Pharmaceutical drugs often rely on chemical compounds found in the body. Take phosphate, a common compound cells use as a chemical switch. In a process called phosphorylation, cells can add a phosphate to a molecule and turn its function on. When the function is no longer needed, cells can remove the phosphate through dephosphorylation, turning the molecule back off.
Italian authorities raised the drought alert level to "high" Thursday in the Po Valley, home to the country's longest river, because of worsening conditions and unfavorable weather forecasts.
Researchers have developed and tested an infrared spectroscopy system that can rapidly detect chemical aerosols from a distance by using light reflected from common surfaces such as traffic signs, tree trunks or painted surfaces. The new method could make it possible to detect hazards without complicated instruments, helping improve safety and ease operations at industrial sites, public venues and other high-risk locations.
University of Maryland researchers discovered a new approach to treating venomous snakebites—using the same toxin-blocking proteins that snakes evolved to protect themselves. The team found that specific combinations of blood proteins from western diamondback rattlesnakes provided unprecedented neutralizing power against the venom of multiple dangerous snake species.
Greece on Thursday battled to contain a spate of wildfires, including one on the tourist island of Crete that forced thousands of residents and holidaymakers to evacuate and left three firefighters dead.
Large-scale quantum communication networks require both reliable quantum memories and coherent single-photon sources that can exchange quantum information efficiently. A coherent source of single photons with narrow linewidth, high brightness, spectral uniformity and compatibility with quantum memories is necessary. While a variety of single-photon sources, such as quantum dots (QDs) and atoms in warm vapor cells, have been developed in recent years, each has inherent limitations, making a scalable and functional quantum network challenging to achieve.
France and Spain on Thursday glimpsed a reprieve from some of the worst wildfires in living memory, which have sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing—among them Hollywood star George Clooney and his wife, Amal.
Sinking water levels in the Danube River have unveiled mammoth bones in Bulgaria and could lead to further discoveries, a local museum director told AFP on Thursday.
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have demonstrated a new way of switching a material between two fundamentally different magnetic states using an electric current. The discovery could pave the way for compact, energy-efficient electronic devices that store information, perform logic operations and even interface with future quantum computers.
Ancient plant seeds provide important archaeological evidence for studying the evolution of human civilization. Lingnan University and Shandong University have jointly developed the world's first artificial intelligence (AI) archaeological system dedicated to identifying ancient Chinese plant seeds. The system emulates the identification process of archaeobotanical experts and achieves a classification accuracy of more than 90%.
