• Turns out Saturn’s moons are far more interesting than Earth’s moon.
The March 10 issue of the journal Science discusses the latest discoveries of the Cassini spacecraft, an unmanned NASA mission studying Saturn and its moons.
Where Earth’s moon is cold, dry, and still, Enceladus, Saturn’s sixth largest moon, is covered in ice and snow, including one end where the ground is cracked and broken up into massive ice boulders.
Scientists with the Space Science Institute and the Southwest Research Institute used some of Cassini’s tools to investigate dark stripes on the surface of Enceladus and discovered that some sections of the moon were hotter than the rest of the ground around them.
But the coolest thing about Enceladus is its “ice volcano,” a big jet of water, dust, and ice particles shooting up into the sky.
Researchers believe one of Saturn’s rings is likely made up of the particles spraying up from the volcano.
-Tabassum Siddiqui
Source: American Association for the Advancement of Science
• It’s well known that vitamin D is important for bone development, but research shows that it may also help protect against the development of several cancers, particularly colorectal cancer.
However, research shows that large quantities can lead to a toxic overdose of calcium in the blood, making it difficult to manufacture a drug designed to exploit the vitamin’s anticancer effects.
Luckily, a recent Georgetown University study indicates that it may be possible to isolate the anticancer properties of vitamin D from its other functions.
The study, published in the journal Molecular Cell, found that by separating the two functions of vitamin D at the molecular level, it is possible that the vitamin could be chemically modified into a drug that will only have anticancer effects.
-T.S.
Source: Georgetown University Medical Centre
