In this episode:
00:49 What caused the Universe to become fully transparent?Around 13 billion years ago, the Universe was filled with a dense ‘fog’ of neutral hydrogen that blocked certain wavelengths of light. This fog was lifted when the hydrogen was hit by radiation in a process known as reionisation, but the source of this radiation has been debated. Now, researchers have used the JWST to peer deep into the Universe’s past and found that charged particles pouring out from dwarf galaxies appear to be the the main driver for reionization. This finding could help researchers understand how some of the structures we now see in the Universe were formed.
Research article: Atek et al.
Ancient inscriptions could be the earliest example of the language that became Basque, and how researchers etched a groove… onto soap film.
Research Highlight: Ancient bronze hand’s inscription points to origins of Basque language
Research Highlight: Laser pulses engrave an unlikely surface: soap films
To combat high cholesterol, many people take statins, but because these drugs have to be taken every day researchers have been searching for alternatives. Controlling cholesterol by editing the epigenome has shown promise in lab-grown cells, but its efficacy in animals was unclear. Now, researchers have shown the approach can work in mice, and have used it to silence a gene linked to high cholesterol for a year. The mice show markedly lowered cholesterol, a result the team hope could pave the way for epigenetic therapeutics for humans.
Research Article: Cappelluti et al.
Why don’t humans and other apes have a tail? It was assumed that a change must have happened in our genomes around 25 million years ago that resulted in the loss of this flexible appendage. Now researchers believe they have pinned down a good candidate for what caused this: an insertion into a particular gene known as TBXT. The team showed the key role this gene plays by engineering mice genomes to contain a similar change, leading to animals that were tail-less. This finding could help paint a picture of the important genetic mutations that led to the evolution of humans and other apes.
Nature News: How humans lost their tails — and why the discovery took 2.5 years to publish
Research Article: Xia et al.
News and Views: A mobile DNA sequence could explain tail loss in humans and apes
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Coronapod: Will COVID become a disease of the young?
Food shocks and how to avoid them
Coronapod: the biomarker that could change COVID vaccines
The scientist whose hybrid rice helped feed billions
Audio long-read: How COVID exposed flaws in evidence-based medicine
Coronapod: should you have a COVID vaccine when breastfeeding?
Quantum compass might help birds 'see' magnetic fields
CureVac disappoints in COVID vaccine trial
Communities, COVID and credit: the state of science collaborations
Coronapod: Counting the cost of long COVID
Google AI beats humans at designing computer chips
Coronapod: Uncertainty and the COVID 'lab-leak' theory
On the origin of numbers
New hope for vaccine against a devastating livestock disease
Audio long-read: How harmful are microplastics?
The 'zombie' fires that keep burning under snow-covered forests
Coronapod: The variant blamed for India's catastrophic second wave
The brain implant that turns thoughts into text
Coronapod: Waiving vaccine patents and coronavirus genome data disputes
Oldest African burial site uncovers Stone Age relationship with death
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