Posts

Aphids can be born pregnant and males sometimes lack mouths, causing them to die after mating. New work indicates that they might also capture sunlight and use it for metabolic purposes, akin to what plants accomplish with photosynthesis. The researchers published their findings in the journal Scientific Reports. Aphids have the unique ability, not just among insects but among animals, to synthesize pigments called carotenoids. These are used by animals and insects to maintain healthy immune systems, making certain vitamins....

In a study described in the journal Scientific Reports, Duke Health researchers sought to understand how intermittent binge drinking changes the hippocampus — a region long known to be critical for learning and memory, and also linked to anxiety — and whether the drug, donepezil, could reverse those changes. Rats were used as a model for teens and young adults who binge drink a few times a week. “Research has begun to show that human adolescents who drink early and consistently across the adolescent years have some deficits in brain function that can affect learning and memory, as well as anxiety and social behaviors,” said senior author Scott Swartzwelder, Ph....

Novel approach finds targets for future clinical trials in depression and Parkinson’s disease. Researchers have made significant advancements in correlating aberrations in specific brain circuits with neuropsychiatric conditions like depression. However, it remains difficult to prove that damage to these circuits causes the symptoms themselves and that targeting them with therapeutics could help patients. By integrating brain lesion datasets with data on how two treatments — deep brain stimulation (DBS) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) — influence neuropsychiatric disorders, researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and collaborators developed a new brain mapping approach that may help clarify the cause of a variety of neuropsychiatric conditions and identify promising stimulation sites to target therapeutically....

Catalytic converters cut down on toxic car emissions, and, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, they’re one of the greatest environmental inventions of all time. Today, catalytic converter theft is on the rise, and that’s partly because of their chemistry. Video Transcript: If you turn on your car and it sounds like a lawnmower, congratulations! Your catalytic converter has been stolen. Apparently, that’s been happening to a lot of people lately....

Co-developed by Harvard Medical School researchers and colleagues, a new computer-based simulation tool, the Cataract Master, aims to minimize clinical risk while providing residents and practicing ophthalmologists with the most authentic cataract surgical experience possible outside of the operating room. Phacoemulsification cataract surgery is one of the most frequently performed eye surgeries in the United States, with 1.5 million procedures undertaken each year. It is also one of the most complex procedures to learn....

CERN is famous for its circular accelerators, in particular the 27-kilometer-circumference Large Hadron Collider. But the protons that circulate in these bigger machines first undergo acceleration in a humble and relatively small linear accelerator, or linac. In 2018, Linac 2, which had fed protons to CERN’s accelerator complex since 1978, was finally retired, with the 86-meter-long Linac 4 ready to take its place. But a new machine comes with new challenges for the team operating it....

The discovery was made in Cygnus A, a large galaxy in the middle of a cluster of galaxies about 760 million light years from Earth. Chandra data show powerful jets of particles and electromagnetic energy blasting away from a rapidly growing black hole at the center of Cygnus A. After traveling more than 200,000 light years on either side of the black hole, the jets have slowed down via their interaction with multimillion-degree intergalactic gas that envelopes Cygnus A....

The Wuhan coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, or 2019-nCoV, is a close relative to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus that caused an outbreak in 2003 (SARS-CoV-1), as well as the Middle-East respiratory disease virus (MERS-CoV) that emerged in 2012. All of these viruses cause flu-like symptoms and, frequently, pneumonia. However, no effective treatments have been developed, in part because the relatively small number of cases have not warranted large expenditures by pharmaceutical companies....

Scientists have long believed that comets and, or a type of very primitive meteorite called carbonaceous chondrites were the sources of early Earth’s volatile elements—which include hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon—and possibly organic material, too. Understanding where these volatiles came from is crucial for determining the origins of both water and life on the planet. New research led by Carnegie’s Conel Alexander focuses on frozen water that was distributed throughout much of the early Solar System, but probably not in the materials that aggregated to initially form Earth....

Swirling around the planet’s equator, the rings of Saturn are an obvious indicator that the planet is spinning at a tilt. The belted gas giant rotates at a 26.7-degree angle relative to the plane in which it orbits the sun. Because Saturn’s tilt precesses, like a spinning top, at nearly the same rate as the orbit of its neighbor Neptune, astronomers have long suspected that this tilt comes from gravitational interactions with Neptune....

Scientists with Arizona State University connections are important contributors to a newly published article in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The smoke from BB events produces large amounts of aerosol particles and gases. These emissions can cause major problems for visibility and health, as well as for local and global climate. BB emissions are expected to increase in the future as a result of climate change....

This composite image made from five frames shows the International Space Station, with a crew of nine onboard, in silhouette as it transits the sun at roughly 5 miles per second, Sunday, September 6, 2015, Shenandoah National Park, Front Royal, VA. Onboard are; NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren: Russian Cosmonauts Gennady Padalka, Mikhail Kornienko, Oleg Kononenko, Sergey Volkov, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, Danish Astronaut Andreas Mogensen, and Kazakhstan Cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov....

Since its inception, Bakaya has guided Renewlogy through multiple businesses and product transformations to maximize its impact. During the company’s evolution from a garage-based startup to a global driver of sustainability, it has licensed its technology to waste management companies in the U.S. and Canada, created community-driven supply chains for processing nonrecycled plastic, and started a nonprofit, Renew Oceans, to reduce the flow of plastic into the world’s oceans. The latter project has brought Bakaya and her team to one of the most polluted rivers in the world, the Ganges....

A new assessment tool developed by Kaiser Permanente researchers and physicians helps guide clinical decisions in emergency departments and urgent care centers. A study published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine this month reports on an assessment tool developed by Kaiser Permanente researchers and physicians that helps ensure patients get the right care, when they need it, by accurately predicting the probability that patients with COVID-19 symptoms will experience severe disease or even death....

Newspapers around the world printed the discovery on their front pages: Astronomers had found that a red dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1 was home to a close-knit family of seven Earth-size planets. NASA announced the system on February 22, 2017. Using telescopes on the ground and in space, scientists revealed one of the most unusual planetary systems yet found beyond our Sun and opened the tantalizing question: Are any of these worlds habitable – a suitable home for life?...

An international team of scientists, studying evidence preserved in speleothems in a coastal cave, illustrate that more than three million years ago – a time in which the Earth was two to three degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial era – sea level was as much as 16 meters higher than the present day. Their findings represent significant implications for understanding and predicting the pace of current-day sea level rise amid a warming climate....

A loss of biodiversity and accelerating climate change in the coming decades coupled with ignorance and inaction is threatening the survival of all species, including our very own, according to the experts from institutions including Stanford University, UCLA, and Flinders University. The researchers state that world leaders need a ‘cold shower’ regarding the state of our environment, both to plan and act to avoid a ghastly future. Lead author Professor Corey Bradshaw of Flinders University in Australia says he and his colleagues have summarized the state of the natural world in stark form to help clarify the gravity of the human predicament....

Remarkable image sets from NASA’s Curiosity rover and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are continuing to develop the story of Curiosity’s landing and first days on Mars. The images from Curiosity’s just-activated navigation cameras, or Navcams, include the rover’s first self-portrait, looking down at its deck from above. Another Navcam image set, in lower-resolution thumbnails, is the first 360-degree view of Curiosity’s new home in Gale Crater. Also downlinked were two, higher-resolution Navcams providing the most detailed depiction to date of the surface adjacent to the rover....

Halide perovskites are organic materials made from abundant, inexpensive ingredients, and Rice’s seeded growth method addresses both performance and production issues that have held back halide perovskite photovoltaic technology. In a study published online in Advanced Materials, chemical engineers from Rice’s Brown School of Engineering describe how to make the seeds and use them to grow homogenous thin films, highly sought materials comprised of uniformly thick layers. In laboratory tests, photovoltaic devices made from the films proved both efficient and reliable, a previously problematic combination for devices made from either 3D or 2D perovskites....

More than three hundred years after Antonie van Leeuwenhoek used one of the earliest microscopes to describe human sperm as having a “tail, which, when swimming, lashes with a snakelike movement, like eels in water,” scientists have revealed this is an optical illusion. Using state-of-the-art 3D microscopy and mathematics, Dr. Hermes Gadelha from the University of Bristol, Dr. Gabriel Corkidi, and Dr. Alberto Darszon from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, have pioneered the reconstruction of the true movement of the sperm tail in 3D....