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Juno spacecraft reveals thickness of Europa’s ice shell

“The 18-mile estimate relates to the cold, rigid, conductive outer layer of a pure water ice shell,” said Dr. Steve Levin. [ https://www.labroots.com/trending/space/30133/juno-spacecraf…ce-shell-2](https://www.labroots.com/trending/space/30133/juno-spacecraf…ce-shell-2)

How thick is the ice shell on Jupiter’s moon, Europa? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address as a team of scientists revealed groundbreaking insights into Europa’s ice shell thickness and subsurface structure. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the interior composition of Europa and whether it could support life as we know it.

For the study, the researchers analyzed data obtained by NASA’s Juno spacecraft in 2022 when the spacecraft came within 220 miles (360 kilometers) of Europa’s surface. The goal of the study was to put constraints on the thickness of Europa’s ice shell, with the researchers noting current estimates range from 1.86 miles (3 kilometers) to more than 18.6 miles (30 kilometers). Since Europa is a prime target for the search for life beyond Earth, scientists hypothesize that cracks exist within the ice shell, enabling the delivery of nutrients from the surface to the subsurface liquid water ocean. In the end, the researchers estimated the average thickness of Europa’s ice shell is approximately 18 miles (29 kilometers).

Researchers Show AI Robots Vulnerable to Text Attacks

“I expect vision-language models to play a major role in future embodied AI systems,” said Dr. Alvaro Cardenas.

How can misleading texts negatively affect AI behavior? This is what a recently submitted study hopes to address as a team of researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz and Johns Hopkins University investigated the potential security risks of embodied AI, which is AI fixed in a physical body that uses observations to adapt to its environment, as opposed to using text and data, and include cars and robots. This study has the potential to help scientists, engineers, and the public better understand the risks for AI and the steps to take to mitigate them.

For the study, the researchers introduced CHAI (Command Hijacking against embodied AI), which is designed to combat outside threats to embodied AI systems, including misleading text and imagery. Instead, CHAI employs counterattacks that embodied Ais can use to disseminate right from wrong regarding text and images. The researchers tested CHAI on a variety of AI-based systems, including drone emergency landing, autonomous driving, aerial object tracking, and robotic vehicles. In the end, the researchers discovered that CHAI successfully identified incoming attacks while emphasizing the need for enhancing security measures for embodied AI.

Cell Signaling and Communication between Cells

Cell signaling is how cells communicate through reception, transduction, and response, using chemical ligands that bind to specific receptors to transmit messages.

Communication can happen through direct contact (like gap junctions), paracrine signaling (short distances), endocrine signaling (long distances via the bloodstream), or autocrine signaling (the cell signals itself).

This process is crucial for coordinating cell functions and maintaining homeostasis in multicellular organisms.

A ribosome-bound pseudoknot in the HCV coding region stimulates viral growth by tuning viral translation

Given that pk1 is located within the HCV coding region, we next investigated a potential role in translation elongation. We inserted pk1 into the ORF of Gaussia luciferase and used the HCV IRES to initiate translation (Figure 3 B, left). To ensure that the highly structured HCV IRES did not affect pk1 folding, we included a 99-nt linker sequence with low structural propensity between the HCV IRES and pk1. As controls, we used the pk1-unzip mutant and a randomized pk1, where the pk1 sequence was shuffled by three nucleotides, thereby maintaining the same amino acid composition as the WT pk1.

The RNA constructs described above were transfected into cells, and luciferase activity was measured at various time points to assess translation activity (Figure 3B, right). We observed that pk1 significantly inhibited translation elongation at all time points tested compared to the pk1-unzip and random controls. Notably, at 4 h post-transfection, there was nearly a 4-fold difference between the activity of pk1 and the pk1-unzip mutant, indicating that the pseudoknot structure itself, rather than just its constituent stems, is crucial for the observed translation inhibition (Figure 3B). To further examine the structural basis of this effect, we introduced a pk1-compensatory mutant that restores the disrupted base pairing in the pk1-unzip mutant using synonymous G-U wobble and A-U base pairs (sequence shown in Figure 3A).

Meteorin-like is associated with poor outcome in invasive candidiasis in mouse models and in humans

Studying mice and two clinical cohorts, researchers in Science TranslationalMedicine show that the protein meteorin-like worsens outcomes during invasive candidiasis by suppressing antifungal macrophages, suggesting the protein could offer a marker and potential target.

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METRNL is elevated in candidemia in mice and humans and provides a potential therapeutic target for life-threatening candidemia.

Molecular mechanism underlying peripartum cardiomyopathy

Scientists have identified a previously unknown molecular safeguard that protects the heart during pregnancy, shedding new light on the causes of peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM), a rare and life-threatening form of pregnancy-related heart failure.

In a study published in Nature Communications, the team reveal that the gene the peptidyl-tRNA hydrolase 2 (PTRH2) plays a critical role in helping the maternal heart adapt to pregnancy-induced stress.

In wild-type female mice hearts, Ptrh2 protein levels significantly increase during pregnancy and decrease postpartum, demonstrating a protective role in response to pregnancy-initiated cardiac stresses.

Using advanced mouse models, the researchers showed that loss of PTRH2 leads to severe postpartum heart failure. “During pregnancy, the heart increases in size to account for increased blood flow—but without PTRH2, the heart doesn’t return to normal,” explained a co-first author. “That kind of enlargement can be extremely dangerous and, in many cases, fatal.”

The authors also demonstrate that infusion of a caspase 3-specific inhibitor attenuated the PPCM phenotype. Thus, Ptrh2 act as a negative regulator of pregnancy-induced cardiac stresses by activating pro-survival signals and blocking apoptotic signals.

The findings point to new therapeutic possibilities and underscore the urgent need for better treatments. ScienceMission sciencenewshighlights.

Why Do Galactic Empires Collapse? | Explaining The Fall of Space Empires

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When AI Builds AI

Leading artificial intelligence companies have started to use their own systems to accelerate research and development, with each generation of AI systems contributing to building the next generation. This report distills points of consensus and disagreement from our July 2025 expert workshop on how far the automation of AI R&D could go, laying bare crucial underlying assumptions and identifying what new evidence could shed light on the trajectory going forward.

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