The findings of the study were recently published in the journal PLOS ONE. Data from 29 adults—16 women and 13 men—were evaluated for the study, of whom 17 were obese and 12 were lean. Participants underwent two fMRI scans, one following a social and physiological stress test. During both scans, participants underwent a food word reactivity test. This test involved observing how people’s brains responded to food words, such as menu items written on a blackboard....

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft successfully completed its close flyby of Saturn’s moon Enceladus today, passing 30 miles (49 kilometers) above the moon’s south polar region at approximately 8:22 a.m. PDT (11:22 a.m. EDT). Mission controllers established two-way communication with the spacecraft this afternoon and expect it to begin transmitting data from the encounter this evening. Images are anticipated in the next 24 to 48 hours. For more information about Cassini, visit: http://www....

A new analysis of data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft suggests that Saturn’s moons and rings are gently worn vintage goods from around the time of our solar system’s birth. Though they are tinted on the surface from recent “pollution,” these bodies date back more than 4 billion years. They are from around the time that the planetary bodies in our neighborhood began to form out of the protoplanetary nebula, the cloud of material still orbiting the sun after its ignition as a star....

The findings were published in Science Advances on July 9, 2021. It is the first time planetary researchers have described the entire causality chain for Jupiter’s X-ray auroral flares. The mechanism in producing X-ray auroral flares at Jupiter may have potential applications in X-ray astronomy. The X-ray auroral spectra tell us these aurorae are produced by heavy ions with energies in the mega electron volt range. But how they are formed and why these ions enter Jupiter’s atmosphere was previously unknown....

Number 1: Westerlund 2 — Hubble’s 25th Anniversary Image This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the cluster Westerlund 2 and its surroundings has been released to celebrate Hubble’s 25th year in orbit and a quarter of a century of new discoveries, stunning images and outstanding science. The image’s central region, containing the star cluster, blends visible-light data taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys and near-infrared exposures taken by the Wide Field Camera 3....

Now, a Caltech-led team using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has identified a fourth ULX as being a neutron star—and found new clues about how these objects can shine so brightly. Neutron stars are extremely dense objects—a teaspoonful of neutron stars would weigh about a billion tons, or as much as a mountain. Their gravity pulls surrounding material from companion stars onto them; when this material is tugged on, it heats up and glows with X-rays....

Using data from several telescopes including NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have caught a supermassive black hole snacking on gas and then “burping” — not once but twice. This graphic shows the galaxy, called SDSS J1354+1327 (J1354 for short) in a composite image with data from Chandra (purple), and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST; red, green, and blue). The inset box contains a close-up view of the central region around J1354’s supermassive black hole....

Researchers from the Pan African Programme: The Cultured Chimpanzee (PanAf) at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) and a team of international researchers, collected over 5000 fecal samples from 55 sites in 18 countries across the chimpanzee range over 8 years. This is by far the most complete sampling of the species to date, with a known location of origin for every sample, thus addressing the sampling limitations of previous studies....

Prof. RAO Zihe and Prof. YANG Haitao from the Shanghai Institute for Advanced Immunochemical Studies of ShanghaiTech University, Prof. JIANG Hualiang from the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and their collaborators conducted the research, which was published online in Nature on April 9, 2020. Mpro, a key coronavirus enzyme, plays a pivotal role in mediating viral replication and transcription, making it an attractive antiviral drug target....

While many reports have looked at the impact of climate change on agricultural production, the effect rising temperatures and changing rainfall has on crucial tropical crops such as the banana are less well understood. In a new study, led by Dr. Dan Bebber from the University of Exeter, scientists have studied both the recent and future impact of climate change on the world’s leading banana producers and exporters. It shows that 27 countries – accounting for 86 percent of the world’s dessert banana production – have on average seen increased crop yield since 1961 due to the changing climate resulting in more favorable growing conditions....

Temperatures in Europe have hit record highs this summer, passing 46.0 degrees Celsius (114.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in southern France. New research in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters finds the number of summer days with extreme heat has tripled since 1950 and summers have become hotter overall, while the number of winter days with extreme cold decreased in frequency by at least half and winters have become warmer overall. The new study finds parts of Europe are warming faster than climate models project....

Investigating the connection between volcanic eruptions, hypoxia, and melting ice resulting from warming temperatures during the last ice age, which ended around 18,000 years ago, could provide insight into the potential outcomes of present-day global warming. “It is unknown right now whether volcanic eruptions will increase as the climate warms,” said the study’s lead author, Jianghui Du of ETH Zurich in Switzerland, who conducted the research as a doctoral student at Oregon State University’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences....

Study to test Eli Lilly and Company’s LY-CoV555, a human monoclonal antibody against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, will examine its ability to combat the virus in mild to moderate cases of COVID-19. The University of Chicago Medicine is launching a clinical trial to examine the potential of an antibody against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein for treating COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. For the BLAZE-1 trial, UChicago is recruiting 22 participants to be treated with the LY-CoV555 antibody developed by Eli Lilly and Company in collaboration with AbCellera....

A new study authored by Southwest Research Institute scientists Rodrigo Leiva and Marc Buie reveals the binary nature of a trans-Neptunian object (TNO). Leiva and Buie utilized data obtained by the Research and Education Collaborative Occultation Network (RECON), a citizen science research network dedicated to observing the outer solar system. The study was published this month in The Planetary Science Journal. Trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) are small icy bodies that orbit the Sun beyond Neptune....

Many animals can sense the Earth’s magnetic field and use it like a GPS to navigate during their long migrations. However, solar storms could be disrupting that signal, said Duke graduate student Jesse Granger, who studies biophysics in the lab of biology professor Sönke Johnsen. Earlier research has found a correlation between solar activity like sunspots and flares and stranded sperm whales, but Granger’s analysis tried to get to the bottom of what the relationship might be....

“There’s a lot of excitement, a lot of mystification and from my point of view it’s a lot of fun,” said Chris Fassnacht, professor of physics at UC Davis and a member of the international SHARP/H0LICOW collaboration, which made the measurement using the W.M. Keck telescopes in Hawaii. A paper about the work is published by the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The Hubble constant describes the expansion of the universe, expressed in kilometers per second per megaparsec....

Many farmers across sub-Saharan Africa try to coax crops out of sandy soils that are not ideal for holding water and nutrients. Their harvests are predictably poor. A traditional approach would have them apply more fertilizers and use irrigation, but both of these options require access to resources and infrastructure that many of them do not have. A relatively new technology modeled for eight African countries, and currently being tested in Zimbabwe, shows potential for substantially improving harvests through increased water retention and accumulation of organic material to make soils more fertile....

When faced with danger, humans draw closer together. Social distancing thwarts this impulse. LMU’s Professor Ophelia Deroy and colleagues argue that this dilemma poses a greater threat to society than overtly antisocial behavior. The corona crisis presents countries around the globe with what is perhaps the greatest challenge most have faced since the Second World War. For one thing, the virus constitutes a truly global threat. In the absence of a vaccine, our primary defense against COVID-19 consists in what is now termed ‘social distancing’ — minimizing our contacts with others in public spaces....

COVID-19 drugs, vaccines still effective against mutating virus. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists identified how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, gets inside cells to cause infection. All current COVID-19 vaccines and antibody-based therapeutics were designed to disrupt this route into cells, which requires a receptor called ACE2. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that a single mutation gives SARS-CoV-2 the ability to enter cells through another route – one that does not require ACE2....

Research in high-energy-density physics (HEDP), which investigates how atoms behave under extreme pressure conditions, can provide valuable insights into fields such as planetary science, astrophysics, and fusion energy. One important question in the field of HEDP is how plasmas emit or absorb radiation. Current models depicting radiation transport in dense plasmas are heavily based on theory rather than experimental evidence. In a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers at the University of Rochester Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) used LLE’s OMEGA laser to study how radiation travels through dense plasma....