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Researchers from the Morgridge Institute for Research, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Albany Medical College sought to better understand the molecular factors that drive the severity of COVID-19, and offer insight into treatment options for those with advanced disease. The collaborative study published online in Cell Systems identified more than 200 molecular features that strongly correlate with COVID-19 severity. “To my knowledge, this the largest outcome study,” says Dr. Ariel Jaitovich, a pulmonary and critical care physician at Albany Medical Center....

A new “return to campus” survey led by The Ohio State University’s Office of the Chief Wellness Officer finds rising rates of anxiety, depression, burnout and the use of unhealthy coping mechanisms among students navigating through a year affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, similar to other data on college students throughout the U.S. A new survey led by The Ohio State University’s Office of the Chief Wellness Officer found anxiety, depression and burnout are all on the rise among college students....

In Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, researchers from India and Australia describe the results of their collaboration in developing a computational evaluation of drug delivery through both pressurized metered-dose inhalers and dry powder inhalers to determine how the process can be improved. While inhalers have revolutionized the treatment of pulmonary diseases in the last few decades and are currently being used to administer drugs to patients infected by the COVID-19 virus, “their efficacy remains a great concern as only one-third of the total drug reaches the affected regions of the lungs,” said co-author Suvash C....

Scientists re-creating Titan-esque conditions in their laboratory have discovered new compounds and minerals not found on Earth, including a co-crystal made of solid acetylene and butane. Acetylene and butane exist on Earth as gases and are commonly used for welding and camp stove fuel. On Titan, with its extremely cold temperatures, acetylene and butane are solid and combine to form crystals, the new research found. The new mineral might be responsible for the bathtub rings that are suspected to exist around Titan’s hydrocarbon lakes, according to Morgan Cable of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, who will present the new research Monday at the 2019 Astrobiology Science Conference....

Jason-2/OSTM, a joint NASA mission with the French space agency Center National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), launched in June 2008. The mission extended the long-term record of sea surface height measurements started by the NASA-CNES TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1 missions. Jason-2/OSTM’s 11-year lifetime well exceeded its three-year design life. These measurements are being continued by its successor, Jason-3, launched in 2016....

Electricity generated by interactions between water molecules and metals may be turned into a source of energy, Tel Aviv University research reveals. The search for renewable energy sources, which include wind, solar, hydroelectric dams, geothermal, and biomass, has preoccupied scientists and policymakers alike, due to their enormous potential in the fight against climate change. A new Tel Aviv University study finds that water vapor in the atmosphere may serve as a potential renewable energy source in the future....

Research support was provided by the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (grants R01DK127800, R01DK113011, R01DK090625, F32DK122675, F30DK116481, F31DK130589, K99DK124682, R01DK104789 and R01DK119163), the National Institute on Aging (grants R01AG065988 and P01AG011412) and the American Heart Association Career Development Award (19CDA34670007). The connection between eating time, sleep, and obesity is well-known but poorly understood, with research showing that overnutrition can change fat tissue and disrupt circadian rhythms....

According to the researchers, between 25% and 50% of men have outlived women, casting doubt on the commonly held belief that men simply don’t live as long as women. They also point out that sometimes large differences in life expectancy can conceal significant overlap in lifespan between the sexes. The female survival advantage has been documented across many different populations over time. However, rather than comparing years lived, life expectancy is often used to compare sex differences in survival, and this has been interpreted as “men do not live as long as women,” the researchers state....

Since the 1500s, botanists and gardeners have known that some plant species have two forms of flowers that differ reciprocally in the length of their male and female sexual organs. Charles Darwin first proposed that such distylous flowers promoted efficient cross-pollination by insect pollinators. Early geneticists showed that the two forms of flowers were controlled by a single chromosomal region that likely harbored a cluster of genes, a supergene. Until recently, however, this supergene had never been sequenced....

Found in the northern reaches of the constellation Orion, NGC 2174 is located around 6,400 light-years away. Columns of dust, slightly to the right of center in the image, are being carved out of the dust by radiation and stellar winds from the hottest young stars recently born in the area. Spitzer’s infrared view provides us with a preview of the next clusters of stars that will be born in the coming millennia....

Contrary to a prevailing theory that has been recently called into question, new research from the University of Cincinnati (UC) bolsters a hypothesis that Alzheimer’s disease is caused by a decline in levels of a specific protein. UC researchers led by Alberto Espay, MD, and Andrea Sturchio, MD, in collaboration with the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, published the research on October 4, 2022, in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease....

Even with millions around the world facing the threat of famine or malnutrition, the production of feed for livestock and fish is tying up limited natural resources that could be used to produce more food for people. New research from Aalto University, published today (September 19) in Nature Food, shows how adjustments to the feeding of livestock and fish could maintain production while making more food available for people. These relatively simple changes would increase the global food supply significantly, providing calories for up to 13% more people....

NASA’s upcoming space telescope, the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, or SPHEREx, is one step closer to launch. The mission has officially entered Phase C, in NASA lingo. That means the agency has approved preliminary design plans for the observatory, and work can begin on creating a final, detailed design, as well as on building the hardware and software. Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, SPHEREx is scheduled to launch no earlier than June 2024 and no later than April 2025....

The magnetism of an atom is the result of electrons orbiting around the nucleus of the atom. These rotations can be divided into two categories. “Compare it with the Earth orbiting around the sun,” explains research leader Sander Otte. “On the one hand, the Earth orbits around the sun, which takes a year. On the other hand, the Earth also rotates around its own axis, which leads to the day/night cycle....

“Type 2 diabetes is a worldwide epidemic that affects one in 10 adults, and having diabetes is known to increase a person’s risk of developing dementia,” said study author Yingli Lu, MD, PhD, of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine in China. “We investigated whether a broad combination of healthy lifestyle habits could offset that dementia risk and found that people with diabetes who incorporated seven healthy lifestyle habits into their lives had a lower risk of dementia than people with diabetes who did not lead healthy lives....

Launched on December 9, 2021, IXPE, a collaboration between NASA and the Italian Space Agency, is the first satellite that can measure the polarization of X-ray light with this level of sensitivity and clarity. It was designed to discover the secrets of some of the most extreme objects in the universe – the remnants of supernova explosions, powerful particle streams spit out by feeding black holes, and more. All forms of light – from radio waves to gamma rays – can be polarized....

Swimming in indoor or outdoor pools is a healthy form of exercise and recreation for many people. However, studies have linked compounds that arise from chlorine disinfection of the pools to respiratory problems, including asthma, in avid swimmers. Now, researchers reporting in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology have found that using a complementary form of disinfection, known as copper-silver ionization (CSI), can decrease disinfection byproducts and cell toxicity of chlorinated swimming pool water....

In August 1849, a farmer named George Thorp noticed some odd, grooved bones poking up from a pile of dirt unearthed by railroad workers building a new line through Charlotte, Vermont. The bone came from a large animal, but not something familiar like a horse or cow. Thorp boxed up the mysterious bone and some others he found in the pile and sent them by wagon to University of Vermont naturalist Zadock Thompson....

As the COVID-19 virus continues to spread around the globe, studying aerosol and droplet transport within different environments can help establish effective, physics-informed measures for virus mitigation. One of the most important environments to gain a rapid understanding about COVID-19’s spread is inside the school classroom. Flow velocity distribution and particle size are key in aerosol transport, which is one of the main ways COVID-19 spreads, when aerosol particles are released during exhalation, talking, coughing, or sneezing....

Using specialized nanoparticles embedded in plant leaves, MIT engineers have created a light-emitting plant that can be charged by an LED. After 10 seconds of charging, plants glow brightly for several minutes, and they can be recharged repeatedly. These plants can produce light that is 10 times brighter than the first generation of glowing plants that the research group reported in 2017. “We wanted to create a light-emitting plant with particles that will absorb light, store some of it, and emit it gradually,” says Michael Strano, the Carbon P....