Botswana Science News API

{
    "totalArticles": 442,
    "articles": [
        {
            "id": "4c992b3f228dcd3d95df391eb9e44b58",
            "title": "Massive asteroid collisions captured in a nearby planetary system",
            "description": "Two rare cosmic collisions around the young star Fomalhaut were caught by space telescopes, offering new clues about how planets form.",
            "content": "Young star systems, like nearby Fomalhaut, are messy places. Rocks slam together and icy bodies shatter. Dust fills the space where solid objects once moved quietly along.\nThis chaos is how planets are built, but it usually plays out far from view an... [5698 chars]",
            "url": "https://www.earth.com/news/asteroid-collisions-captured-in-fomalhaut-planetary-system-for-the-first-time-ever/",
            "image": "https://cff2.earth.com/uploads/2025/12/22175132/formalhaut-system_asteroid-collision_CS1_CS2_Hubble_NASA_1m.jpg",
            "publishedAt": "2025-12-23T09:27:37Z",
            "lang": "en",
            "source": {
                "id": "fca72a05020e12df547eedb79c870663",
                "name": "Earth.com",
                "url": "https://www.earth.com"
            }
        },
        {
            "id": "bd82832ad003d78ce6a8adea6bd6e461",
            "title": "Integral Betti signatures of brain, climate and financial networks compared to hyperbolic, Euclidean and spherical models",
            "description": "This paper extends the possibility to examine the underlying curvature of data through the lens of topology by using the Betti curves, tools of Persistent Homology. We show that low-dimensional Betti curve approximations effectively distinguish not only Euclidean, but also spherical and hyperbolic geometric matrices, both from purely random matrices as well as among themselves. We proved this by analysing the behaviour of Betti curves for various geometric matrices – i.e distance matrices of points randomly distributed on manifolds given by the Euclidean space, the sphere, and the hyperbolic space. We further show that the standard approach to network construction gives rise to (spurious) spherical geometry, and document the role of sample size and dimension to assess real-world connectivity matrices. Finally, we observe that real-world datasets coming from neuroscience, finance and climate seem to exhibit a hyperbolic character. The potential confounding “hyperbologenic effect” of intrinsic low-rank modular structures is evaluated.",
            "content": "Fefferman, C., Mitter, S. & Narayanan, H. Testing the manifold hypothesis. J. Amer. Math. Soc. 29(4), 983–1049 (2016).\nCarlsson, G., Ishkhanov, T., de Silva, V. & Zomorodian, A. On the local behavior of spaces of natural images. Int. J. Comput. Vis. ... [6746 chars]",
            "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-31700-z?error=cookies_not_supported&code=7f27026d-dc80-488b-b804-c5ede9ff87e7",
            "image": "https://www.nature.com/static/images/favicons/nature/favicon-48x48-b52890008c.png",
            "publishedAt": "2025-12-23T05:33:15Z",
            "lang": "en",
            "source": {
                "id": "7abf0df285fbe93cdccffcc7c4088737",
                "name": "Nature",
                "url": "https://www.nature.com"
            }
        },
        {
            "id": "18122f27c428ac0fec42c635335af9d0",
            "title": "Non-equilibrium snapshots of ligand efficacy at the μ-opioid receptor",
            "description": "Distinct ligands for the same G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) activate intracellular signaling partners to varying extents, but the molecular mechanisms driving these differences remain elusive. Hypothesizing that such differences in signaling efficacy may be captured structurally in intermediate states under non-equilibrium conditions, we implemented a time-resolved (TR) cryo-EM approach to visualize the GTP-induced activation of the Gαiβγ heterotrimer by the μ-opioid receptor (MOR) bound to three ligands displaying partial, full, or super-agonism on the receptor1. We resolved ensembles of conformational states along the G-protein activation pathway, including a previously unobserved intermediate state that enabled us to visualize receptor dynamics as a function of bound ligand. The results demonstrate ligand-dependent differences in state occupancy and conformational stability, with higher ligand efficacy correlating with increased dynamics of the receptor’s transmembrane (TM) helices 5 and 6. Furthermore, we identify key mechanistic differences in the GTP-induced activation of Gi compared to Gs that likely underlie their distinct activation kinetics. Corroborated by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and single-molecule fluorescence assays, these findings provide a dynamic structural landscape of GPCR-G-protein interactions for ligands of different efficacy and suggest partial agonists may produce a ‘kinetic trap’ during G-protein activation.",
            "content": "Distinct ligands for the same G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) activate intracellular signaling partners to varying extents, but the molecular mechanisms driving these differences remain elusive. Hypothesizing that such differences in signaling effi... [1222 chars]",
            "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-10056-4?error=cookies_not_supported&code=533a011c-1596-4467-bba7-65660431a8ba",
            "image": "https://www.nature.com/static/images/favicons/nature/favicon-48x48-b52890008c.png",
            "publishedAt": "2025-12-22T16:14:50Z",
            "lang": "en",
            "source": {
                "id": "7abf0df285fbe93cdccffcc7c4088737",
                "name": "Nature",
                "url": "https://www.nature.com"
            }
        }
    ]
}