MAROKO133 Eksklusif ai: Samples From Distant Asteroid Contain All DNA and RNA Building Blo

📌 MAROKO133 Hot ai: Samples From Distant Asteroid Contain All DNA and RNA Building

In June 2019, a Japanese spacecraft called Hayabusa2 touched down on Ryugu, a 3,000-foot asteroid some 185 million miles from Earth.

It then proceeded to fire a metal bullet at the surface, dislodging enough material to scoop up with a special “sampling horn” to take back home to our planet.

Scientists have been poring over the extremely rare samples ever since to study the near-Earth asteroid with the hope of learning about how the building blocks of planets evolved over time — and just maybe how life on our planet first came to be.

The latest findings, published in the journal Nature Astronomy by a team of researchers in Japan, tell a fascinating story: Ryugu appears to contain all the necessary ingredients to make the DNA and RNA underpinning life on Earth.

The conclusion supports the theory that errant space rocks like Ryugu could have brought life to Earth billions of years ago.

“Their detection in Ryugu strongly supports their ubiquity in the solar system,” coauthor and Hokkaido University post-doctoral researcher Yasuhiro Oba told New Scientist.

Oba and his colleagues examined surface and subsurface samples brought back by Hayabusa2, coming across all five primary nucleobases, which are compounds that make up DNA and RNA when combined with sugars and phosphoric acid.

The news comes after NASA scientists revealed last year that dust samples from a separate asteroid, dubbed Bennu, collected by its OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft in October 2020, similarly contained the building blocks of life. The rich array of minerals and organic compounds in the spacecraft’s samples featured amino acids and the requisite nucleobases.

While the latest findings suggest Ryugu’s samples contain all nucleobases — including uracil, adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine — required to build life, this “does not mean that life existed on Ryugu,” lead author and Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology post-doctoral researcher Toshiki Koga told Agence France-Presse.

“Instead, their presence indicates that primitive asteroids could produce and preserve molecules that are important for the chemistry related to the origin of life,” he added.

While the results “do not suggest that the origin of life took place in space,” University of Alcala astrobiologist Cesar Menor Salvan, who was not involved in the study, told AFP that we now have a “very clear idea of which organic materials can form under prebiotic conditions anywhere in the universe.”

“It is very likely that more complex organic molecules like nucleic acids are formed on asteroids,” Oba told New Scientist, suggesting the role of asteroids could be even more important in our quest to understand how life began on Earth.

More on Ryugu: Scientists Find Evidence of Flowing Water on Giant Asteroid

The post Samples From Distant Asteroid Contain All DNA and RNA Building Blocks appeared first on Futurism.

🔗 Sumber: futurism.com

📌 MAROKO133 Breaking ai: New polymer design reduces fire risk in lithium batteries

Researchers have identified a key flaw in safer battery materials that limits how efficiently they move ions, and developed a way to fix it.

The work focuses on polymeric ionic liquids (PILs) which are nonflammable alternatives to conventional liquid electrolytes used in lithium-ion batteries.

Electrolytes play a central role in modern rechargeable batteries, allowing lithium ions to move between electrodes.

But many commonly used electrolytes are flammable, posing safety risks that have led to fires in devices like laptops, electric bikes, and electric vehicles.

PILs offer a safer option because they do not catch fire easily. However, materials that conduct ions well at room temperature tend to be too soft, making them difficult to use in practical devices.

To address this, researchers combined PILs with a second, more rigid polymer to form block copolymers. These materials self-assemble into nanoscale structures that can improve both strength and ion transport.

Fixing hidden ion traps

“One strategy to address this mechanical weakness is to connect the PIL to a second, rigid polymer, creating what is called a block copolymer,” said Gila Stein.

“As the distinct blocks do not like to mix, this block copolymer will spontaneously self-assemble into ordered nanostructures.”

These nanostructures are critical to how ions move through the material. But the team found that the arrangement is not perfect. Defects in the structure can act as barriers, blocking ion flow.

The researchers suspected that these defects behave like “dead ends” that trap ions, reducing overall conductivity. To test this, they designed multiple versions of the material and studied how structural changes affected performance.

Boosting conductivity through design

“Block copolymers are a fascinating blend of chemistry and self-organization,” said Samuel Adotey. “Even a small change in chemistry can significantly impact how the material organizes and behaves.”

The team focused on materials that form layered, or lamellar, structures, which provide a clearer view of how ions move. By analyzing these systems, they confirmed that the “dead ends” were responsible for lower conductivity.

“The self-assembly process has a lot of imperfections,” said Stein. “We thought it was likely that some of these defects were acting like ‘dead ends’ and blocking the movement of ions out of the material.”

Using this insight, the researchers developed design guidelines to reduce these defects. Their approach can improve ionic conductivity by up to an order of magnitude while maintaining the material’s structural stability.

“Unlike irregular or disordered domains, this system forms alternating sheets that clearly demonstrate how the ionic components influence spacing, mobility, and structural stability of the block copolymer,” Adotey explained.

“This research enhances our understanding of how to design PIL block copolymers that retain their nanoscale structure under practical conditions,” Adotey said.

With better control over structure and performance, these materials could be used in next-generation batteries and other technologies that require both safety and efficiency. The study also has implications for applications such as thin-film electronics and actuators.

The study was published in Macromolecules.

🔗 Sumber: interestingengineering.com