The Cygnus spacecraft and Antares rocket remain healthy at the Wallops launch site. The next launch attempt will be on Monday, November 7, in a five-minute window that opens at 5:27 a.m. EST (2:27 a.m. PST). Weather for that window is currently forecast as 70% favorable: High pressure looks to continue to provide tranquil weather to the Mid-Atlantic before breezy conditions impact the Wallops area Tuesday. Live coverage will begin on NASA TV and nasa....

New observations of the first black hole ever detected have led astronomers to question what they know about the Universe’s most mysterious objects. Published today (February 18, 2021) in the journal Science, the research shows the system known as Cygnus X-1 contains the most massive stellar-mass black hole ever detected without the use of gravitational waves. Cygnus X-1 is one of the closest black holes to Earth. It was discovered in 1964 when a pair of Geiger counters were carried on board a sub-orbital rocket launched from New Mexico....

The research draws on a classic statement often heard in introductory statistics classes that “correlation is not causation.” Clive Granger was a Nobel-laureate mathematician who came up with a novel method to address this issue by distinguishing correlation from causation. “The Granger method relies upon a simple but important notion that a cause precedes its effect, and should improve the prediction of effect in the future. We realized that this could be a powerful method to study the interactions between atmosphere and ocean, and to provide a global picture of how well they predict each other,” said applied mathematician Safa Motesharrei, an Environmental Systems Scientist at UMD....

SARS-CoV-2 infections pose a global threat to human health and a formidable research challenge. One of the most urgent tasks is to gain a detailed understanding of the molecular interactions between the COVID-19 virus and the cells it infects. It must also be clarified, whether these interactions favor the multiplication of the virus or — on the contrary — activate defense mechanisms. In order to multiply, SARS-CoV-2 uses proteins of the host cell....

The vital role of ventilation in the spread of COVID-19 has been quantified by researchers, who have found that in poorly-ventilated spaces, the virus spreads further than two meters in seconds, and is far more likely to spread through prolonged talking than through coughing. The results, reported in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A, show that social distancing measures alone do not provide adequate protection from the virus, and further emphasize the vital importance of ventilation and face masks in order to slow the spread of COVID-19....

The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation – or GEDI, pronounced like “Jedi,” of Star Wars fame – instrument is undergoing final integration and testing this spring and summer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The instrument is expected to launch aboard SpaceX’s 16th commercial resupply services mission, targeted for late 2018. GEDI is being led by the University of Maryland, College Park; the instrument is being built at NASA Goddard....

Researchers using a technique known as “lucky imaging” with the Gemini North telescope on Hawaii’s Maunakea have collected some of the highest resolution images of Jupiter ever obtained from the ground. These images are part of a multi-year joint observing program with the Hubble Space Telescope in support of NASA’s Juno mission. The Gemini images, when combined with the Hubble and Juno observations, reveal that lightning strikes, and some of the largest storm systems that create them, are formed in and around large convective cells over deep clouds of water ice and liquid....

Fundamental differences in the immune response of adults and children can help to explain why children are much less likely to become seriously ill from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease, according to new research from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, University College London, and their collaborators. The study, published in the journal Nature, is the most comprehensive single-cell study to compare SARS-CoV-2 infection in adults and children across multiple organs....

A new study has analyzed over 3000 proteins to identify which are causally linked to the development of severe COVID-19. This is the first study to assess such a large number of proteins for their connection to COVID-19. The findings provide insight into potential new targets for approaches to treat and prevent severe COVID-19. Published in PLOS Genetics and part-funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre, the study used a genetic tool to screen over 3000 proteins....

J.B.S. Haldane proposed in the 1930s that children might inherit more mutations from their fathers than their mothers. This year, thanks to whole-genome sequencing of dozens of Icelandic families, it has been proven that the age at which a father sires children determines how many mutations those offspring actually inherit. The scientists published their findings in the journal Nature. When fathers start families in their thirties and beyond, men could increase the likelihood of passing on their mutations to their children....

From a black hole to the South Pole: Scientists identify first neutrino from a tidal disruption event. Tracing back a ghostly particle to a shredded star, scientists have uncovered a gigantic cosmic particle accelerator. The subatomic particle, called a neutrino, was hurled towards Earth after the doomed star came too close to the supermassive black hole at the center of its home galaxy and was ripped apart by the black hole’s colossal gravity....

But massive volcanic eruptions in India may also have contributed to the extinctions. Scientists have long debated the significance of the Deccan Traps eruptions, which began before the impact and lasted, on and off, for nearly a million years, punctuated by the impact event. Now, a University of Michigan-led geochemical analysis of fossil marine mollusk shells from around the globe is providing new insights into both the climate response and environmental mercury contamination at the time of the Deccan Traps volcanism....

The scientists published their findings in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. This could help fishery agencies better manage crustaceans. Usually fisheries estimate the age of crustaceans based on their body lengths. Fishermen are allowed to harvest only older animals. This allows juveniles to reach sexual maturity and start reproducing before they are harvested. These length-limits are flawed, because growth varies greatly depending on the conditions in the ocean....

These findings, published in The Astronomical Journal, provide insight into various astrophysical subjects, including the history and evolution of our galaxy and clues in the search for dark matter. “The shape of the stellar halo is a very fundamental parameter that we’ve just measured to greater accuracy than was possible before,” says study lead author Jiwon “Jesse” Han, a Ph.D. student at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian....

They have arrived on three different spacecraft. NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos arrived on the Soyuz MS-18 after a two-orbit, three-hour flight following their launch from Kazakhstan at 3:42 a.m. NASA Flight Engineer Kate Rubins arrived on the station with Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of Roscosmos aboard the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft October 14, 2020....

Traditionally, clinicians have approached the treatment of cardiovascular disease by controlling diabetes and blood pressure, and utilizing medications such as aspirin and statins to lower cholesterol. However, heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in the United States. Even when risk factors are managed, many patients still experience heart attacks, according to Salim Hayek, M.D., physician-scientist and medical director of the University of Michigan Health Frankel Cardiovascular Clinics....

The breakthrough occurred when Steve B. Howell of the NASA Ames Research Center and his team used a high-resolution imaging instrument of their design — named ‘Alopeke (a contemporary Hawaiian word for Fox). The team observed exoplanet Kepler-13b as it passed in front of (transited) one of the stars in the Kepler-13AB binary star system some 2,000 light years distant. Prior to this attempt, the true nature of the exoplanet was a mystery....

“We always wonder how birds can fly and in different ways,” says corresponding author Cheng-Ming Chuong of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. “Some soar like eagles, while others require rapid flapping of wings like hummingbirds.” Some birds, including ostriches and penguins, don’t fly at all. “Such differences in flight styles are largely due to the characteristics of their flight feathers,” Chuong adds. “We wanted to learn how flight feathers are made so we can understand nature better and learn principles of bioinspired architecture....

According to a study, the number of undetected cases of infected persons differs significantly in different countries. The demographic scaling model developed by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock and University of Helsinki makes it possible to estimate the actual number of COVID-19-infections in different countries with just a minimum of data. According to this model, the number of cases in Germany is only 1....

More than a hundred scientists met this summer at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California (USA) to try to clarify what is happening with the discordant data on the expansion rate of the universe, an issue that affects the very origin, evolution, and fate of our cosmos. Their conclusions have been published in Nature Astronomy journal. “The problem lies in the Hubble constant (H0), a parameter which value -it is actually not a constant because it changes with time- indicates how fast the Universe is currently expanding,” points out cosmologist Licia Verde, an ICREA researcher at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICC-UB) and the main author of the article....