Astronomers have discovered a distant quasar illuminating a vast nebula of diffuse gas, revealing for the first time part of the network of filaments thought to connect galaxies in a cosmic web. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, led the study, published January 19 in Nature. Using the 10-meter Keck I Telescope at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, the researchers detected a very large, luminous nebula of gas extending about 2 million light-years across intergalactic space....

Using the W.M. Keck observatory in Hawaii, a group of astronomers led by Joseph Hennawi of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy have discovered the first quadruple quasar: four rare active black holes situated in close proximity to one another. The quartet resides in one of the most massive structures ever discovered in the distant universe, and is surrounded by a giant nebula of cool dense gas. Either the discovery is a one-in-ten-million coincidence, or cosmologists need to rethink their models of quasar evolution and the formation of the most massive cosmic structures....

There have been portable X-ray machines for about a century, but most are heavy and large and require as much power as an electric-fired home water heater. Tribogenics is trying to replace those clunky machines with devices no larger than laptops. The company wants to create tiny X-ray generators the length of a stick of gum that could power small, battery-powered X-ray machines. These devices could then be used on the front lines of combat zones, in disaster areas and at remote locations far from hospitals without needing to transport patients....

For a long time, researchers globally have believed that the decrease in atmospheric CO2 levels and the cooling of the Earth’s climate was caused by trees. Until today at least. Now researchers from the University of Copenhagen, using a new method, have learned that the small vascular plants that populated the Earth before turning into trees 385 million years ago may have played a greater role than previously assumed. “A new method has enabled us to calculate the CO2 level in the atmosphere in the past based on plant fossils....

Studying mice and fruitflies, researchers found that the enzyme intestinal alkaline phosphotase (IAP) helped prevent intestinal permeability and gut-derived systemic inflammation, resulting in less frailty and extended life span. “Oral IAP supplementation in older mice significantly preserved gut barrier function and was associated with preserving the homeostasis of the gut microbiota during aging,” said Hodin. “In other words, the enzyme maintained the composition of the gut bacteria and controlled the low-grade chronic inflammation that can happen with aging....

High doses of vitamin C under study for treating COVID-19 may benefit some populations, but investigators exploring its potential in aging say key factors in effectiveness include levels of the natural transporter needed to get the vitamin inside cells. Age, race, gender, as well as expression levels and genetic variations of those vitamin C transporters that make them less efficient, all may be factors in the effectiveness of vitamin C therapy against COVID-19 and other maladies, investigators at the Medical College of Georgia Center for Healthy Aging report in a commentary in the journal Aging and Disease....

Approximately 4% of the population is affected by epilepsy, making it one of the most prevalent brain disorders among children. While modern medicine is effective in preventing seizures in the majority of patients, unfortunately, 20% of those with epilepsy do not respond to treatment. In some cases, the cause of epilepsy may stem from patches of damaged or abnormal brain tissue known as “malformations of cortical development” (MCD). These MCDs result in a variety of neurodevelopment disorders....

From brain to heart to stomach, the bodies of humans and animals generate weak magnetic fields that a supersensitive detector could use to pinpoint illnesses, trace drugs – and maybe even read minds. Sensors no bigger than a thumbnail could map gas deposits underground, analyze chemicals, and pinpoint explosives that hide from other probes. Now scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley, working with colleagues from Harvard University, have improved the performance of one of the most potent possible sensors of magnetic fields on the nanoscale – a diamond defect no bigger than a pair of atoms, called a nitrogen vacancy (NV) center....

New evidence shows that patients with Long COVID syndrome continue to have higher measures of blood clotting, which may help explain their persistent symptoms, such as reduced physical fitness and fatigue. The study, led by researchers from RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, is published in the Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis. Previous work by the same group studied the dangerous clotting observed in patients with severe acute COVID-19....

In a commentary published in The American Journal of Medicine, researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine and collaborators review the recent major randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trials and present an updated meta-analysis of hydroxychloroquine in post-exposure prophylaxis as well as in hospitalized patients. Last year, these same researchers issued a plea for a moratorium on prescription of hydroxychloroquine in prevention or treatment pending the outcome of ongoing randomized trials....

Sagittarius B2 (Sgr B2), the massive star-forming region located close to the Galactic Center, is known as one of the best hunting grounds for complex organic molecules in the interstellar medium. Many prebiotic molecules have been detected in Sgr B2. Observations using the Shanghai Tianma 65m telescope have revealed widespread complex organic molecules around Sgr B2. However, the abundant emissions caused serious line-blending in Sgr B2 and made identifying new molecules in Sgr B2 particularly difficult....

When farmers in Ukraine planted wheat, canola, barley, and rye in the autumn of 2021, their worries were relatively routine: would dry weather or increasing fertilizer prices cut into their yields and profits? By the time those winter crops emerged from dormancy in the spring of 2022, life in Ukraine had turned completely upside down. Russia had invaded Ukraine. With the war came tanks rolling through fields, farmland covered with mines, and artillery shells raining down on crops....

Picture a single cloud large enough to span the solar system from the sun to beyond Pluto’s orbit. Now imagine many such clouds orbiting in a vast ring at the heart of a distant galaxy, occasionally dimming the X-ray light produced by the galaxy’s monster black hole. Using data from NASA’s Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite, an international team has uncovered a dozen instances where X-ray signals from active galaxies dimmed as a result of a cloud of gas moving across our line of sight....

In the western part of Kangaroo Island, specifically in Flinders Chase National Park, penguin colonies and famous coastal rock formations are found. Kangaroo Island is Australia’s third largest island after Tasmania and Melville Island. In addition to it being a very popular tourist destination for both Australians and nature lovers, the island even boasts a colony of Ligurian honey bees which are the world’s only pure-bred and disease-free population of this type of bee....

A brain imaging study of young people at high risk of developing bipolar disorder has for the first time found evidence of weakening connections between key areas of the brain in late adolescence. Up until now, medical researchers knew that bipolar disorder was associated with reduced communication between brain networks that are involved with emotional processing and thinking, but how these networks developed prior to the condition was a mystery....

A group of anthropologists has discovered that reproduction permanently changes women’s bones in ways that were not previously known. The discovery, based on an analysis of rhesus monkeys, gives new insight into how birth can permanently alter the body. “Our findings provide additional evidence of the profound impact that reproduction has on the female organism, further demonstrating that the skeleton is not a static organ, but a dynamic one that changes with life events,” explains Paola Cerrito, who led the research as a doctoral student in New York University’s Department of Anthropology and College of Dentistry....

“We were surprised to find fewer connections between the hippocampus and frontal cortical areas, and more connections with early visual processing areas than we expected to see,” said Dr. Marshall Dalton, a Research Fellow in the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney. “Although, this makes sense considering the hippocampus plays an important role not only in memory but also imagination and our ability to construct mental images in our mind’s eye....

The paper argues that our early ancestors acquired a taste for fat by eating marrow scavenged from the skeletal remains of large animals that had been killed and eaten by other predators. The argument challenges the widely held view among anthropologists that eating meat was the critical factor in setting the stage for the evolution of humans. “Our ancestors likely began acquiring a taste for fat 4 million years ago, which explains why we crave it today,” says Jessica Thompson, the paper’s lead author and an anthropologist at Yale University....

The ZVR Lab at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester, led by Assistant Professor Benjamin Suarez-Jimenez, Ph.D., is dedicated to understanding the mechanisms behind these changes and how the brain learns about its environment, predicts potential threats, and recognizes safety. “We are learning more about how people exposed to trauma learn to distinguish between what is safe and what is not. Their brain is giving us insight into what might be going awry in specific mechanisms that are impacted by trauma exposure, especially when emotion is involved,” said Suarez-Jimenez, who began this work as a post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Yuval Neria, Ph....

When Cassini arrived at the Saturnian system in 2004, the southern hemisphere was enjoying summertime, while the northern was in the midst of winter. The spacecraft spied a broad, warm, high-altitude vortex at Saturn’s southern pole, but none at the planet’s northern pole. A new long-term study has now spotted the first glimpses of a northern polar vortex forming high in the atmosphere as Saturn’s northern hemisphere approached summertime. This warm vortex sits hundreds of kilometers above the clouds, in a layer of atmosphere known as the stratosphere, and reveals an unexpected surprise....