In 1943, Luria and Delbrück used a phage-resistance assay to establish spontaneous mutation as a driving force of microbial diversity. Mutation rates are still studied using such assays, but these can only be used to examine the small minority of mutations conferring survival in a particular condition. Newer approaches, such as long-term evolution followed by whole-genome sequencing, may be skewed by mutational ‘hot’ or...
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GeekWire Deals: This modern mobile boombox comes with Bluetooth connectivity
Your music is probably always with you in today’s streaming-focused world, but sharing that music with others can be tough. Whether it’s a party on the beach or camping with friends, you probably want something a little more powerful than your phone...
The first gravitational-wave source from the isolated evolution of two stars in the 40–100 solar mass range
The merger of two massive (about 30 solar masses) black holes has been detected in gravitational waves. This discovery validates recent predictions that massive binary black holes would constitute the first detection. Previous calculations, however, have not sampled the relevant binary-black-hole progenitors—massive, low-metallicity binary stars—with sufficient accuracy nor included sufficiently realistic physics to enable robust predictions to better than several orders of magnitude. Here...
App of the Week: Triller is an easy-to-use, instant music video maker
Triller is the app for anyone who has ever wished their life was a music video. It’s free, easy to use, a lot of fun, and perhaps more pragmatic than you might think. App developer David Leiberman even brought on award-winning music video...
Searching for the rules that govern hadron construction
Just as quantum electrodynamics describes how electrons are bound in atoms by the electromagnetic force, mediated by the exchange of photons, quantum chromodynamics (QCD) describes how quarks are bound inside hadrons by the strong force, mediated by the exchange of gluons. QCD seems to allow hadrons constructed from increasingly many quarks to exist, just as atoms with increasing numbers of electrons exist, yet such...
An Amazon shopping spree, courtesy of Apple: How the $400M e-book settlement works
Apple this week started paying out a $ 400 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit for e-book price fixing, and you might get some free stuff out of it.
Eligible customers — people who bought an e-book published by Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Simon & Schuster, Penguin Books or...
H4K20me0 marks post-replicative chromatin and recruits the TONSL–MMS22L DNA repair complex
After DNA replication, chromosomal processes including DNA repair and transcription take place in the context of sister chromatids. While cell cycle regulation can guide these processes globally, mechanisms to distinguish pre- and post-replicative states locally remain unknown. Here we reveal that new histones incorporated during DNA replication provide a signature of post-replicative chromatin, read by the human TONSL–MMS22L homologous recombination complex. We identify the TONSL...
NASA picks Firmamentum to build a 3-D printer/recycler that works in space
Firmamentum, a division of Tethers Unlimited Inc. in...
Mitochondrial unfolded protein response controls matrix pre-RNA processing and translation
The mitochondrial matrix is unique in that it must integrate the folding and assembly of proteins derived from the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes. In Caenorhabditis elegans, the mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPRmt) senses matrix protein misfolding and induces a program of nuclear gene expression, including mitochondrial chaperonins, to promote mitochondrial proteostasis. While misfolded mitochondrial-matrix-localized ornithine transcarbamylase induces chaperonin expression, our understanding of mammalian UPRmt...
Seattle’s tunnel machine Bertha reaches pit stop; workers face hyperbaric challenge 120 feet down
