Seed funding from the Penn State Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, as part of their rapid-response seed funding for research across the University to address COVID-19, is supporting this work. “Discovering any new drug that can cure a disease is like finding a needle in a haystack,” Ghosh said. According to Ghosh, using the existing drug-discovery pipeline can take five to ten years from initial idea to market approval, and cost billions of dollars....

Quantum memory is a major building block to be addressed in the building of a quantum internet, where quantum information is securely stored and sent via photons, or particles of light. Researchers from the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with colleagues from UT Sydney in Australia, have identified a two-dimensional material, hexagonal boron nitride, that can emit single photons from atomic-scale defects in its structure at room temperature....

Terahertz radiation is used for security checks at airports, for medical examinations, and also for quality checks in the industry. However, radiation in the terahertz range is extremely difficult to generate. Scientists at TU Wien have now succeeded in developing a terahertz radiation source that breaks several records: it is extremely efficient, and its spectrum is very broad — it generates different wavelengths from the entire terahertz range. This opens up the possibility of creating short radiation pulses with extremely high radiation intensity....

When an intense laser pulse ionizes the surface of a solid target, it creates plasma so dense that it is impenetrable to the laser, even if the target was initially transparent. The laser now gets reflected off this “plasma mirror.” In the relativistic regime, the mirror surface no longer just sits stills but is driven to oscillate so fast that, through a process called relativistic surface high-harmonic generation (SHHG), it temporally compresses the laser’s electromagnetic field cycles....

Astrophysicist Dr. Natasha Hurley-Walker, from the Curtin University node of the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), created the images using the Pawsey Supercomputing Center in Perth. “This new view captures low-frequency radio emission from our galaxy, looking both in fine detail and at larger structures,” she said. “Our images are looking directly at the middle of the Milky Way, towards a region astronomers call the Galactic Center.” The data for the research comes from the GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky MWA survey, or ‘GLEAM’ for short....

Now, a new research study reveals the health consequences of reinfection. The findings show that repeat SARS-CoV-2 infections contribute substantial additional risk of adverse health conditions in multiple organ systems. These outcomes include disorders affecting the heart, lungs, brain, and the body’s blood, musculoskeletal and gastrointestinal systems; hospitalization; and even death. Reinfection also contributes to diabetes, kidney disease, and mental health problems. The findings, by researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St....

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have unlocked part of this mystery. By using computer-based simulations to analyze how atoms and molecules move in a solution, the UIC team has identified a general mechanism governing crystal growth that scientists can manipulate when developing new materials. Specifically, they found that when crystal-forming molecules are surrounded by a solvent, like water, the solvent molecules form a shield that they call a solvation shell....

A study from the University of Kansas appearing in the journal Copeia details for the first time evolution of a “lachrymal saber” unique to stonefishes — a group of rare and elaborately dangerous fishes inhabiting Indo-Pacific coastal waters. The new finding rewrites scientific understanding of relationships among several groups of fishes and reveals a previously unknown defensive strategy — also, it likely will fuel a few nightmares. “I don’t why this hasn’t been discovered before,” said William Leo Smith, associate curator at the KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum and KU associate professor of ecology & evolutionary biology....

How do animals know where they are in their environment, and how does this determine their subsequent choices? Researchers at Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus discovered that the hindbrain – an evolutionarily conserved or “ancient” region in the back of the brain – helps animals compute their location and use that information to figure out where they need to go next. The new research, which was recently published in the journal Cell, uncovers new functions for parts of the “ancient brain,” findings that could apply to other vertebrates....

In a new study of languages spoken in 43 different populations worldwide, Yale School of Medicine researchers and their colleagues identified variants of a dyslexia gene that correlate with consonant use, establishing a role for genetics in language differences between populations. The brain uses distinct strategies to process and encode vowels and consonants, which are modified by at least one dyslexia gene, according to the study, which was published in the April issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences....

New science suggests the FDA should test all food chemicals for safety. A food preservative used to prolong the shelf life of Pop-Tarts, Rice Krispies Treats, Cheez-Its and almost 1,250 other popular processed foods may harm the immune system, according to a new peer-reviewed study by Environmental Working Group. For the study, published this week in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, EWG researchers used data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxicity Forecaster, or ToxCast, to assess the health hazards of the most common chemicals added to food, as well as the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, which can migrate to food from packaging....

Explore M82 X-1 and learn more about how astronomers used X-ray fluctuations to determine its status as an intermediate-mass black hole. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Astronomers have uncovered rhythmic pulsations from a rare type of black hole 12 million light-years away by sifting through archival data from NASA’s Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite. The signals have helped astronomers identify an unusual midsize black hole called M82 X-1, which is the brightest X-ray source in a galaxy known as Messier 82....

The University of East Anglia in the UK led a study that identified that the amount of glacial-meltwater flowing beneath the Thwaites Ice Shelf can be impacted by a small ocean gyre next to it. A weaker gyre allows more warm water to access the areas beneath the ice shelf, causing it to melt. The Thwaites Ice Shelf is one of the biggest ice shelves in West Antarctica and buttresses the eastern side of the Thwaites Glacier, which has been retreating rapidly over the last 20 years and is the largest contributor to global sea-level rise among Antarctic glaciers....

Named K2-229b, the planet is almost 20% larger than Earth but has a mass which is over two-and-a-half times greater — and reaches a dayside temperature of over 2,000°C or 3,600°F (2,330 °Kelvin). It finds itself very close to its host star (0.012 AU, around a hundredth of the distance between the Earth and the Sun), which itself is a medium-sized active K dwarf in the Virgo Constellation. K2-229b orbits this star every fourteen hours....

The antibiotic, first identified by Nosopharm, is unique and promising on two fronts: its unconventional source and its distinct way of killing bacteria, both of which suggest the compound may be effective at treating drug-resistant or hard-to-treat bacterial infections. Called odilorhabdins, or ODLs, the antibiotics are produced by symbiotic bacteria found in soil-dwelling nematode worms that colonize insects for food. The bacteria help to kill the insect and, importantly, secrete the antibiotic to keep competing bacteria away....

Schizophrenia-related disorders impact around 1 in 300 people globally. The most widespread symptoms of these conditions are perceptual disturbances such as hallucinations, delusions, and psychoses. A drug called ketamine can induce a mental state similar to psychosis in healthy individuals. Ketamine inhibits NMDA receptors involved in the transmission of excitatory signals in the brain. An imbalance of excitation and inhibition in the central nervous system can affect the accuracy of sensory perception....

Now, scientists from Michigan State University have demonstrated that oxytocin has yet another, previously unknown, function in zebrafish and human cell cultures: it stimulates stem cells from the heart’s outer layer (epicardium) to migrate into its middle layer (myocardium), where they develop into cardiomyocytes, the muscle cells that cause heart contractions. This finding could one day be used to promote the regeneration of the human heart after a heart attack....

Audio of the news conference and presentation slides will stream live on NASA’s website. Representatives from NASA, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) Los Alamos National Laboratory and Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) will discuss and take questions on the Kilopower project, which aims to demonstrate space fission power systems technology that has the potential to enable future crewed surface missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. Testing began in November 2017 and is expected to continue through March....

This rogue wave behavior is caused by modulation instability, which happens only in unidirectional waves. When interacting with other wave systems, wave focusing (wave amplification) is also expected to weaken. A team led by Kyoto University has now shown that such unstable wave groups propagate independently of interference. Their findings were recently published in the journal Physical Review Letters. Demonstration of an unperturbed nonlinear water wave group focusing in the presence of counter-propagating waves, implying directional wave states....

Drawing the Line to Answer Art’s Big Questions Algorithms have shown that the compositional structure of Western landscape paintings changed “suspiciously” smoothly between 1500 and 2000 AD, potentially indicating a selection bias by art curators or in art historical literature, physicists from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and colleagues report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). KAIST statistical physicist Hawoong Jeong worked with statisticians, digital analysts and art historians in Korea, Estonia and the US to clarify whether computer algorithms could help resolve long-standing questions about design principles used in landscape paintings, such as the placement of the horizon and other primary features....