Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have studied how polymer-coated fertilizer (PCF) applied to fields ends up on beaches and in the sea. They studied PCF deposits on beaches around Japan, finding that only 0.2% of used PCFs are washed into rivers and returned to the coastline. When there are canals connecting fields to the sea, this rises to 28%. Their findings highlight a potentially significant “sink” in the global circulation of plastics.

Every year, billions of cigarette butts are discarded worldwide, creating one of the most pervasive and persistent forms of environmental litter. Now, researchers have demonstrated that this problematic waste can be converted into advanced carbon materials capable of powering next generation energy storage devices.

An international group of researchers led by Pompeu Fabra University has discovered the nanomachine that controls constitutive exocytosis: the uninterrupted delivery of spherical molecular packages to the cell surface. This is an essential activity present in virtually all organisms to preserve cell fitness and other vital functions such as communication with the cell’s exterior, cell growth and division. According to Oriol Gallego, who has led the research, “despite being one of the largest nanomachines in the cell, its short lifespan and dynamism made it very challenging to capture”. The discovery of this flexible and transient ‘nanocourier’ has required the combined power of multiple microscopes and artificial intelligence, yielding unprecedented information of a key process that occurs billions of times per day in our bodies. Moreover, the understanding of exocytosis may have profound implications for the treatment of some infections and rare diseases.

Research about LENN -- a patent-pending, virus-mimicking platform technology that targets bladder cancer cells with mRNA therapies -- highlights compelling features of the system with respect to size, targetability, encapsulation efficiency, complex stability, gene expression, and “green” manufacturability.