The newly described object, named GRB150101B, was reported as a gamma-ray burst localized by NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory in 2015. Follow-up observations by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and the Discovery Channel Telescope (DCT) suggest that GRB150101B shares remarkable similarities with the neutron star merger, named GW170817, discovered by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) and observed by multiple light-gathering telescopes in 2017. A new study suggests that these two separate objects may, in fact, be directly related....

Smaller begets bigger. Such is often the case for galaxies, at least: the first galaxies were small, then eventually merged together to form the behemoths we see in the present universe. Those smaller galaxies produced stars at a modest rate; only later—when the universe was a couple of billion years old—did the vast majority of larger galaxies begin to form and accumulate enough gas and dust to become prolific star factories....

Quasars are among the most powerful energy sources known — some are as luminous as one hundred thousand Milky Way galaxies. Astronomers know that quasars have massive black holes at their cores and believe that matter falling into the environment of the black hole powers the quasar’s tremendous luminosity — but the details remain uncertain. No one is quite sure, for example, how quasars form, how they develop into such luminous monsters, or how their massive black holes and environments become so bright....

Once every couple of hundred million years, the small galaxy NGC 5195 falls into the outer arms of its larger companion, NGC 5194, also known as the Whirlpool galaxy. Both galaxies are locked in a gravitational dance that will result – billions of years in the future – in the formation of a single galaxy. As NGC 5195 plunges into the Whirlpool, matter streams onto the supermassive black hole at NGC 5195’s center and forms an accretion disc....

Scientists at Yale University have described in the greatest detail yet aspects of the chemical processes by which RNA carries out the expression of our genes. In a paper published October 26 in the journal Cell, researchers report 14 crystal structures for a group II intron — an enzyme involved in RNA splicing, a critical phase of genetic reproduction. These new views capture the enzyme’s working parts and multiple steps in its operation, revealing the chemical mechanisms at work....

“To our knowledge, no other research team has studied how placental allopregnanolone (ALLO) contributes to brain development and long-term behaviors,” says Claire-Marie Vacher, Ph.D., lead author. “Our study finds that targeted loss of ALLO in the womb leads to long-term structural alterations of the cerebellum — a brain region that is essential for motor coordination, balance, and social cognition — and increases the risk of developing autism,” Vacher says. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 in 10 infants is born preterm, before 37 weeks gestation; and 1 in 59 children has autism spectrum disorder....

“Regional land use change is no longer simply driven by local demand; it is also indirectly influenced by international markets and the surging consumption of land-based products,” say the authors, led by Bin Chen, a postdoctoral fellow at Fudan University. “Countries with forest conservation goals can import finished land-based products via global supply chains, displacing land-use pressure and related eco-environmental impacts outside their own territorial borders.” The researchers used multi-source geographic information data and economic modeling to evaluate the direct and indirect causes of intact forest landscape loss....

Doctoral student Alexander Hartung became a father twice during the construction of the apparatus. The device, which is three meters long and 2.5 meters high, contains approximately as many parts as an automobile. It sits in the experiment hall of the Physics building on Riedberg Campus, surrounded by an opaque, black tent inside which is an extremely high-performing laser. Its photons collide with individual argon atoms in the apparatus, and thereby remove one electron from each of the atoms....

People overestimate awkwardness, underestimate enjoyment of deep, meaningful conversations, study finds. People benefit from deep and meaningful conversations that help us forge connections with one another, but we often stick to small talk with strangers because we underestimate how much others are interested in our lives and wrongly believe that deeper conversations will be more awkward and less enjoyable than they actually are, according to research published by the American Psychological Association....

Flame Retardants and Pesticides Overtake Heavy Metals As Biggest Contributors to IQ Loss Adverse outcomes from childhood exposures to lead and mercury are on the decline in the United States, likely due to decades of restrictions on the use of heavy metals, a new study finds. Despite decreasing levels, exposure to these and other toxic chemicals, especially flame retardants and pesticides, still resulted in more than a million cases of intellectual disability in the United States between 2001 and 2016....

“We now have a strong prediction for the future of V Sge,” said Professor Emeritus Bradley E. Schaefer, LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy. “Over the next few decades, the star will brighten rapidly. Around the year 2083, its accretion rate will rise catastrophically, spilling mass at incredibly high rates onto the white dwarf, with this material blazing away. In the final days of this death-spiral, all of the mass from the companion star will fall onto the white dwarf, creating a super-massive wind from the merging star, appearing as bright as Sirius, possibly even as bright as Venus....

A human embryo implants in the womb around seven days after fertilization if everything goes correctly. Due to technological and ethical constraints, the embryo becomes unavailable for study at that point. That is why scientists have already created stem cell models for various kinds of embryonic and extraembryonic cells in order to investigate human development in a dish. Vincent Pasque’s team at KU Leuven has developed the first model for a specific type of human embryo cells, extraembryonic mesoderm cells....

“If you’re carrying a lot of bacteria in your gut, it can be pretty heavy and may take resources away from you,” says Holly Lutz, a research associate at Chicago’s Field Museum and postdoctoral researcher at the University of California San Diego. “So if you’re an animal that has really high energetic demands, say because you’re flying, you may not be able to afford to carry all those bacteria around, and you may not be able to afford to feed them or deal with them....

Black holes form when massive stars die. Typically, this death is violent, an extreme burst of energy that would either destroy or push away nearby objects. It is therefore difficult to form two black holes that are close enough together to merge within the age of the Universe. One way to get them to merge is to push them together within densely populated environments, like the centers of star clusters....

The scientists published their findings in the journal Science. Hillel Aviezer, a neuropsychologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and lead author, suggests that when emotions get extreme, like when people are undergoing fleeting peaks of intense pain, joy, grief, or anger, these could look surprisingly similar, at least on their faces. However, most people aren’t confused whether someone they see is experiencing grief or joy. To figure out how people distinguish the difference, the scientists showed photos of professional tennis players to 45 Princeton University students, randomly divided into three groups of 15....

Developed for DARPA, Boston Dynamics’ Cheetah robot broke a new speed record recently, and it’s capable of running at 28.3 mph, on a treadmill. That’s faster than Usain Bolt, the current fastest man on Earth. Usain Bolt’s fastest speed over 20 meters was 27.78 mph. The Cheetah can attain 28.3 mph, in controlled conditions. It remains to be seen if this robot can attain this speed in real-world conditions....

As a cognitive neuroscientist, I have focused in my past research on understanding how normal brain changes related to aging affect people’s ability to think and move – particularly in middle age and beyond. But as evidence came in showing that COVID-19 could affect the body and brain for months following infection, my research team shifted some of its focus to better understanding how the illness might influence the natural process of aging....

A UC Davis Health pediatric team presented a powerful case series of three teenagers who had unexplained breathing problems during the COVID-19 pandemic. The series highlighted the similarities between e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury (EVALI) and COVID-19 symptoms and manifestations. “EVALI and COVID-19 share many symptoms but have very different treatment plans,” said Kiran Nandalike, associate professor of pediatrics and lead author on the study. “For this reason, providers caring for pediatric patients with unexplained respiratory failure should consider EVALI and ask for relevant smoking/vaping history....

This information is from the Worldview application website where the images in this story were downloaded. Another interesting point to note is that in this image, the fire line can be seen about a third of the way down the image. At this point the smoke is the heaviest and there is a demarcation line marking where the fires have burned and also where the fires are heading. Using the reflective bands on Suomi NPP vegetation shows up as a bright green color....

The researchers examined data from the UK Biobank and discovered impairment in a number of areas, including problem-solving and numerical recall, across a variety of conditions. The findings were reported in a study that was recently published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association. The results suggest that in the future, at-risk individuals may be tested to help determine which ones may benefit from interventions to lower their chance of developing one of the conditions or to help identify people appropriate for enrollment in clinical trials for new treatments....