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Belgie se rozhodla vybudovat první umělý energetický ostrov na světě , který bude sloužit jako důležitý krok k dosažení energetické nezávislosti. Projekt pojmenovaný Princess Elisabeth Island bude umístěný 45 kilometrů od belgického pobřeží v Severním moři a má poskytovat až 3,5 GW elektrické ...

Někdejší chvástavé řeči CEO Nvidie Jen-Hsun Huanga na adresu Sony, Microsoftu a Intelu se v dlouhodobém horizontu ukázaly nebýt jen mlácením prázdné slámy. Nvidia překonala Microsoft, ale i Apple…

Na všech herních platformách je každou chvíli nějaká slevová akce. Každý týden proto vybíráme ty nejatraktivnější, které by vám neměly uniknout. Pokud chcete získat hry zdarma nebo s výhodnou slevou, podívejte se na aktuální přehled akcí!

Jak reagovala cena bitcoinu na dubnový halving? Co ji ovlivnilo víc než půlení odměny pro těžaře a jaká zajímavá novela, která má šanci přinést osvobození od daně pro držitele bitcoinu, teď leží ve Sněmovně?

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday added a now-patched critical security flaw impacting Palo Alto Networks Expedition to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-5910 (CVSS score: 9.3), concerns a case of missing authentication in the Expedition migration tool that

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday added a now-patched critical security flaw impacting Palo Alto Networks Expedition to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-5910 (CVSS score: 9.3), concerns a case of missing authentication in the Expedition migration tool that Ravie Lakshmananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]

'Multiple' malware samples likely targeting education orgs

Criminals are using game-related applications to infect Windows systems with a malicious software framework called Winos4.0 that gives the attackers full control over compromised machines.…

Dnes v 17:00 má na YouTube online premiéru krátký film Project Gold od Blender Studia představující možnosti rozšíření Blenderu pro "malířský vzhled".

Byla vydána nová verze 8.0 (𝕏) frameworku pro vývoj webových aplikací Ruby on Rails (Wikipedie). Přehled novinek v příspěvku na blogu, v poznámkách k vydání a na GitHubu.

Jak nepřijít v Minecraftu o skiny, ve Fortnite o coiny a nakonec o vaše peníze na uložené kartě? Spořitelna zkouší oslovit hráče počítačových her přes karty, slevy a videoobsah.

V novinkách pro další verzi linuxového jádra se aktuálně činí AMD, která řeší jak efektivitu chodu Radeonů, tak vylepšení pro svá CPU z hlediska výkonu, efektivity plánování úloh i snižování dopadu oprav na Spectre.

Speciální teorie relativity přináší řadu zajímavých jevů, nad kterými zůstává rozum stát. Fyzik Alessio Zaccone nabízí relativistickou teorii viskozity a navrhuje, že ke klasické kontrakci délky a dilataci času můžeme přidat zhušťování kapalin. Má to zajímavé důsledky pro výzkum relativistického plazmatu v astrofyzice a fyzice vysokých energií.

…aneb Kdo se (nejen) schová, vyhraje

Ryzen 7 9800X3D stejně jako další procesory generace Ryzen 9000 (a mnohé předchozí) podporuje ECO Mode, tedy uživatelsky jednoduché snížení TDP. Zde konkrétně ze 120 na 65 wattů…

The first spark of cellular life on Earth likely needed gift packaging.

Let me explain. With the holidays around the corner, we’re all beginning to order presents. Each is carefully packaged inside a box or bubble-wrapped envelope and addressed for shipping. Without packaging, items would tumble together in a chaotic mess and miss their destination.

Life’s early chemicals were, in a way, like these “presents.” They floated around in a primordial soup, eventually forming the longer molecules that make up life as we know it. But without a “wrapper” encapsulating them in individual packages, different molecules bumped into each other but eventually drifted away, missing the necessary connections to spark life.

In other words, cellular “wrappers,” or cell membranes, are key to packaging the molecular machinery of life together. Made of fatty molecules, these wrappers are the foundation of our cells and the basis of multicellular life. They keep bacteria and other pathogens at bay while triggering the biological mechanisms that power normal cellular functions.

Scientists have long debated how the first cell membranes formed. Their building blocks, long-chain lipids, were hard to find on early Earth. Shorter fatty molecules, on the other hand, were abundant. Now, a new study in Nature Chemistry offers a bridge between these short fatty molecules and the first primordial cells.

Led by Neal Devaraj at the University of California, San Diego, the team coaxed short fatty molecules into bubbles that can encapsulate biological molecules. The team then added modern RNA molecules to drive chemical reactions inside the bubbles—and watched the reactions work, similar to those in a functional cell.

The engineered cell membranes also resisted high concentrations of substances abundant in early Earth puddles that could damage their integrity, shielding molecular carriers of genetic information and allowing them to work normally.

The resulting protocells are the latest to probe the origins of life. To be clear, they only mimic parts of normal living cells. They don’t have the molecular machinery to replicate, and their wrappers are rudimentary compared to ours.

But the “fascinating” result “opens up a new avenue” for understanding how the first cells appeared, Sheref Mansy at the University of Trento, who was not involved in the study, told Science.

At the Beginning

The origins of life’s molecules are highly debated. But most scientists agree that life stemmed from three main ones: DNA, RNA, and amino acids (the building blocks of proteins).

Today, in most organisms, DNA stores the genetic blueprint, and RNA carries this genetic information to the cell’s protein-making factories. But many viruses store genes only in RNA, and studies of early life suggest RNA may have been the first carrier of inheritance. RNA can also spur chemical reactions—including ones that glue amino acids into different types of proteins.

But regardless of which molecule came first, “all life on Earth requires lipid membranes,” the authors of the new paper write.

Made of a double layer of fatty molecules, the modern cell membrane is a work of art. It’s the first defense against bacterial and viral invaders. It’s also dotted with protein “tunnels” that tweak the functions of cells—for example, helping brain cells encode memories or heart cells beat in sync. These living cellular walls also act as scaffolds for biochemical reactions that often dictate the fate of cells—if they live, die, or turn into “zombie cells” that contribute to aging.

Since they’re so important for biology, scientists have long wondered how the first cell membranes came about. What made up “the very first, primordial cell membrane-like structure on Earth before the emergence of life?” asked the authors.

Our cell membranes are built on long chains of lipids, but these have complex chemical structures and require multiple steps to synthesize—likely beyond what was possible on early Earth. In contrast, the first protocell membranes were likely formed from molecules already present, including short fatty acids that self-organized.

Back to the Future

Previously, the team found an amino acid that “staples” fatty acids together. Called cysteine, the molecule was likely prevalent in our planet’s primordial soup. In a computer simulation, adding cysteine to short fatty acids caused them to form synthetic membranes.

The new study built on those results in the lab.

The team added cysteine to two types of short lipids and watched as the amino acid gathered the lipids into bubbles within 30 minutes. The lipids were similar in length to those likely present on early Earth, and the molecular concentrations also mimicked those during the period.

The team next took a closer look with an electron microscope. The generated membranes were about as thick as those in normal cells and highly stable. Finally, the team simulated a hypothetical early-Earth scenario where RNA serves as the first genetic material.

“The RNA world hypothesis is accepted as one of the most plausible scenarios of the origin of life,” wrote the authors. This is partly because RNA can also act as enzyme. These enzymes, dubbed ribozymes, can spark different chemical reactions, like, for example, those that might stitch amino acids and lipids into bubbles. However, they need a duo of minerals—calcium and magnesium—to work. While these minerals were likely highly abundant on early Earth, in some cases, they can damage artificial cell membranes.

But in several tests, the lab-grown protocells easily withstood the mineral onslaught. Meanwhile, the protocells showed they could generate chemical reactions using RNA, suggesting that short fatty molecules can build cell membranes in the primordial soup.

To Claudia Bonfio at the University of Cambridge, the study was “really, really cool and very well done.” But the mystery of life remains. Most fatty acids generated in the protocell aren’t found in modern cell membranes. A next step would be to show that the protocells can act more like normal ones—growing and dividing with a healthy metabolism.

But for now, the team is focused on deciphering the beginnings of cellular life. The work shows that reactions between simple chemicals in water can “assemble into giant” blobs, expanding the ways that protocell membranes can form, they wrote.

Image Credit: Max Kleinen on Unsplash

Curiosity gives crims access to wallets and passwords

Organizations should be on the lookout for bogus copyright infringement emails as they might be the latest ploy by cybercriminals to steal their data.…

North Korean threat actor BlueNoroff has been targeting crypto-related businesses with a new multi-stage malware for macOS systems. [...]

Today, CISA warned that attackers are exploiting a critical missing authentication vulnerability in Palo Alto Networks Expedition, a migration tool that can help convert firewall configuration from Checkpoint, Cisco, and other vendors to PAN-OS. [...]

Nokia's investigation of recent claims of a data breach found that the source code leaked on a hacker forum belongs to a third party and company and customer data has not been impacted. [...]

The European Commission has opened a formal investigation into whether US glass producer Corning, known for its Gorilla Glass, might have abused its dominant position in the market for protective glass for electronic devices. Corning’s products are used, among other things, in several of Apple’s and Samsung’s devices.

The Commission suspects the company might have entered into anticompetitive agreements with cell phone makers and glass refiners, including claims for exclusive purchases and discounts based on those pacts. Gorilla Glass has been used in mobile devices for more than a decade.

The agreements might have prevented competitors from entering the market, reducing consumer choice, raising prices and inhibiting innovation. If Corning is found guilty, the company could be fined. Before that happens, Corning will have the chance to respond to the European Commission’s objections and the investigation can be closed if the company fulfills certain commitments.