Letter From Scientists: Investigate the Origins of COVID-19 More investigation is needed to determine the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, say Jesse Bloom, Alina Chan, Ralph Baric, David Relman and colleagues in this Letter. “Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable,” they say. “Knowing how COVID-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks.” The authors highlight a joint China-World Health Organization (WHO) report into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, some results of which were released in November 2020....

A UCLA-led research team has produced in unprecedented detail experimental three-dimensional maps of the atoms in a so-called 2D material — a matter that isn’t truly two-dimensional but is nearly flat because it’s arranged in extremely thin layers, no more than a few atoms thick. Although 2D-materials–based technologies have not yet been widely used in commercial applications, the materials have been the subject of considerable research interest. In the future, they could be the basis for semiconductors in ever smaller electronics, quantum computer components, more-efficient batteries, or filters capable of extracting freshwater from saltwater....

Astronomers at the Southern Observatory for Astrophysical Research (SOAR) and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) have demonstrated the significant difference that sharp stellar images can make in our understanding of the properties of stars. They have observed the globular cluster NGC 6496 using a new instrument dubbed SAM, for SOAR Adaptive Module, which creates an artificial laser guide star. SAM, built by CTIO/NOAO-S, is mounted on the SOAR 4....

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around one million children younger than five years died from lower respiratory infections in 2015. Fine particulates smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter (PM2.5) play a decisive role. Fine particulates penetrate deeply into the respiratory tract, and as a result can increase the risks of respiratory infections, ischaemic heart disease (heart attacks), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cerebrovascular disease (strokes), and lung cancer....

Globular clusters are found around all large galaxies, but their origin and role in galaxy formation remain tantalizingly unclear. Astronomers recently discovered a black hole lurking at the heart of NGC 3201 — its position was revealed by the strange movements of a star being quickly flung around a massive, invisible counterpart. This sparkling group of stars also has some strange properties which make it unique amongst the over 150 globular clusters belonging to the Milky Way....

Led by Mariano de Souza, a professor in the Physics Department of UNESP’s Institute of Geosciences and Exact Sciences at Rio Claro, the study was supported by FAPESP. An article by Souza and collaborators describing the study has been published in Scientific Reports. “Our study shows that this second critical point is analogous to the liquid-gas transition in water at about 374 °C (705 °F) and at a pressure of some 22 megapascals,” Souza told Agência FAPESP....

So far, there have been no hints beyond the Standard Model of Particle Physics from the LHC. A recent conference in Kyoto, Japan, ruled out another broad class of supersymmetry models, finding nothing unexpected in the rates of particle decays. Many SUSY proponents are left to consider new theories. In the past 20 to 30 years, SUSY has been used abundantly and it’s hard to come to grips with its failure, which will have major implications in the field....

Solar cells based on perovskites have reached enormously high efficiencies within a few years, only. Those containing hybrid halide perovskite, i.e. materials containing inorganic and organic components, achieve particularly high efficiencies, but lack long-term stability, yet. Even though inorganic perovskite semiconductors, such as CsPbI3, are less efficient, they are considered interesting, as well, since they may overcome the stability issues of hybrid perovskites. In-depth crystal structure analysis Up to now, it was assumed that hybrid and purely inorganic perovskites do not differ fundamentally in their crystalline structure....

The scientists will publish their findings in the journal Advances for Space Research on November 12. Instead of altering the climate by targeting the oceans or the atmosphere, these types of geoengineering projects would affect the entire Earth from space. A cloud of dust could be obtained by gravitationally anchoring an asteroid to block sunlight and cool the Earth. The dust cloud wouldn’t be a permanent solution, but it could offset the effects of climate change for some time and allow slower-acting measures like carbon capture to take effect....

NASA Flight Engineer Josh Cassada opened Dragon’s hatch and entered the spacecraft less than two hours after the private space freighter docked at 7:39 a.m. EST (4:39 a.m. PST) on Sunday, November 27. He was joined by fellow flight engineers Nicole Mann and Frank Rubio of NASA, and Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) shortly afterward. The four astronauts then spent the rest of Sunday unloading critical science experiments and research samples for stowage aboard the orbiting lab....

New imagery from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument is revealing never-before-seen details into how young, newly forming stars influence the structure of the gas and dust of nearby galaxies, and therefore how they evolve over time. Areas of galaxies that once appeared dim and dark in visible light, now under Webb’s infrared eye, are glowing cavities and huge cavernous bubbles of gas and dust. Webb Space Telescope Reveals Intricate Networks of Gas and Dust in Nearby Galaxies Researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope are getting their first look at star formation, gas, and dust in nearby galaxies with unprecedented resolution at infrared wavelengths....

The Sun rotates slowly, about once every 24 days at its equator although the hot gas at every latitude rotates at a slightly different rate. Rotation helps to drive the mechanisms that power stellar magnetic fields, and in slowly rotating solar-type stars also helps to explain the solar activity cycle. In the case of solar-type stars that rotate much faster than does the modern-day Sun, the dynamo appears to be generated by fundamentally different mechanisms that, along with many details of solar magnetic field generation, are not well understood....

CfA astronomer Rafael Martin-Domenech and his colleagues used the ALMA telescope facility to search for glycolonitrile in the young, solar-type protostar IRAS16293-2422B. This well-studied object lies about five hundred light-years in the constellation of Ophiuchus. It has a cold outer envelope of gas and dust and a hotter inner region heated by the star extending out to about a hundred astronomical units. Numerous, simpler organic molecules had already been seen in this warm zone....

The object known as ‘Oumuamua was the last interstellar interloper to hit the headlines in 2017. However it was just a tourist passing through, whereas this former exo-asteroid – given the catchy name (514107) 2015 BZ509 – is a long-term resident. All of the planets in our Solar System, and the vast majority of other objects as well, travel around the Sun in the same direction. However 2015 BZ509 is different – it moves in the opposite direction in what is known as a ‘retrograde’ orbit....

An international team of researchers, including Jessica Spake and Dr. David Sing from the University of Exeter, have detected the inert gas escaping from the atmosphere of the exoplanet HAT-P-11b – found 124 light years from Earth and in the Cygnus constellation. The remarkable breakthrough was led by researchers from the University of Geneva, who observed the exoplanet using the spectrograph called Carmenes, installed on the 4-meter telescope at Calar Alto, Spain....

KELT-9 is a star located 650 light years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus (the Swan). With a temperature of over 10,000 degrees, it is almost twice as hot as the Sun. This star is orbited by a giant gas planet, KELT-9b, which is 30 times closer than the Earth’s distance from the Sun. Because of this proximity, the planet circles its star in 36 hours and is heated to a temperature of over 4,000 degrees Celsius (7,000 degrees Fahrenheit)....

In a study published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, lead author Dawn Erb of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and her team – for the very first time – used new capabilities at W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii to examine Q2343-BX418, a small, young galaxy located about 10 billion light years away from Earth. This distant galaxy is an analog for younger galaxies that are too faint to study in detail, making it an ideal candidate for learning more about what galaxies looked like shortly after the birth of the universe....

Using observations taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), a radio observatory sited in Chile, the team have determined that the galaxy, named COS-87259, containing this new supermassive black hole is very extreme, forming stars at a rate 1000 times that of our own Milky Way and containing over a billion solar masses worth of interstellar dust. The galaxy shines bright from both this intense burst of star formation and the growing supermassive black hole at its center....

A new study confirms what scientists have long suspected: Cosmic rays – energetic particles that pelt Earth from all directions – are born in the violent aftermath of supernovas, exploding stars throughout the galaxy. A research team led by scientists at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory sifted through four years of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope to find the first unambiguous evidence of how cosmic rays are born....

The neutron star in the GRO J2058+42 system was discovered almost quarter of a century ago with the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO), USA. It belongs to the class of so-called transient X-ray pulsars. This object was studied using different instruments and nothing set it apart from other objects of its class. Only recent observations with the NuSTAR space observatory that has an outstanding combination of high energy resolution (<400 eV) and extremely wide energy range (3–79 keV), enabled the scientists to detect a peculiar feature in the pulsar’s emission, potentially making it the first object of its own family....