NASA and its international partners are planning human missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond and the space station represents a big step in that effort. The orbiting lab provides a unique platform to learn about the long-term effects of microgravity on a variety of systems. A set of cube-shaped, robot assistants are flying around on their own today inside Japan’s Kibo laboratory module. Engineers are looking at video and imagery downlinked from the Astrobee devices to understand how the autonomous free-flyers visualize and navigate their way around the station....

Disulfiram, a treatment for alcoholism, may cut severe SARS-CoV-2 infection, reduce likelihood of dying from COVID-19. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, there’s a need for new and better treatments for people infected with SARS-CoV-2 who develop COVID-19In a new study, a well-known and widely available drug called disulfiram, used to treat alcoholism, shows potential as a treatment for COVID-19In the retrospective analysis, veterans taking the drug for alcoholism were less likely to be infected with SARS-CoV-2 and less likely to die from COVID-19The researchers hope their study will generate support for phase 3 clinical trials testing the drug in patients with severe COVID-19...

The scientists published their findings in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. After cell death, enzymes start to break down the bonds between the nucleotides which form DNA. Micro-organisms speed up the decay and in the long run, reactions with water are thought to be most responsible for bond degradation. In theory, since DNA is buried in bone samples, which are found in the ground, there should be a set rate of degradation....

Our microbiomes — the complex communities of microbes that live in, on, and around us — are influenced by our diets, habits, environments, and genes, and are known to change with age. In turn, the makeup of our microbiomes, particularly in the gut, is well-recognized for its influence on our health. For example, gut microbiome composition has been linked to inflammatory bowel disease, autoimmune disease, obesity, even neurological disorders, such as autism....

In a paper in Science this week, Penn researchers report the first detailed molecular characterization of how every cell changes during animal embryonic development. The work, led by the laboratories of Perelman School of Medicine’s John I. Murray, the School of Arts and Sciences’ Junhyong Kim, and Robert Waterston of the University of Washington (UW), used the latest technology in the emergent field of single cell biology to profile more than 80,000 cells in the embryo of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans....

Studying the genomes of modern humans from 26 worldwide populations, researchers discovered the genetic “footprint” of an ancient coronavirus outbreak. Studies like this one could help identify viruses that have caused epidemics in the distant past and may do so in the future. A new study co-authored by a University of Arizona researcher has discovered a coronavirus epidemic broke out in the East Asia region more than 20,000 years ago, with traces of the outbreak evident in the genetic makeup of people from that area....

With research increasingly showing the COVID-19 virus is transmissible via smaller droplets suspended in air, there is a growing concern current public health guidelines of mask wearing and social distancing are insufficient in combating its spread in indoor environments, like prisons, hospitals, and meatpacking plants, where people tend to be in close quarters. Most research has focused on coughing and sneezing. But studies on how simply breathing might contribute to airborne spread of the virus are rare....

Amphibians represent an important bellwether of global change, scientists say, due to their particularly high sensitivity to disturbances in their environment. There are more than 7,000 amphibian species on Earth, including frogs, toads, caecilians, newts, mudpuppies, and hellbenders. “Amphibians are a globally endangered group for which threats from global change are outpacing our ability to safeguard species,” said Walter Jetz, lead author of a paper published online March 26 in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution....

A new study recently published in The BMJ provides further information on the risk of developing thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) after vaccination against the COVID-19 virus. Based on data from five European nations and the United States, the study reveals a slight increase in the risk of TTS after the first dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, as well as a trend toward an elevated risk after the Janssen/Johnson & Johnson vaccine, as compared to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine....

Redness and swelling of the hands and toes, known as chilblain-like lesions, have been reported during the COVID-19 pandemic. A new study published in the British Journal of Dermatology uncovers the underlying mechanisms involved in such “COVID toes” symptoms. The study included 50 participants with COVID toes and 13 with similar chilblains lesions that arose before the pandemic. The mechanisms behind both types involved an immune response with high levels of certain autoantibodies as well as type I interferon, a key protein in the antiviral response....

A growing health crisis fueled by synthetic chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in groundwater has garnered much attention in the last few years. The reported levels could be “just the tip of the iceberg,” as most of the chemicals are still migrating down slowly through the soil, according to Bo Guo, University of Arizona assistant professor of hydrology and atmospheric sciences. Nearly 3,000 synthetic chemicals belong to the PFAS class....

Beyond superconductors, there are few materials that can fulfill the requirements needed for making ultra-sensitive and fast terahertz (THz) detectors for astronomy. Chalmers researchers have shown that engineered graphene adds a new material paradigm for THz heterodyne detection. “Graphene might be the only known material that remains an excellent conductor of electricity/heat even when having, effectively, no electrons. We have reached a near zero-electron scenario in graphene, also called the Dirac point, by assembling electron-accepting molecules on its surface....

First theorized to exist by Einstein in his general theory of relativity, this object’s unusual shape can be explained by a process called gravitational lensing, which causes light shining from far away to be bent and pulled by the gravity of an object between its source and the observer. In this case, the light from the background galaxy has been distorted into the curve we see by the gravity of the galaxy cluster sitting in front of it....

With less daylight reaching the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s solar array during the winter on Mars, it will likely be deficient in keeping its batteries charged. It is believed to already suffering from battery brownouts at night, where the low voltage caused the electronics to reset. It is also likely that there will be insufficient power for the heater to keep the electronics in their safe temperature range. This cold cycling each night could cause the electronics to fail....

House hunting on Mars could soon become a thing, and researchers at the University of Arizona are already in the business of scouting real estate that future astronauts could use as habitats. Researchers in the UArizona College of Engineering have developed technology that would allow a flock of robots to explore subsurface environments on other worlds. “Lava tubes and caves would make perfect habitats for astronauts because you don’t have to build a structure; you are shielded from harmful cosmic radiation, so all you need to do is make it pretty and cozy,” said Wolfgang Fink, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UArizona....

Expedition 68 officially began onboard the station at the time of undocking. Samantha Cristoforetti of ESA (European Space Agency) is the station commander for the crew consisting of NASA astronauts Bob Hines, Kjell Lindgren, Frank Rubio, and Jessica Watkins, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin. The trio of cosmonauts landed backon Earth at 6:57 a.m. EDT in Kazakhstan (4:57 p.m. Kazakhstan time), southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan....

While the dream of fully autonomous cybernetic prosthetics might still be some time away, Sandia scientists have developed a robotic hand that has enough engineered dexterity to replace a battery in a small flashlight. It’s one of the intricacies of the human body and Sandia has approached the problem with a modular viewpoint. Sandia National Laboratories‘ modular, plastic hand, whose electronics system is largely made from parts found in common smartphones, is able to perform at a high level of finesse for something robotic....

New modeling research, published in The Lancet, estimates that up to 75,800 individuals in the Chinese city of Wuhan may have been infected with 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) as of January 25, 2020. Senior author Professor Gabriel Leung from the University of Hong Kong highlights: “Not everyone who is infected with 2019-nCoV would require or seek medical attention. During the urgent demands of a rapidly expanding epidemic of a completely new virus, especially when system capacity is getting overwhelmed, some of those infected may be undercounted in the official register....

Researchers from the University of Southampton have called into question a 40-year-old theory explaining the periodic speeding up or ‘glitching’ of pulsars. A pulsar is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star formed from the remains of a supernova. It emits a rotating beam of electromagnetic radiation, which can be detected by powerful telescopes when it sweeps past the Earth, rather like observing the beam of a lighthouse from a ship at sea....

According to current scientific models, auxin works with other proteins to fulfill its function. When auxin content in the nucleus rises, receptors bind in the presence of auxin repressors, initiate repressor degradation, and enable auxin responsive transcription factors to trigger gene expression. Because it is believed that auxin content in the nucleus is important for this, the researchers focused on how auxin gets into the nucleus and how this process is controlled....