SPACE/COSMOS

Jumping workouts could help astronauts on the moon and Mars, study in mice suggests

HOW ABOUT HOPPING?!

First-of-a-kind study hints at likely way to counter cartilage damage in long space journeys

Johns Hopkins University

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

video: 

Close-up view of the custom-built apparatus to allow for precise control over jump height and frequency. The study corresponded to roughly five human years and mirrors a progressive overload approach used in human sports performance.

view more 

Credit: CREDIT: Marco Chiaberge/Johns Hopkins University.

Jumping workouts could help astronauts prevent the type of cartilage damage they are likely to endure during lengthy missions to Mars and the Moon, a new Johns Hopkins University study suggests.

The research adds to ongoing efforts by space agencies to protect astronauts against deconditioning/getting out of shape due to low gravity, a crucial aspect of their ability to perform spacewalks, handle equipment and repairs, and carry out other physically demanding tasks.

The study, which shows knee cartilage in mice grew healthier following jumping exercises, appears in the journal npj Microgravity.

“Since the next step in human exploration of space is going to Mars and spending long periods of time in permanent bases on the moon, cartilage damage is a really major issue that space agencies need to address despite how very poorly understood it is,” said study author Marco Chiaberge, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and the European Space Agency. “The positive effect we saw in these mice is huge, and the magnitude of it was unexpected. They can basically make their cartilage thicker if they jump. Maybe astronauts could use similar training before their flight as a preventive measure.”

Healthy cartilage is essential for pain-free movement, as it cushions joints and decreases bone friction. But cartilage heals slowly and does not regenerate as fast as other tissue. Prolonged periods of inactivity—whether from bed rest, injury, or space travel—can accelerate cartilage breakdown. Space radiation can also accelerate this effect, and European Space Agency experiments have shown evidence of cartilage degradation in astronauts who spend several months aboard the International Space Station.

“Think about sending somebody on a trip to Mars, they get there and they can't walk because they developed osteoarthritis of the knees or the hips and their joints don't function,” Chiaberge said. “Astronauts also perform spacewalks often. They serviced the Hubble Space Telescope five times, and in the future, they will need to spend more time in space and the Moon, where we will build larger telescopes to explore the universe and where they will need to stay as healthy as possible.”

Previous research has shown that treadmill running may help slow cartilage breakdown in rodents. The new Johns Hopkins study adds to the evidence by demonstrating that jump-based exercise may prevent articular cartilage loss in knees and could actually improve cartilage health.

The researchers found that mice in a nine-week program of reduced movement experienced cartilage thinning and cellular clustering, both early indicators of arthritis. But mice that performed jump training three times a week showed the opposite effect—thicker, healthier cartilage with normal cellular structure.

The study found the mice with reduced movement had a 14% reduction in cartilage thickness, while those in the jump-training group had a 26% increase compared to a control group. Additionally, the jumping mice had 110% thicker cartilage than the reduced activity group.

Jumping also enhanced bone strength. The team found shin bones in the jumping mice had 15% higher mineral density. Trabecular bone—spongy bone tissue that absorbs impact—was significantly thicker and more robust.

“Leg strength is particularly important and most highly impacted by microgravity, so any procedures that can address multiple aspects of muscle deconditioning, and maybe even reduce the two-hour daily exercise requirement in space, would be most welcome,” said author Mark Shelhamer, a professor of otolaryngology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and former NASA Human Research Program Chief Scientist. “The same reasoning applies to bone integrity, including cartilage. There is increasing recognition of the importance of cartilage as a distinct component in bone integrity, and this study contributes to that understanding.”

While more research is needed to confirm whether humans would enjoy the same benefits, the findings offer promising information to protect cartilage and bone structure. Jumping exercises could be included in pre-flight routines to prepare joints for space travel, and specially designed exercise machines could help integrate similar workouts in space.

The study could help scientists explore how jump-based training might not only aid patients with arthritis but also boost cartilage health with generally applicable exercises, said author Chen-Ming Fan, a musculoskeletal biologist at Carnegie Science.

The researchers emphasized the need for further research to determine the ideal exercise volume and frequency for preserving and strengthening cartilage. Future work will also explore whether jump training could help reverse cartilage loss and whether the exercise could help astronauts restrengthen their cartilage and recover damage from space flight.

“Now that we got our first clue that one type of exercise can increase cartilage, which was completely unknown before, we could start looking into other types of cartilage. What about the meniscus? Could it also get thicker?” said Fan, who is also an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins. “This research could help performance-enhancement studies, rather than just focusing on pathological conditions, and help athletes or virtually anyone interested in doing the right exercises to improve their performance.”

Other authors are Neelima Thottappillil, Anderson Furlanetto, Dylan Odell, Christine Wang, Stephen Hope, Stephen Smee, Joseph Rehfus, Colin Norman, and Aaron W. James of Johns Hopkins; Anna-Maria Liphardt of Universitätsklinikum Erlangen, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität; Anja Niehoff of German Sport University Cologne; and Marc J. Philippon and Johnny Huard of Steadman Philippon Research Institute.

This research was supported by a Space@Hopkins Seed Grant and by the Carnegie Science Endowment fund.

---

Journal

npj Microgravity

DOI

10.1038/s41526-025-00458-z 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Plyometric training increases thickness and volume of knee articular cartilage in mice

Article Publication Date

13-Feb-2025

MSU scientists discover new sources for ‘the molecule that made the universe’

Michigan State University

Facebook

XLinkedIn
MessageWhatsAppEmail

Images

EAST LANSING, Mich. – From helping catalyze interstellar reactions and fueling the birth of stars to its presence in neighborhood gas giants like Saturn and Jupiter, trihydrogen, or H3+, is best known as the “the molecule that made the universe.” 

While we have a clear picture of how the majority of H3+ is formed — a hydrogen molecule, or H2, colliding with its ionized counterpart, H2+ — scientists are keen to understand alternative sources of H3+ and to better measure its abundance throughout the cosmos. 

Now, in a new paper appearing in Nature Communications, Michigan State researchers Piotr Piecuch and Marcos Dantus and their groups and collaborators have provided unprecedented insights into the formation of H3+ in compounds known as methyl halogens and pseudohalogens.  

These findings follow previous breakthrough discoveries at MSU, including the formation of H3+ through a unique “roaming mechanism” in doubly ionized organic molecules. 

Double ionization occurs when an atom or molecule is subjected to enough energy, say from a cosmic ray or laser, that it loses two electrons. 

In their latest paper, the team observed a similar roaming mechanism in doubly ionized methyl halogens and pseudohalogens, uncovering an array of factors that govern the formation — or absence — of H3+ in these particular compounds.  

These formation factors can be applied to a wide variety of other molecules, broadening the horizon for researchers looking to study the origins and formation of the molecules in the universe. 

“H3+ is a small molecule that might not be as important to us on Earth as water or proteins, but it’s a molecule we truly want to understand in terms of its abundance in the universe, how it is produced, and how fast its chemical reactions are,” Piecuch said, a University Distinguished Professor and MSU Research Foundation Professor in the Department of Chemistry. 

“With our findings, we can communicate with others who are looking for sources of H3+ and the molecules that can form it.” 

Roaming the cosmos  

Being “the molecule that made the universe” comes with high expectations, and H3+ certainly lives up to the name.  

“H3+ is essential for astrochemistry, from the birth of stars to the formation of many organic molecules,” said Dantus, an MSU Research Foundation Professor in MSU’s Department of Chemistry. 

With these crucial roles in mind, the Dantus Research Group had previously looked beyond the H2-meets-H2+ formation pathway in search of alternative sources of H3+. This earlier research led them to doubly ionize certain organic molecules, resulting in a surprising outcome.  

Rather than immediately breaking apart, as might be expected when putting two positive charges in a small enough molecular space, a neutral hydrogen — H2 — was instead ejected from the molecule.  

Like a dancer searching a ballroom for a partner, this H2 then “roamed” around the molecule until it plucked out an extra proton, forming H3+. 

“We demonstrated that the hydrogen didn’t simply fly away, but it stuck around, sometimes for quite a long time,” Dantus added, who is also a University Distinguished Professor. “This was highly unusual.” 

“It’s not the usual way of thinking about the behavior of doubly ionized molecules, but a much trickier process,” Piecuch said, comparing the roaming mechanism followed by proton abstraction by H2 to the traditional image of a doubly ionized molecule blowing apart due to repulsion of two positive charges — a process better known as a Coulomb explosion. 

Turning their attention to halogens and pseudohalogens in their latest publication, Piecuch, Dantus and their colleagues have confirmed several more molecules that form H3+ through double ionization and, just as crucially, identified those that don’t. 

The publication includes several movies showing how H3+ is formed in particular instances. These were prepared in collaboration with Professor Benjamin Levine at Stony Brook University and can be viewed by visiting the publication’s supplementary material. 

These findings were achieved through a combination of ultrafast laser spectroscopy and cutting-edge computational chemistry, a balancing act of expertise between the two groups of Spartan scientists. 

“What was quite special about this project — to bring it to fruition — was the use of state-of-the-art techniques from each side, including high-level theory and experimentation,” Piecuch added. 

The hunt for H3+ 

In cracking the code on H3+ formation in halogens and pseudohalogens, the researchers have successfully created a set of governing factors allowing them to predict which organic compounds can produce H3+ through doubly ionized roaming — factors that Dantus and Piecuch say can be applied to a diverse array of other molecules, including many they did not study. 

These guidelines are a powerful tool for fellow scientists who continue the search for alternative and perhaps surprising sources of H3+, such as molecular clouds in interstellar space.  

“Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, so H2 meeting H2+ is still the key,” Dantus explained. “However, there are so many organic molecules in these diffuse molecular clouds that it’s possible a lot of H3+ is still being formed by the processes we’ve studied.” 

When dealing with a molecule as ubiquitous as H3+, the discovery of its new sources can ultimately deepen our understanding of cosmic chemistry at all levels.  

“Even if there are only a few percent more H3+ molecules in the universe because of the small organic compounds we and others have studied, the models that scientists use to study processes such as star formation may have to be revisited,” Piecuch concluded.  

By Bethany Mauger and Connor Yeck

###

Michigan State University has been advancing the common good with uncommon will for 170 years. One of the world’s leading public research universities, MSU pushes the boundaries of discovery to make a better, safer, healthier world for all while providing life-changing opportunities to a diverse and inclusive academic community through more than 400 programs of study in 17 degree-granting colleges.

For MSU news on the web, go to MSUToday or x.com/MSUnews.

 

---

Journal

Nature Communications

Article Title

Factors governing formation from methyl halogens and pseudohalogens

 

Solar-powered device captures carbon dioxide from air to make sustainable fuel

University of Cambridge

LinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Researchers have developed a reactor that pulls carbon dioxide directly from the air and converts it into sustainable fuel, using sunlight as the power source.

view more 

Credit: University of Cambridge

Researchers have developed a reactor that pulls carbon dioxide directly from the air and converts it into sustainable fuel, using sunlight as the power source.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, say their solar-powered reactor could be used to make fuel to power cars and planes, or the many chemicals and pharmaceuticals products we rely on. It could also be used to generate fuel in remote or off-grid locations.

Unlike most carbon capture technologies, the reactor developed by the Cambridge researchers does not require fossil-fuel-based power, or the transport and storage of carbon dioxide, but instead converts atmospheric CO2 into something useful using sunlight. The results are reported in the journal Nature Energy.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has been touted as a possible solution to the climate crisis, and has recently received £22bn in funding from the UK government. However, CCS is energy-intensive and there are concerns about the long-term safety of storing pressurised CO2 deep underground, although safety studies are currently being carried out.

“Aside from the expense and the energy intensity, CCS provides an excuse to carry on burning fossil fuels, which is what caused the climate crisis in the first place,” said Professor Erwin Reisner, who led the research. “CCS is also a non-circular process, since the pressurised CO2 is, at best, stored underground indefinitely, where it’s of no use to anyone.”

“What if instead of pumping the carbon dioxide underground, we made something useful from it?” said first author Dr Sayan Kar from Cambridge’s Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry. “CO2 is a harmful greenhouse gas, but it can also be turned into useful chemicals without contributing to global warming.”

The focus of Reisner’s research group is the development of devices that convert waste, water and air into practical fuels and chemicals. These devices take their inspiration from photosynthesis: the process by which plants convert sunlight into food. The devices don’t use any outside power: no cables, no batteries – all they need is the power of the sun.

The team’s newest system takes CO2 directly from the air and converts it into syngas: a key intermediate in the production of many chemicals and pharmaceuticals. The researchers say their approach, which does not require any transportation or storage, is much easier to scale up than earlier solar-powered devices.

The device, a solar-powered flow reactor, uses specialised filters to grab CO2 from the air at night, like how a sponge soaks up water. When the sun comes out, the sunlight heats up the captured CO2, absorbing infrared radiation and a semiconductor powder absorbs the ultraviolet radiation to start a chemical reaction that converts the captured CO2 into solar syngas. A mirror on the reactor concentrates the sunlight, making the process more efficient.

The researchers are currently working on converting the solar syngas into liquid fuels, which could be used to power cars, planes and more – without adding more CO2 to the atmosphere.

“If we made these devices at scale, they could solve two problems at once: removing CO2 from the atmosphere and creating a clean alternative to fossil fuels,” said Kar. “CO2 is seen as a harmful waste product, but it is also an opportunity.”

The researchers say that a particularly promising opportunity is in the chemical and pharmaceutical sector, where syngas can be converted into many of the products we rely on every day, without contributing to climate change. They are building a larger scale version of the reactor and hope to begin tests in the spring.

If scaled up, the researchers say their reactor could be used in a decentralised way, so that individuals could theoretically generate their own fuel, which would be useful in remote or off-grid locations.

“Instead of continuing to dig up and burn fossil fuels to produce the products we have come to rely on, we can get all the CO2 we need directly from the air and reuse it,” said Reisner. “We can build a circular, sustainable economy – if we have the political will to do it.”

The technology is being commercialised with the support of Cambridge Enterprise, the University’s commercialisation arm. The research was supported in part by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the European Research Council, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Cambridge Trust. Erwin Reisner is a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge.

---

Journal

Nature Energy

DOI

10.1038/s41560-025-01714-y 

Article Title

Direct air capture of CO2 for solar fuels production in flow

Article Publication Date

13-Feb-2025

Bacteria evolved to help neighboring cells after death, new research reveals

Durham University

Facebook

X

WhatsAppEmail

Darwin’s theory of natural selection provides an explanation for why organisms develop traits that help them survive and reproduce.   

Because of this, death is often seen as a failure rather than a process shaped by evolution.   

When organisms die, their molecules need to be broken down for reuse by other living things.   

Such recycling of nutrients is necessary for new life to grow.   

Now a study led by Professor Martin Cann of Durham University’s Department of Biosciences has shown that a type of E-coli bacteria produces an enzyme which breaks the contents of their cells down into nutrients after death.   

The dead bacteria are therefore offering a banquet of nutrients to the cells that were their neighbours when they were living.  

Professor Cann said: “We typically think of death being the end, that after something dies it just falls apart, rots and becomes a passive target as it is scavenged for nutrients.   

“But what this paper has demonstrated is that death is not the end of the programmed biological processes that occur in an organism.   

“Those processes continue after death, and they have evolved to do so.   

“That is a fundamental rethink about how we view the death of an organism.”   

The study has been published in the journal Nature Communications.  

Co-author Professor Wilson Poon, from the School of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Edinburgh, inspired the research after posing what he believed were some unanswered questions about why organisms die the way they do.  

The researchers assembled and realised they had stumbled across a potentially new area of biology; processes that have evolved to function after death.   

Professor Cann said: “One problem remained; we couldn’t work out how an enzyme that functions after death could have evolved.   

“Typically, we think of evolution acting on living organisms not dead ones.  

“The solution is that neighbouring cells which gain nutrients from the dead cells are likely to be clonally related to the dead cell.   

“Consequently, the dead cell is giving nutrients to its relatives, analogous to how animals will often help feed younger members of their family group.”   

Co-author Professor Stuart West of the University of Oxford added: “This is like nothing we have observed before – it is equivalent to a dead meerkat suddenly turning into a pile of boiled eggs that the other members of its group could eat.”  

The finding demonstrates that processes after death, like processes during life, can be biologically programmed and subject to evolution.   

Biomolecules that regulate processes after death might be exploited in the future as novel targets to bacterial disease or as candidates to enhance bacterial growth in biotechnology.  

Professor Poon suggests that modelling such processes using the tools of statistical physics may also provide design principles for humans as we move towards a more circular economy in which recycling needs to be built in from the beginning.  

ENDS  

Media Information   

Interviews   

Professor Martin Cann of Durham University’s Department of Biosciences is available for interview and can be contacted at m.j.cann@durham.ac.uk  

Alternatively, please contact Durham University Marketing and Communications Office on communications.team@durham.ac.uk or +44(0)191 334 8623.  

Source Information  

‘Bacteria encode post-mortem protein catabolism that enables altruistic nutrient recycling’, Martin J. Cann et al., is published in the journal Nature Communications.  

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-56761-6  

The full study will be available via the following link once the embargo has lifted: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56761-6 

About Durham University

Durham University is a globally outstanding centre of teaching and research based in historic Durham City in the UK.

We are a collegiate university committed to inspiring our people to do outstanding things at Durham and in the world.

We conduct research that improves lives globally and we are ranked as a world top 100 university with an international reputation in research and education (QS World University Rankings 2025).

We are a member of the Russell Group of leading research-intensive UK universities and we are consistently ranked as a top 10 university in national league tables (Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, Guardian University Guide and The Complete University Guide).

For more information about Durham University visit: www.durham.ac.uk/about/

​END OF MEDIA RELEASE – issued by Durham University Communications Office.

 

---

Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-56761-6 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Cells

Article Title

Bacteria encode post-mortem protein catabolism that enables altruistic nutrient recycling

Article Publication Date

13-Feb-2025

 

Lack of discussion drives traditional gender roles in parenthood

University College London

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

Conversations about parental duties continue to be led by mothers, even if both parents earn the same amount of money, finds a new study by a UCL researcher.

A new study by Dr Clare Stovell (IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education & Society), published in the Journal of Family Studies, highlights how a lack of discussion between parents about important choices such as parental leave, work and childcare is perpetuating traditional gender roles.

The study found that women usually lead the conversations and there is little discussion about the man’s work schedule, even in cases where the woman earns as much or more than her partner.

Dr Stovell said: “These interviews indicate there are engrained and unquestioned expectations for fathers to work full-time, while mothers take on the primary carer role through long maternity leaves, followed by a reduction in working hours, even where women are equal or higher earners.”

Dr Stovell interviewed 25 professional couples in the UK in 2017-2018 and found that they rarely discussed or negotiated important decisions about work and family after becoming parents.

Instead, women usually led the conversations, focusing on non-parental childcare options and how they may be able to adapt their own work patterns.

The research found that there were four key reasons for this:

• Traditional ideas about gender roles (i.e. the expectation that the mother does the bulk of the childcare provided a default for parents to follow.)
• Not realising the risk of falling into traditional gender roles (i.e. not being aware of the need for active discussions to achieve equitable outcomes when becoming parents. Couples regretted not having discussed more, only realising later that it was necessary.)
• No strong reason to discuss the man’s work schedule (i.e. decisions tended to be initiated by external factors, like nursery waiting lists and employer deadlines, which were not focused on fathers.)
• Men being unsure of how to start the conversation (i.e. fathers having a fear of creating tension or encroaching on the mother’s right to maternity leave. The current shared leave policy, which is based on women transferring their leave, does not offer men the opportunity to make genuine decisions about sharing leave and puts all the decision-making efforts onto women.)

For example, one father who was interviewed said: “So having that conversation with a mother-to-be who’s pregnant as well, it’s kind of like, I wouldn’t want to go there! I think if you’re just going to your wife or girlfriend ‘do you want to share your maternity’, I don’t know. You’re saying it there, ‘your maternity’, it is theirs. You might get the wrong reaction.”

Another father who took shared leave added: “I think to be honest she was much more proactive than me, thinking ahead to how things might work out. […] I definitely remember her coming home and saying ‘oh, you know, we could do it this way or that way’. So, she definitely drove that decision.”

The study also found that couples tended not to calculate costs of various different options, but instead calculated whether their preferred option was affordable. Decisions were therefore often based only on assumptions about what was financially viable – and weren’t necessarily accurate.

As a result of the findings, Dr Stovell is calling on families, organisations, schools and policymakers to support active decision-making to help couples share work and family duties more equally.

Dr Stovell said: “Despite the expectation that couples would discuss and negotiate work-family decisions before becoming parents, these findings suggest that manyare make these decisions individually, especially women, and often without explicit discussions.

“This highlights the need for better support and awareness to achieve a more equal sharing of responsibilities. For example, women and men at the beginning of their career trajectories should be actively encouraged and supported to proactively plan for changes in their working arrangements in the event of having children.

“Equally, organisations and policy makers also have an important role to play in providing catalysts for couples to discuss the work-family balance for fathers, including more generous non-transferable leave provision to fathers – i.e. an individual entitlement to more than two week’s leave - and active support for flexible working.”

The research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

---

Journal

Journal of Family Studies

DOI

10.1080/13229400.2025.2462929 

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

“Work-family decision-making processes at the transition to parenthood: why aren’t heterosexual couples discussing some of the most important decisions of their lives?”

Article Publication Date

13-Feb-2025