“Comparable to the exploration of the Earth’s interior with the help of seismology, we can also make statements about their internal structure and thus also about the age of stars based on their oscillations,” says Konstanze Zwintz. Zwintz is regarded as a pioneer in the young field of asteroseismology and heads the research group “Stellar Evolution and Asteroseismology” at the Institute for Astro- and Particle Physics at the University of Innsbruck....

The results provide further proof that a drug’s effectiveness might vary depending on the time it is administered. “We performed a large dataset analysis and demonstrated that administering midazolam is associated with an increased risk of myocardial injury in non-cardiac surgery when surgeries occurred at night and in healthier patients,” said the study’s senior author Tobias Eckle, MD, Ph.D., professor of anesthesiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine....

It turns out, that the leading candidate is “dry.” But scientists with the Mars Odyssey mission have verified an additional culprit behind the slope streaks: carbon dioxide frost. Slope streaks usually appear on the walls of craters or the sides of hills or mountains. Previous studies have determined that the Martian dust and rocks on a slope can be dislodged by something as small as a passing dust devil, or even an impact event in just the right place....

NASA research shows Earth’s atmosphere contains an unexpectedly large amount of an ozone-depleting compound from an unknown source decades after the compound was banned worldwide. Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4), which was once used in applications such as dry cleaning and as a fire-extinguishing agent, was regulated in 1987 under the Montreal Protocol along with other chlorofluorocarbons that destroy ozone and contribute to the ozone hole over Antarctica. Parties to the Montreal Protocol reported zero new CCl4 emissions between 2007-2012....

Hokkaido University researchers and their colleagues from Japan and Germany have uncovered new information about the origins of interstellar dust grains through laboratory and rocket-borne studies. The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, could provide scientists with a deeper understanding of the formation process and lead to the development of more efficient and eco-friendly methods for creating nanoparticles with practical applications. These ‘presolar’ grains can be found in meteorites that fall to Earth, allowing laboratory studies that reveal possible routes for their formation....

Since antiquity, cultures on nearly every continent have discovered that certain plant leaves, when chewed or brewed or rubbed on the body, could relieve diverse ailments, inspire hallucinations or, in higher dosages, even cause death. Today, pharmaceutical companies import these once-rare plants from specialized farms and extract their active chemical compounds to make drugs like scopolamine for relieving motion sickness and postoperative nausea, and atropine, to curb the drooling associated with Parkinson’s disease or help maintain cardiac function when intubating COVID-19 patients and placing them on ventilators....

The ExoMars joint space mission of ESA and Roscosmos involves two phases. The first one started on March 14, 2016, with the launch of a Proton-M booster rocket from Russia’s space complex in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The rocket launched two modules: the Schiaparelli lander and the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO). The two were delivered to Mars in 226 days, making a journey of 500 million kilometers (310 million miles). Schiaparelli was intended to test the technology for future landings....

Researchers from Switzerland, France and Germany examined diamonds found inside the Almahata Sitta meteorite and concluded they were most likely formed by a proto-planet at least 4.55 billion years ago. The diamonds in the meteorite, which crashed in Sudan’s Nubian Desert in October 2008, have tiny crystals inside them that would have required great pressure to form, said one of the study’s co-authors, Philippe Gillet. “We demonstrate that these large diamonds cannot be the result of a shock but rather of growth that has taken place within a planet,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Switzerland....

A team of researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Natuurhistorisch Museum Maastricht discovered that a crucial skull feature of modern birds, the mobile beak, had developed prior to the mass extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. This finding also suggests that the skulls of ostriches, emus and their relatives evolved ‘backward’, reverting to a more primitive condition after modern birds arose. Using CT scanning techniques, the Cambridge team identified bones from the palate, or the roof of the mouth, of a new species of large ancient bird, which they named Janavis finalidens....

After many extensive fieldworks in the past years, Dr. WANG Xiaolin, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and his team reported on hundreds of three-dimensional (3D) pterosaur eggs of the species Hamipterus tianshanensis from a Lower Cretaceous site in the Turpan-Hami Basin, 16 of which contain embryonic remains, allowing for an unexpected look at the embryology and reproductive strategy of these flying reptiles....

A new study led by researchers at the American Museum of Natural History suggests that Mylodon—a ground sloth that lived in South America until about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago—was not a strict vegetarian like all of its living relatives. Based on a chemical analysis of amino acids (fundamental biological compounds that are the building blocks of proteins) preserved in sloth hair, the researchers uncovered evidence that this gigantic extinct sloth was an omnivore, at times eating meat or other animal protein in addition to plant matter....

False sense of safety may cause feelings of invulnerability, study finds. People may feel less vulnerable and take fewer safety precautions about COVID-19 when they are with, or even just think about, their friends instead of acquaintances or strangers, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. During the two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have become accustomed to spending time with their closest social circle, which may have unintended consequences, said study authors Hyunjung Crystal Lee, PhD, assistant professor of marketing, and Eline De Vries, PhD, associate professor of marketing, at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in Spain....

A recent study published in Nature sheds new light on the otherwise hazy phenomenon, providing some of the clearest evidence to date of when OAS occurs and how it functions in a laboratory setting. These findings could have significant implications for the creation of effective vaccines against influenza and COVID-19. “Our goal was to understand the basic principles that underlie OAS so that researchers making these vaccines can keep the potential effects in mind,” says Rockefeller’s Gabriel D....

The disinfectant spray will use UCF-developed cerium oxide nanoparticles that have been shown to have a wide range of therapeutic properties. Current disinfectant products for killing viruses like coronavirus take minutes to fully sanitize surfaces, which isn’t practical on high-contact areas such as door handles, elevators, and bannisters. That’s why the University of Central Florida (UCF) is co-developing a new, rapid-acting, long-lasting disinfectant spray that instantly kills viruses without using harsh chemicals....

The trial included adolescents and adults and found that a drug that suppresses the immune system in patients with graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) was safer than the current standard treatment, steroids. GvHD is a side effect experienced by patients who have received bone marrow transplants from donors to treat blood cancers. The study used a blood test created at Mount Sinai to identify patients with GvHD who would benefit most from the new treatment....

The FDA authorization is only for certain immunocompromised individuals. Other fully vaccinated individuals do not need an additional vaccine dose right now. Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration amended the emergency use authorizations (EUAs) for both the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine and the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine to allow for the use of an additional dose in certain immunocompromised individuals, specifically, solid organ transplant recipients or those who are diagnosed with conditions that are considered to have an equivalent level of immunocompromise....

Using data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the first gamma-ray binary in another galaxy. The dual-star system, dubbed LMC P3, contains a massive star and a crushed stellar core that interact to produce a cyclic flood of gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light. “Fermi has detected only five of these systems in our own galaxy, so finding one so luminous and distant is quite exciting,” said lead researcher Robin Corbet at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland....

Proving the existence of axions could solve two of the biggest mysteries in modern physics at once: why galaxies orbiting within galaxy clusters are moving far faster than expected, and why two fundamental forces of nature follow different symmetry rules. The first conundrum was raised back in the 1930s, and was confirmed in the 70s when astronomers noticed that the observed mass of the Milky Way galaxy could not explain the strong gravitational pull experienced by the stars in the galaxies....

Electronic circuits are typically integrated in rigid silicon wafers, but flexibility opens up a wide range of applications. In a world where electronics are becoming more pervasive, flexibility is a highly desirable trait, but finding materials with the right mix of performance and manufacturing cost remains a challenge. Now a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania has shown that nanoscale particles, or nanocrystals, of the semiconductor cadmium selenide can be “printed” or “coated” on flexible plastics to form high-performance electronics....

The second release of data from the Gaia star-mapping satellite, published in 2018, has been revolutionizing many fields of astronomy. The unprecedented catalog contains the brightness, positions, distance indicators, and motions across the sky for more than one billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy, along with information about other celestial bodies. This is just the beginning. While the second release is based on the first twenty-two months of Gaia’s surveys, the satellite has been scanning the sky for five years and will keep doing so at least until 2022....