestled in Jupiter’s enormous shell, scarcely ruffles the planet’s magnetic field.

Our Juno mission orbits inside the Jovian magnetosphere sending back observations so we can better understand this region. Previous observations have been received from Pioneers 10 and 11, Voyagers 1 and 2, Ulysses, Galileo and Cassini in their flybys and orbits around Jupiter.

Saturn’s moon Enceladus transforms the shape of its magnetosphere. Active geysers on the moon’s south pole eject oxygen and water molecules into the space around the planet. These particles, much like Io’s volcanic emissions at Jupiter, generate the auroras around the planet’s poles. Our Cassini mission studies Saturn’s magnetic field and auroras, as well as its moon Enceladus.

Uranus’ magnetosphere wasn’t discovered until 1986 when data from Voyager 2’s flyby revealed weak, variable radio emissions. Uranus’ magnetic field and rotation axis are out of alignment by 59 degrees, unlike Earth’s, whose magnetic field and rotation axis differ by only 11 degrees. On top of that, the magnetic field axis does not go through the center of the planet, so the strength of the magnetic field varies dramatically across the surface. This misalignment also means that Uranus’ magnetotail – the part of the magnetosphere that trails away from the sun – is twisted into a long corkscrew.

Neptune’s magnetosphere is also tilted from its rotation axis, but only by 47. Just like on Uranus, Neptune’s magnetic field strength varies across the planet. This also means that auroras can be seen away from the planet’s poles – not just at high latitudes, like on Earth, Jupiter and Saturn.

Does Every Planet Have a Magnetosphere?

Neither Venus nor Mars have global magnetic fields, although the interaction of the solar wind with their atmospheres does produce what scientists call an “induced magnetosphere.” Around these planets, the atmosphere deflects the solar wind particles, causing the solar wind’s magnetic field to wrap around the planet in a shape similar to Earth’s magnetosphere.

What About Beyond Our Solar System?

Outside of our solar system, auroras, which indicate the presence of a magnetosphere, have been spotted on brown dwarfs – objects that are bigger than planets but smaller than stars.

There’s also evidence to suggest that some giant exoplanets have magnetospheres. As scientists now believe that Earth’s protective magnetosphere was essential for the development of conditions friendly to life, finding magnetospheres around exoplanets is a big step in finding habitable worlds.  

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