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Alyssa Carson, otherwise known by her call sign ‘NASA Blueberry’, is not only one of the youngest faces in the space agency but also one of the leading figures when it comes to exploration of Mars — and that could lead her to be the first person to ever set foot on the planet.

She’s currently 24 years old but her dreams first began at age 3, when she saw a cartoon that sparked her brain to begin dreaming of space travel.

As revealed by ShareAmerica, Carson has undergone a number countless training sessions and preparations for becoming an astronaut, and is currently studying a PhD in astrobiology which would be invaluable during a hypothetical trip to Mars.

MXenes are a class of two-dimensional transition metal carbides noted for their high conductivity and biocompatibility. These properties make them promising candidates for biomedical applications.

In this study, the researchers focused on the electrochemical and nanozymatic properties of MXene in order to enhance cancer treatment through electrical pulse therapy.


A new study shows that MXene-based nanozymes enhance cancer treatment by combining catalytic activity with electrical pulses, increasing tumor cell death and modulating immune response pathways.

A tiny, soft, flexible robot that can crawl through earthquake rubble to find trapped victims or travel inside the human body to deliver medicine may seem like science fiction, but an international team led by researchers at Penn State are pioneering such adaptable robots by integrating flexible electronics with magnetically controlled motion.

Researchers have succeeded, for the first time, in displaying three-dimensional graphics in mid-air that can be manipulated with the hands. The team includes Doctor Elodie Bouzbib, from Public University of Navarra (UPNA), together with Iosune Sarasate, Unai Fernández, Manuel López-Amo, Iván Fernández, Iñigo Ezcurdia and Asier Marzo (the latter two, members of the Institute of Smart Cities).

“What we see in films and call holograms are typically volumetric displays,” says Bouzbib, the first author of the work. “These are graphics that appear in mid-air and can be viewed from various angles without the need for wearing virtual reality glasses. They are called true-3D graphics.

They are particularly interesting as they allow for the ‘come-and-interact’ paradigm, meaning that the users simply approach a device and start using it.

Viruses infecting bacteria (bacteriophages) represent the most abundant viral particles in the human body. They participate in the control of the human-associated bacterial communities and play an important role in the dissemination of virulence genes. Here, we present the identification of a new filamentous single-stranded DNA phage of the family Inoviridae, named Ralstonia Inoviridae Phage 1 (RIP1), in the human blood. Metagenomics and PCR analyses detected the RIP1 genome in blood serum, in the absence of concomitant bacterial infection or contamination, suggesting inovirus persistence in the human blood. Finally, we have experimentally demonstrated that the RIP1-encoded rolling circle replication initiation protein and serine integrase have functional nuclear localization signals and upon expression in eukaryotic cells both proteins were translocated into the nucleus. This observation adds to the growing body of data suggesting that phages could have an overlooked impact on the evolution of eukaryotic cells.