SURPRISE! A Viruslike Protein is Important for Cognition and Memory

Holy actual sh*t! This changes everything! A protein involved in cognition and storing long-term memories looks and acts like a protein from viruses. The protein, called Arc, has properties similar to those that viruses use for infecting host cells, and originated from a chance evolutionary event that occurred hundreds of millions of years ago. The […]

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Putting Down Roots in Space

By Michael Johnson Plants grow just about everywhere on Earth, and are able to adapt to extreme conditions ranging from drought to disease. Spaceflight, however, exposes plants to stresses not found anywhere on their home planet. Growing plants aboard the International Space Station provides a unique opportunity to study how plants adapt to microgravity, and a team […]

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Spaceships Could Use Pulsars as a GPS

Magazine issue: Vol. 193, No. 2, February 3, 2018, p. 7 OXON HILL, Md. — Future spacecraft could navigate by the light of dead stars. Using only the timing of radiation bursts from pulsating stellar corpses, an experiment on the International Space Station was able to pinpoint its location in space in a first-ever demonstration. The technique […]

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