University Of California - Los Angeles

The question of how quickly the universe is expanding has been bugging astronomers for almost a century. Different studies keep coming up with different answers — which has some researchers wondering if they’ve overlooked a key mechanism in the machinery that drives the cosmos. Now, by pioneering a new way to measure how quickly the…

Cancer, aging-related diseases and other illnesses are closely tied to an important enzyme called “telomerase.” UCLA researchers report in the journal Cell the deepest scientific understanding yet of this once-mysterious enzyme, whose catalytic core — where most of its activity occurs — can now be seen in near atomic resolution. “We’re now seeing not just the face of…

UCLA biochemists have achieved a first in biology: viewing at near-atomic detail the smallest protein ever seen by the technique whose development won its creators the 2017 Nobel Prize in chemistry. That technique, called cryo-electron microscopy, enables scientists to see large biomolecules, such as viruses, in extraordinary detail. Until now, this method has not worked…

Silicon — the shiny, brittle metal commonly used to make semiconductors — is an essential ingredient of modern-day electronics. But as electronic devices have become smaller and smaller, creating tiny silicon components that fit inside them has become more challenging and more expensive. Now, UCLA chemists have developed a new method to produce nanoribbons of…

Many scientists believe the Earth was dry when it first formed, and that the building blocks for life on our planet — carbon, nitrogen and water — appeared only later as a result of collisions with other objects in our solar system that had those elements. Today, a UCLA-led team of scientists reports that it…