Channel 42
Science is the answer to everything.

What if solar power was more practical at the personal level? In this segment, we’ll talk with an MIT chemist working on ways to improve solar energy. His lab has created a catalyst that can aid in the hydrolysis of water, …

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Scientists at the Brain Research Centre, a partnership of the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, have uncovered new information about the mechanism by which brain cells die following a stroke, as well as a possible way to mitigate that damage. The results of the study were recently published online in Nature Medicine.

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A group of researchers at the City College of New York is developing a new way to generate power for planes and automobiles based on materials known as piezoelectrics, which convert the kinetic energy of motion into electricity. They will present their concept later this month at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society’s (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics will take place from Nov. 22-24 at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

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Physician-scientists from Weill Cornell Medical College have discovered a molecular mechanism that may prove to be a powerful target for the treatment of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer that affects lymphocytes, or white blood cells. By exploiting this mechanism, researchers have been able to powerfully suppress tumor formation in lab testing and in animal models.

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Understanding mixing in the ocean is of fundamental importance to modeling climate change or predicting the effects of an El Niño on our weather. Modern ocean models primarily incorporate the effects of winds and tides. However, they do not generally take into account the mixing generated by swimming animals.

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Agios Pharmaceuticals scientists have established, for the first time, that the mutated IDH1 gene has a novel enzyme activity consistent with a cancer-causing gene, or oncogene. The mutated form of IDH1 produces a metabolite, 2-hydroxyglutarate, which may contribute to the formation and malignant progression of gliomas, the most common type of brain cancers, through altered metabolic activity. This discovery appears to reverse the previously held belief that IDH1 was non functional for cancer-causing activity.

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Scientists at the Carnegie Institution have found for the first time that high pressure can be used to make a unique hydrogen-storage material. The discovery paves the way for a new approach to the hydrogen-storage problem. The researchers found that the normally nonreactive, noble gas xenon combines with molecular hydrogen under pressure to form a previously unknown solid with unusual bonding chemistry. The discovery debuts a new family of materials, which could boost hydrogen technologies.

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A butterfly’s proboscis looks like a straw — long, slender and used for sipping — but it works more like a paper towel, according to Konstantin Kornev of Clemson University. He hopes to borrow the tricks of this piece of insect anatomy to make small probes that can sample the fluid inside of cells.

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To design a lightweight anchor that can dig itself in to hold small underwater submersibles, Anette Hosoi of MIT borrowed techniques from one of nature’s best diggers — the razor clam.

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A commonly inherited gene deletion can increase the likelihood of immune complications following bone marrow transplantation, an international team of researchers reports in the November 22 advance online issue of Nature Genetics. When the gene, called UGT2B17, is missing from the donor’s genome but present in the recipient’s, transplants have a significantly greater risk of a serious side-effect known as graft-versus-host disease, in which immune cells from the donor attack tissues in the recipient.

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