A large amount of hydrogen circulates inside the Earth, which affects the long-term evolution of the planet. The majority of this hydrogen is stored in deep Earth within the crystal structures of dense minerals that are thermodynamically stable at high pressures and temperatures. To understand the reason for their stability under such extreme conditions, the chemical bonding geometry and cation exchange mechanism for including hydrogen were analyzed in a representative structure of such minerals (i.e. phase E of dense hydrous magnesium silicate) by using time-of-flight single-crystal neutron Laue diffraction. Phase E has a layered structure belonging to the space group R3m and a very large hydrogen capacity (up to 18% H2O weight fraction). It is stable at pressures of 13–18 GPa and temperatures of up to at least 1573 K. Deuterated high-quality crystals with the chemical formula Mg2.28Si1.32D2.15O6 were synthesized under the relevant high-pressure and high-temperature conditions. The nuclear density distribution obtained by neutron diffraction indicated that the O—D dipoles were directed towards neighboring O2− ions to form strong interlayer hydrogen bonds. This bonding plays a crucial role in stabilizing hydrogen within the mineral structure under such high-pressure and high-temperature conditions. It is considered that cation exchange occurs among Mg2+, D+ and Si4+ within this structure, making the hydrogen capacity flexible.

Apoptosis is a crucial process by which multicellular organisms control tissue growth, removal and inflammation. Disruption of the normal apoptotic function is often observed in cancer, where cell death is avoided by the overexpression of anti-apoptotic proteins of the Bcl-2 (B-cell lymphoma 2) family, including Mcl-1 (myeloid cell leukaemia 1). This makes Mcl-1 a potential target for drug therapy, through which normal apoptosis may be restored by inhibiting the protective function of Mcl-1. Here, the discovery and biophysical properties of an anti-Mcl-1 antibody fragment are described and the utility of both the scFv and Fab are demonstrated in generating an Mcl-1 crystal system amenable to iterative structure-guided drug design.

A sample-injection device has been developed at SPring-8 Angstrom Compact Free-Electron Laser (SACLA) for serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) at atmospheric pressure. Microcrystals embedded in a highly viscous carrier are stably delivered from a capillary nozzle with the aid of a coaxial gas flow and a suction device. The cartridge-type sample reservoir is easily replaceable and facilitates sample reloading or exchange. The reservoir is positioned in a cooling jacket with a temperature-regulated water flow, which is useful to prevent drastic changes in the sample temperature during data collection. This work demonstrates that the injector successfully worked in SFX of the human A2A adenosine receptor complexed with an antagonist, ZM241385, in lipidic cubic phase and for hen egg-white lysozyme microcrystals in a grease carrier. The injection device has also been applied to many kinds of proteins, not only for static structural analyses but also for dynamics studies using pump–probe techniques.

While studying bats recently at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, Smithsonian mammalogist Kristofer Helgen discovered a new species of flying fox bat from […]

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A Smithsonian Institution biologist, working with the Natural History Unit of the British Broadcasting Corp., has discovered a new species of giant rat on a film-making expedition to a remote rainforest in New Guinea.

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Native to Africa and Madagascar, females of the species have a body length of 1.5 inches and a leg span of 4 to 5 inches. Males are tiny in comparison.

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Recently, researchers from Boston University and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama have been taking a closer look at the vibrations that red-eyed treefrog embryos use as cues to trigger early hatching. They discovered that treefrog embryos can evaluate different features of vibrations.

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A new study published in the Feb. 2 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that forests in the Eastern United […]

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Finding this stellar relic wasn’t easy. It is 60,000 times dimmer than the faintest star visible to the unaided eye. The team also had to distinguish it from many surrounding stars that aren’t so old. Just like an archaeological dig, the hunt succeeded through a combination of patience and clever use of technology.

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About as thick as a standard dictionary, this turtle’s shell may have warded off attacks by the Titanoboa, thought to have been the world’s biggest snake, and by other, crocodile-like creatures living in its neighborhood 60 million years ago.

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“We are working as hard as we can to find and identify frogs before the disease reaches them, and to learn more about a disease that has the power to ravage an entire group of organisms,” said Roberto Ibanez, research scientist at STRI and local director of the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project.

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Smithsonian scientist Tom Watters explores the universe. His most recent discovery the moon is shrinking. Watch the video to learn more about his research.

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Darwin's bark spider cast giant webs across streams, rivers and lakes, suspending the web’s orb above water and attaching it to plants on each riverbank. Bridgelines of these water-spanning webs have been measured as long as 25 meters.

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"This galaxy cluster wins the heavyweight title. It's among the most massive clusters ever found at this distance," said Mark Brodwin, a Smithsonian astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

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New research by astrophysicist David Kipping has revealed that in some special cases, a star can be weighed directly. Such a star must have a planet orbiting it with a moon orbiting the planet.

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Today, researchers who found the first hypervelocity stars escaping the Milky Way announced that their search also turned up a dozen double-star systems. Half of those are merging and might explode as supernovae in the astronomically near future.

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The team discovered that there are about 20 times more red dwarfs in elliptical galaxies than in the Milky Way, said Charlie Conroy of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

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This 'hot Jupiter', now named Qatar-1b, adds to the growing list of alien planets orbiting distant stars, or exoplanets. Its discovery demonstrates the power of science to cross political boundaries and increase ties between nations.

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Using modern genetic analysis, combined with traditional morphology, scientists from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and the Ocean Science Foundation have discovered seven […]

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If intelligent and more advanced civilizations exist on other planets then its a good bet that some of these civilizations turned to asteroid mining long ago. If so, the hallmarks of their mining activities, such as unusual dirty halos of cast-off dust and debris around large asteroids, might be detectable from earth.

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Discovery, the longest-serving orbiter in the space shuttle fleet, will be accepted into the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum collection. The space shuttle has been the icon for American spaceflight for a generation, and Discovery has flown every type of mission during its 27-year career.

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A team of scientists led by the Smithsonian Institution has discovered a fossilized dinosaur skull and neck vertebrae that not only reveal a new species, but also an evolutionary link between two groups of dinosaurs.

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For decades, astronomers divided supernovas into two groups: one from young stars that explode and one from old stars that explode. They now have evidence for a new, third type of supernova explosion whose source is still a mystery.

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An international team of astronomers has revealed details of a “super-exotic” exoplanet that would make the planet Pandora in the movie Avatar pale in comparison.

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Smithsonian scientists have discovered hundreds of new species around the world. To mark this year’s International Day for Biological Diversity, May 22, here is a […]

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This new research, which involved both surface and aerial surveys, has revealed an enormous aggregation of whale sharks—the largest ever reported—with up to 420 individuals off the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico.

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This Jupiter-sized world reflects less than one percent of the light that falls on it, making it blacker than any planet or moon in our solar system.

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A small-eel like fish newly discovered in a cave in the Republic of Palau in the western Pacific represents an extremely primitive "living fossil."

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For the first time in decades, researchers have found a new bird species in the United States. Based on a specimen collected in 1963 on Midway Atoll, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, biologists have described a new species of seabird, Bryan’s shearwater

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Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory discovered the first pair of supermassive black holes in a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way. Approximately 160 million light years from Earth, the pair is the nearest known such phenomenon.

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University of Florida and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute scientists describe a new 20-foot extinct species of crocodile discovered in the same Colombian coal mine with Titanoboa, the world’s largest snake.

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Although cold and gaseous rather than a desert world, the newfound planet Kepler-16b is still the closest astronomers have come to discovering Luke Skywalker's home world of Tatooine.

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Our studies of the genetic relationships between these bees tells us that they originated in the Amazon about 22 million years ago and that they moved north into Central America before 3 million years ago.

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It took the revealing power of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to uncover not one, but four remarkably red galaxies.

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New research on tiny spiders has revealed that their brains are so large that they fill their body cavities and overflow into their legs, say a team of scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

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In 2011, scholars from three institutions—National Museum of American History Curators Carlene Stephens and Shari Stout, Library of Congress Digital Conversion Specialist Peter Alyea and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Scientists Carl Haber and Earl Cornell—came together in a newly designed preservation laboratory at the Library of Congress to recover sound from those recordings made more than 100 years ago.

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Astronomers using NASA's Kepler mission have detected two Earth-sized planets orbiting a distant star. This discovery marks a milestone in the hunt for alien worlds, since it brings scientists one step closer to their ultimate goal of finding a twin Earth.

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An excavation at a site in South Africa has unearthed the 190-million-year-old dinosaur nesting site of the prosauropod dinosaur Massospondylus–revealing significant clues about the evolution of complex reproductive behavior in early dinosaurs.

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The discovery of two new extinct camel species by scientists from the University of Florida and the Smithsonian is casting new light on the history of the tropics, a region containing more than half the world's biodiversity and some of its most important ecosystems.

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An international team of scientists has discovered an ‘ordinary’ black hole in the galaxy Centaurus A. This is the first time that a normal-size black hole has been detected away from the immediate vicinity of our own Galaxy.

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Biologists from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, the Papua New Guinea National Museum, and the U.S. Geological Survey have discovered a new species of gecko, adorned like a bumblebee with black-and-gold bands and rows of skin nodules that enhance its camouflage on the tropical forest floor.

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Scientists from the Smithsonian and University of British Columbia have discovered a sensory organ in the chin of rorqual whales that communicates to the brain. It orchestrates the dramatic adjustments needed in jaw position and throat-pouch expansion to make lunge feeding successful

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Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have detected X-rays emitted by the debris from the explosion of supernova 1957D.

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The discovery of the first transiting circumbinary multi-planet system: two planets orbiting around a pair of stars, is announced by astronomers.

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A new study finds that since 1985, half of Australia's Great Barrier Reef coral has died.

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The western long-beaked echidna, one of the world's five egg-laying species of mammal, became extinct in Australia thousands of years ago…or did it?

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Found in well preserved shale deposits the fossils are so detailed that scientists were able to determine they represent two previously unknown species.

The post Discovery of new prehistoric mosquitoes reveal these blood-suckers have changed little in 46 million years appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Archaeologists working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama have discovered a cluster of 12 unusual stones in the back of a small, prehistoric rock-shelter near the town of Boquete.

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Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have found that six percent of red dwarf stars have habitable, Earth-sized planets and the closest could be just 13 light-years away!

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The remora's sucker disc is "one of the most remarkable and most highly modified skeletal structures among vertebrates."

The post New study proves the remora’s sucker disc is in fact a highly modified dorsal fin / Q&A with taxonomist David Johnson appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.