Women receiving one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine during a single menstrual cycle had an increase in cycle length of nearly one day, compared to unvaccinated women, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The increase in cycle length—a longer time between bleeding—was not associated with any change in the number of days of menses (days of bleeding). The study appears in Obstetrics & Gynecology. The authors, led by Alison Edelman, M....

The most accurate study so far of the motions of stars in the Milky Way has found no evidence for dark matter in a large volume around the Sun. According to widely accepted theories, the solar neighborhood was expected to be filled with dark matter, a mysterious invisible substance that can only be detected indirectly by the gravitational force it exerts. But a new study by a team of astronomers in Chile has found that these theories just do not fit the observational facts....

With clearing skies over Opportunity’s resting spot in Mars’s Perseverance Valley, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, believe the nearly 15-year-old, solar-powered rover will soon receive enough sunlight to automatically initiate recovery procedures — if the rover is able to do so. To prepare, the Opportunity mission team has developed a two-step plan to provide the highest probability of successfully communicating with the rover and bringing it back online....

The scientists published their findings in the journal Cell¹. Scientists thought that the origin of life was tied to the origin of the cellular ion pumps, proteins that regulate the flow of ions across the cell’s membrane. All cells have an enzyme called ATP synthase, which uses the energy from the flow of ions across membranes to produce the energy-storage molecule ATP. This process relies on ion-pumping proteins that generate these gradients....

The sample site is located in the crater at the bottom of the image, just above the dark patch at the crater’s center. The long, light-colored boulder to the left of the dark patch, named Strix Saxum, is 17 ft (5.2 m) in length. The mosaic is rotated so that Bennu’s east is at the top of the image. Osprey is the backup sample collection site for the OSIRIS-REx mission....

Due to continual improvements in transportation technology, people travel more extensively than ever before. Although this strengthened connection between faraway countries comes with many benefits, it also poses a serious threat to disease control and prevention. When infected humans travel to regions that are free of their particular contagions, they might inadvertently transmit their infections to local residents and cause disease outbreaks. This process has occurred repeatedly throughout history; some recent examples include the SARS outbreak in 2003, the H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009, and — most notably — the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic....

People who had higher pre-pandemic levels of depression or anxiety have been more severely affected by disruption to jobs and healthcare during the pandemic, according to a new study co-led by University College London (UCL) researchers. The study, published in The British Journal of Psychiatry and funded by UKRI, looked at data from 59,482 people who are surveyed regularly as part of 12 ongoing longitudinal studies in England. It found that people whose survey responses before the COVID pandemic suggested higher levels of anxiety and depression symptoms were 24% more likely to have had delays to medical procedures, 12% more likely to lose their job, and 33% more likely to have had disruption to prescriptions or medication during the first eight to 10 months of the pandemic than those with average levels of anxiety and depression symptoms....

Physicists at Uppsala University have identified how to distinguish between true and ‘fake’ Majorana states in one of the most commonly used experimental setups, by means of supercurrent measurements. This theoretical study is a crucial step for advancing the field of topological superconductors and applications of Majorana states for robust quantum computers. New experiments testing this approach are expected next. Majorana states exist as zero-energy states at the ends of topological superconductors (a special type of superconductors, materials that conduct with zero resistance when cooled close to absolute zero temperature), where low-energy states are robust against defects....

The findings, published in The Journal of Chemical Physics, brought together researchers from the University of Illinois and the University of Washington, Seattle in a collaborative project through the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the U. of I. Nanostructures like microchip semiconductors, carbon nanotubes, and large protein molecules contain defects that form during synthesis that cause them to differ in composition from one another. However, these defects are not always a bad thing, said Martin Gruebele, the lead author and an Illinois chemistry professor and chair....

Singularity is a state of the Universe characterized by infinite curvature, energy, and gravitational field intensity. At the point of about 30 – 60 million years before singularity, everything turns into plasma, and then the plasma itself also disappears. In one of his previous works, Dr. Odintsov et al. pondered different scenarios of the death of the Universe. The theory included four types of mathematical models of singularities and became quite popular among cosmologists....

Meteor burst communication is based on using meteors as cryptography assistants. Meteor trails reflect radio waves, which makes them suitable for radio transmissions at distances of up to 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles). The unpredictable nature of meteors poses a significant hindrance to signal interception. Associate Professor Amir Sulimov explains, “Each meteor trail forms a kind of shadow resembling an ellipse on the Earth’s surface. All communication stations within that area can tune in on the channel....

Now, Benfey and colleagues Masashi Yamada and Xinwei Han have pieced together new details in the cascade of events that guide root growth — research that could lead to more productive crops optimized for different soil types. As a root tunnels through the soil, stem cells in the root’s tip must determine whether to divide and produce more of the same stem cells, or differentiate into other cell types, based on their location within the root tissue....

The increased interest in deep-space travel has necessitated the development of powerful, long-lasting rocket systems to propel spacecraft into the cosmos. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have created a small modified version of a plasma-based propulsion system known as a Hall thruster that both enhances the lifespan of the rocket and produces high power. The plasma-powered miniature device is less than an inch in diameter and removes the walls surrounding the plasma propellant to create innovative thruster configurations....

If scientists are able to figure out the precise weight of the world’s oceans it will allow them to model changes in the sea level more accurately. With the record ice melt this past summer, it would help ensure the safety of the cities on the coastlines that are vulnerable to any rise of the oceans. Oceanographers are planning to figure out how much the total water in the Pacific Ocean weighs....

Trapped atoms, suspended aloft on a lattice of laser light for as long as 20 seconds, allow for highly sensitive measurements of gravity, according to a new study published today (November 8, 2019) in the journal Science, which describes a new approach to atom interferometers. The new design greatly enhances the sensitivity and precision of gravitational measurements over previous iterations and could be used in tests of general relativity or other investigations into fundamental physics....

The idea is to “detect these plant disease outbreak sources early and stop the spread before it becomes a pandemic,” says lead-author Jean Ristaino, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Plant Pathology at North Carolina State University. Once an epidemic occurs it is difficult to control, Ristaino says, likening the effort to the one undertaken to stop the spread of COVID-19. “We’ve seen how important information sharing, data analytics, and modeling have been in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic....

In our recent paper in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, we investigated a simple model that proposes a rotating neutron star—an extremely dense collapsed core of a massive supergiant star—as the engine behind a type of lengthy X-ray afterglows, known as X-ray plateaux. Using a sample of six short gamma-ray bursts with an X-ray plateau, we worked out the properties of the central neutron star and the mysterious remnant surrounding it....

Highly developed antennae containing different types of olfactory receptors allow insects to use minute amounts of odors for orientation towards resources like food, oviposition sites or mates. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, have now used mutant flies and for the first time provided experimental proof that the extremely sensitive olfactory system of fruit flies − they are able to detect a few thousand odor molecules per milliliter of air, whereas humans need hundreds of millions − is based on self-regulation of odorant receptors....

During the process, the team made an innovative discovery. By altering the type of electrochemical reactor used, they were able to generate two distinct products, both of which are useful in medicinal chemistry. The team’s paper was recently published in the journal Nature. The paper’s co-lead authors are postdoctoral researchers Peng Yu and Wen Zhang, and Guo-Quan Sun of Sichuan University in China. The Cornell team, led by Song Lin, professor of chemistry and chemical biology in the College of Arts and Sciences, has previously used the process of electrochemistry to stitch together simple carbon molecules and form complex compounds, eliminating the need for precious metals or other catalysts to promote the chemical reaction....

Overall incidence rates continue to increase in women, children and adolescents, and young adults. Overall cancer death rates continue to decline in men and women for all racial and ethnic groups in the United States, according to the latest Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer. During 2001 to 2018, declines in lung cancer death rates accelerated, and death rates for melanoma declined considerably in more recent years, reflecting a substantial increase in survival for metastatic melanoma....