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As case rates of COVID-19 reach new heights across the nation, many states and cities are tightening stay-at-home restrictions to stop the spread. New research suggests that those suffering from economic hardships are less likely comply with new stay-at-home orders; however, these same U.S. residents would be more likely to adhere to the new public health guidelines if their households received stimulus funds. The results, published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, suggest that of the measures taken to address economic dislocation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the CARES Act helped reduce an important source of viral spread: social interaction....

There are many instances in the animal world where males have shorter lifespans than females, which scientists attribute to the deleterious effects of testosterone. However, historical scientists that have been looking at records of Korean eunuch castrated during boyhood have now discovered that they lived considerably longer. The scientists published their findings in the journal Current Biology. The study supports the idea that male sex hormones decrease the lifespan of men....

Mammals that eat foods that need to be cut, like leaves and grasses, have sharper, more complex molars (i.e. more cusps and crests) , while mammals that eat foods that need to be crushed, like fruits and nuts, have duller, less complex molars. The researchers used a technique known as dental topography to measure molar sharpness, complexity, and other aspects of tooth shape in South African hominins to reconstruct the diet of Homo naledi....

Bright knots constantly form and dissipate in the disk as magnetic fields wind and twist through the churning gas. Nearest the black hole, the gas orbits at close to the speed of light, while the outer portions spin a bit more slowly. This difference stretches and shears the bright knots, producing light and dark lanes in the disk. Viewed from the side, the disk looks brighter on the left than it does on the right....

Large-scale supercomputer simulations at the atomic level show that the dominant G form variant of the COVID-19-causing virus is more infectious partly because of its greater ability to readily bind to its target host receptor in the body, compared to other variants. These research results from a Los Alamos National Laboratory–led team illuminate the mechanism of both infection by the G form and antibody resistance against it, which could help in future vaccine development....

After the initial discovery, observers around the world rapidly set their eyes on the ‘new’ space rock, determining it would safely pass our planet in one of the closest flybys ever recorded. While the asteroid, now named 2020 HS7, came close to the geostationary ring, it passed ‘under’ the nearest satellite and posed no major risk as their orbits did not intersect. UFO spotted in Hawaii On the evening of April 27 (European time), NASA’s Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) in Hawaii reported observations of a new asteroid, temporarily labeled P20ZIf8....

A new paper published in Geophysical Research Letters will help by providing a map of water ice believed to be as little as an inch (2.5 centimeters or 1 inch) below the surface. Water ice will be a key consideration for any potential landing site. With little room to spare aboard a spacecraft, any human missions to Mars will have to harvest what’s already available for drinking water and making rocket fuel....

Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the EPFL have shown how motivation changes the brain circuits in mice that control sensory perception before making decisions. The research explains why having too much or too little motivation might impact our perception and therefore our decisions. These findings, which were published in the journal Neuron, provide new insight into learning strategies. Many of our choices, like picking a restaurant for lunch or getting up early to go to work, are driven by demands like making money or sating our hunger....

The 2021 deployment of NASA’s oceanographic field campaign, called Export Processes in the Ocean from Remote Sensing (EXPORTS), consists of 150 scientists and crew from more than 30 governmental, university, and private non-governmental institutions. The team is spread across three oceanographic research vessels, who will meet in international waters west of Ireland over the underwater Porcupine Abyssal plain. Throughout the field campaign, scientists will be deploying a variety of instruments from aboard the three ships: the RRS James Cook and the RRS Discovery, operated by the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, UK, plus a third vessel chartered by the Ocean Twilight Zone project of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and operated by the Marine Technology Unit in Vigo, Spain....

Researchers have developed a deep-learning model that maps fuel moisture levels in fine detail across 12 western states, opening a door for better fire predictions. As California and the American West head into fire season amid the coronavirus pandemic, scientists are harnessing artificial intelligence and new satellite data to help predict blazes across the region. Anticipating where a fire is likely to ignite and how it might spread requires information about how much burnable plant material exists on the landscape and its dryness....

“Super-spreader” events and extensive person-to-person contact propelled an outbreak of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in a small village in Argentina from 2018-2019, according to research published in The New England Journal of Medicine. In the paper, an international scientific team reports the genetic, clinical, and epidemiologic features of the outbreak caused by the Andes virus, a member of the hantavirus family. The group’s analysis could aid clinicians and public health officials in managing outbreaks of other viral diseases with similar transmission patterns, including COVID-19....

However, researchers have now succeeded in observing these interactions for the first time by utilizing a technique commonly used for measuring extremely small masses and molecular interactions at the nanoscale. The findings were recently published in the journal Nature Communications. Many materials take a layered form at the microscopic or nano-scale. When dry, clays for example resemble a series of sheets stacked upon each other. When such layered materials encounter water, however, that water can be confined and integrated into the gaps or holes—or, more accurately, the ‘pores’—between layers....

However, now, work published in Nature by an international team of scientists led by Dr. Cantas Alev, at the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology (ASHBi) in Kyoto University, has uncovered using their own mallet and chisel –a petri dish and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)– how the early stages of the human body plan are established. Similar to other organisms within the animal kingdom, the human body consists of repetitive anatomical units or segments – a prominent example being the vertebrae of the human spine....

Dubbed XMM-2599, the galaxy formed stars at a high rate and then died. Why it suddenly stopped forming stars is unclear. “Even before the universe was 2 billion years old, XMM-2599 had already formed a mass of more than 300 billion suns, making it an ultramassive galaxy,” said Benjamin Forrest, a postdoctoral researcher in the UC Riverside Department of Physics and Astronomy and the study’s lead author. “More remarkably, we show that XMM-2599 formed most of its stars in a huge frenzy when the universe was less than 1 billion years old, and then became inactive by the time the universe was only 1....

Jeong-Yeol Yoon, a researcher in the Department of Biomedical Engineering; Soo Chung, a biosystems engineering doctoral student who works in Yoon’s Biosensors Lab; and Kelly A. Reynolds, Chair of the Department of Community, Environment, and Policy in the Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, led the project. The team published their results in ACS Omega, the official journal of the American Chemical Society, and Yoon is presenting the research at the ACS Fall 2019 National Meeting & Exposition in San Diego this week....

As its name indicates, an IDP does not adopt an ordered, static structure like other proteins; instead, it’s flexible and can adopt multiple 3D structures. This lack of a unique structure is necessary for the IDP’s biological function but makes it technically challenging to study. IDPs may be a whole protein or a domain of an otherwise structured protein, and they make up a large portion of human, microbe, and plant proteins....

The study, which was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, demonstrated that using a digital device may aid in the storage and recall of very important information. Their memory is thus freed up to remember other, less important things. Neuroscientists have previously raised worry that excessive use of technology might lead to cognitive decline and “digital dementia”. The new study, however, demonstrates that utilizing a digital device as external memory helps individuals recall knowledge not only saved into the device, but it also helps them to remember unsaved information too....

The research, published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, shows health problems associated with e-cigarettes existed well before summer 2019 when vaping-associated pulmonary illness, or VAPI, was recognized by the medical community. This development suggests many more e-cigarette users may have serious symptoms. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, linked VAPI to vitamin E. A number of VAPI cases are not, however, linked to the vitamin....

This year’s flu, called H3N2, is affecting many people this season and this three-minute video with NPR’s Robert Krulwich and medical animator David Bolinsky explains how a flu virus can trick a single cell into making a million more viruses. A lot of you have had it by now, or are having it or are about to be exposed. This year’s flu is called “H3N2” and this week it’s doing big business in about 47 states, Chicago and New York....

These findings may prompt a review of public health policies related to salt intake, with the goal of reducing the amount of salt used in processed foods. It is recommended that adults consume no more than 6 grams of salt per day, but most people consume around 9 grams on a regular basis. This can contribute to higher blood pressure, which increases the risks of heart attacks, strokes, and vascular dementia....