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Mercury-bound spacecraft on home stretch of nearly decade-long voyage: ‘brilliant moment’

Two Mercury-bound spacecraft left their mother ship behind on Thursday and headed down the home stretch of their nearly decade-long voyage to the solar system’s smallest and closest-to-the-sun planet. The linked European and Japanese spacecraft separated as planned from their cruiser, but controllers had to wait two anxious hours to receive confirmation via radio signals. The crucial operation…

Mercury-bound spacecraft on home stretch of nearly decade-long voyage: ‘brilliant moment’

We haven't written up this one. South China Morning Post has the full story — the link below goes straight to it.

Read the original at scmp.com →

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Metabolic networks provide clues about the earliest stages of enzyme evolution

The enzymes found in modern organisms are complex proteins, often with multiple folded substructures and specialized catalytic sites. Proteins are encoded by genes. Tracing the history of enzymes across all living organisms through gene comparisons leads to the last universal common ancestor (LUCA), a hypothetical organism that existed…

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