GoKawiilWhales in different areas of the Mediterranean use varying patterns of clicks and pauses. Plus, a technique to make protein samples one billion times bigger and the science of grief.
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High-resolution images can be produced by increasing the size of a nerve cell before fluorescence-microscopy imaging.Credit: Arthur Chien/SPL
Researchers have mapped the position of individual amino acids in proteins using a conventional light microscope. The team used an improved version of a technique called expansion microscopy, which enlarges biological samples by carefully pulling them in every direction. The upgrade expands protein samples up to one billion times their original size — 1,000-fold larger in each dimension. The stretch pulls protein molecules apart to a point that they can be visualized without costly and complicated techniques such as cryogenic electron microscopy. “This is the democratization of structural biology,” says neuroscientist and study co-author Silvio Rizzoli.
Nature | 6 min read
Reference: bioRxiv preprint (not peer reviewed)
Extreme heat is disrupting lives across Europe, with yesterday the hottest day ever recorded in France. “We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that heat wave events such as this have been made more likely and more severe due to climate change,” said Peter Thorne, the director of the ICARUS Climate Research Centre in Ireland. “But nevertheless many of the records being set, particularly in the UK and France, are mind-bogglingly crazy.”
There has been progress on adaptation, from cooling centres to early warning systems, some inspired by a heat wave 23 years ago that caused 70,000 deaths across the continent. But more is needed, says the World Health Organization: two weeks ago, it noted that more than 200,000 people across Europe died from heat-related causes over the past four years.
And a 1976 heat wave and drought that is burned into the national memory of the United Kingdom, because of its severity, would be even worse today because of climate change, models suggest.
Euronews | 6 min read, The New York Times | 6 min read & BBC | 7 min read
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