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Two research teams based in Germany and Spain have discovered that ASC specks—protein aggregations that drive inflammation—are released from dying immune cells. The protein aggregations are a component of inflammasomes, which sense pathogens and cell damage and set off innate immune inflammation. Read on to know more. 

In the 1980s, researchers weren’t successful in manipulating micron-sized objects with focused laser beams through “optical tweezers” due to the law of diffraction. The physicists at the Institute of Photonic Sciences, however, were able to focus light to manipulate particles as small as small as 50 nanometers. Read on to know more. 

Two international teams, one headed by Akhilesh Pandey and the other by Bernhard Küster, have independently analyzed human tissue samples using mass spectrometry and produced the first drafts of the human proteome. They discovered new complexities of the human genome and identified new proteins from regions of the genome previously thought to be non-coding. Read on for more details. 

It is believed that bees, like birds and butterflies, use the sun as a compass for navigation, unlike mammals who use a mental map. However, Randolf Menzel, a neurobiologist at the Free University of Berlin, and his team suggest that bees do not rely only upon on the sun. Read on to find out more. 

John Kovac and his team created a sensation when they announced finding the evidence of primordial gravitational waves in March 2014, thus confirming the theory of inflation. However, this study has become embroiled in controversy ever since. Read on to find out more. 

Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, California observed that some microbes do not follow the DNA coding, which is considered to consist of a universal set of rules. These microbes interpret the genetic code differently and recode themselves. Read on to find out more.

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, found that placenta, which was thought to be sterile, harbors bacteria. They found that the placental microbiome was most similar to that present in the mouth of non-pregnant women. Read on to know more. 

The exact cause of the enigmatic and potentially lethal Kawasaki disease, which predominantly affects the children in Japan, Hawaii, and Southern California, was unknown to researchers for decades. It was assumed by many scientists that it could be a viral disease. However, new findings indicate otherwise. Read on for more details. 

Oliver Pike, a plasma physicist at Imperial College London, and his peers have devised a plan for a device that would use a key piece of fusion equipment to convert light, a form of energy, into particles with mass. Read on for more details. 

Neuroscientist Alipasha Vaziri of the University of Vienna and his colleagues have for the first time imaged all of the neurons firing in a living organism, the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans. Read on for more details.