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Fireflies have inspired scientists to modify LEDs so that they are more than one and a half times more efficient. Researchers have studied the internal structure of firefly lanterns, the organs responsible for the insects’ bioluminescence. The scientists published their findings in two papers in the journal Optics Express. The scientists identified an unexpected pattern of jagged scales, which enhances the overall glow. If this were to be applied to the LED design, it would create an LED overlayer that mimics the natural structure....

After studying blood samples from 244 patients hospitalized for COVID-19, a group of researchers, including those who work at the National Institutes of Health, identified “rogue antibodies” that correlate with severe illness and may help explain mechanisms associated with severe blood clotting. The researchers found circulating antiphospholipid antibodies, which can be more common among people with autoimmune disorders, such as lupus. However, these “autoantibodies,” which target a person’s own organs and systems, can also be activated in response to viral infections and activate other immune responses....

Compared to existing definitions, the results, which were recently published in the journal Nature Metabolism, provide a more nuanced understanding of obesity and might one day help in the development of more precise methods for diagnosing and treating obesity and related metabolic disorders. In addition, the research offers new information on the roles of epigenetics and chance in health and sheds light on the connection between insulin and obesity. “Nearly two billion people worldwide are considered overweight and there are more than 600 million people with obesity, yet we have no framework for stratifying individuals according to their more precise disease etiologies,” said J....

Their findings were published on August 26, 2019 in PeerJ. “Currently our knowledge of biology is quite limited because most studies have been performed using so-called model animals like mice, flies, worms and fish, etc. Given that millions of species exist on the earth, it is important to study various animals and broaden our knowledge,” said Yuichiro Nakajima, Assistant Professor at the Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences, Tohoku University in Japan, and corresponding author of the study....

Graphene is a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon. On the two-dimensional scale, the material is stronger than steel, but because graphene is so thin, it is still subject to ripping and tearing. Rebar graphene is the nanoscale analog of rebar (reinforcement bars) in concrete, in which embedded steel bars enhance the material’s strength and durability. Rebar graphene, developed by the Rice lab of chemist James Tour in 2014, uses carbon nanotubes for reinforcement....

In a new study performed at the Center for Nanoscale Materials at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, researchers have for the first time seen the self-assembly of nanoparticle chains in situ, that is, in place as it occurs in real-time. The scientists exposed a tiny liquid “cell” or pouch that contained gold nanoparticles covered with a positively charged coating to an intense beam of electrons generated with a transmission electron microscope....

Agronomists have been researching various alternative crops that will grow well in western Texas. This area is part of the Ogallala water aquifer, which has been hit extremely hard over the past few decades by drought. Another crop, sorghum, grows well with low water availability, but the yield can be greatly affected by drought conditions. Irish Lorraine B. Pabuayon, a researcher at Texas Tech University (TTU), is on the team looking at an alternative crop for west Texas: sesame....

New images of Europa and Ganymede, two future destinations for exciting new missions to the Jovian system, have been unveiled by planetary scientists from the University of Leicester’s School of Physics and Astronomy. As some of the sharpest images of Jupiter’s moons ever acquired from a ground-based observatory, they reveal new insights into the processes shaping the chemical composition of these massive moons – including geological features such as the long rift-like linae cutting across Europa’s surface....

The discovery also could help create synthetic materials and structures that realize the phenomenon, named after Nobel laureate Philip Anderson, whose theory describes how electrons can be brought to a complete halt in materials due to their “scattering and defects.” The new findings relate not to electrons, but to light transport. Researchers demonstrated how the nano-architecture of the silk fibers is capable of light “confinement,” a trait that could provide a range of technological applications including innovations that harness light for new types of medical therapies and biosensing....

SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, has wreaked havoc on health care systems, economies, and everyday lives worldwide. Scientists are fighting back with multiple strategies, including vaccines, repurposed drugs developed for other diseases and brand-new therapies. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have identified small molecules that target a structure within the RNA genome of SARS-CoV-2, interfering with viral gene expression and targeting the RNA for destruction. The SARS-CoV-2 RNA genome folds into unique shapes that can potentially be targeted by drugs....

The impact of such smaller eruptions has been underestimated in climate models, the researchers say, and helps to account for a discrepancy between those models and the actual temperatures observed over the last 15 years. The findings are reported in a paper in the journal Geophysical Review Letters, co-authored by MIT Professor Susan Solomon, postdoc David Ridley, and 15 others. They help to explain the apparent slowdown in the pace of global warming recorded over the last 10 to 15 years — possibly explaining as much as half of that slowdown, the researchers say....

Researchers at the University of Arizona are developing a COVID-19 testing method that uses a smartphone microscope to analyze saliva samples and deliver results in about 10 minutes. The University of Arizona research team, led by biomedical engineering professor Jeong-Yeol Yoon, aims to combine the speed of existing nasal swab antigen tests with the high accuracy of nasal swab PCR, or polymerase chain reaction, tests. The researchers are adapting an inexpensive method that they originally created to detect norovirus — the microbe famous for spreading on cruise ships — using a smartphone microscope....

In contrast to other planets that have been detected so far, some of Saturn’s aurorae are also produced by whirling winds deep beneath the planet’s atmosphere. At all other observed planets, including Earth, aurorae are only formed by powerful currents that flow into the planet’s atmosphere from the surrounding magnetosphere. These are driven by either interaction with charged particles from the Sun (as at the Earth) or volcanic material erupted from a moon orbiting the planet (as at Jupiter and Saturn)....

Image processing is at the core of several rapidly growing technologies, such as augmented reality, autonomous driving, and more general object recognition. But how does a computer find and recognize an object? The initial step is to understand where its boundaries are, hence edge detection in an image becomes the starting point for image recognition. Edge detection is typically performed digitally using integrated electronic circuits implying fundamental speed limitations and high energy consumption, or in an analog fashion which requires bulky optics....

Spritacular (pronounced sprite–tacular), NASA’s newest citizen science project, leverages the power of crowdsourcing to advance the study of sprites and other Transient Luminous Events, or TLEs. TLEs include a range of electrical phenomena that occur above thunderstorms and produce brief flashes of light. The new citizen science project aims to connect professional scientists with members of the public who would like their camerawork to contribute to scientific studies. “People capture wonderful images of sprites, but they’re shared sporadically over the internet and most of the scientific community is unaware of these captures,” said Dr....

The DNA-damaging bacterium Escherichia coli that flourishes in the digestive tracts of mice afflicted with inflammatory bowel disease has been linked to cancer. Scientists found that the microbiome plays a part in cancer. The researchers published their findings in the journal Science. There are trillions of microbes in the human gut that can potentially contribute to obesity and the risk of diseases like diabetes. Mice that have an inflammatory bowel disease contain higher proportions of toxin-producing bacteria, which could lead to colorectal cancers....

The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is a large-scale fluctuation in the atmospheric mass located between the area of subtropical high pressures and the low polar pressure in the North Atlantic basin, and is largely responsible for the periods of drought on the European continent. Previous studies show that the NAO has a great potential effect on various aspects, from carbon fixing and tree growth to fruit production and forestry pest cycles....

A joint study between the University of Melbourne and Victoria University, with collaborators at the German Diabetes Center, Monash University, and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, have successfully linked minutes of exercise to specific mitochondrial changes that support improved metabolism. In work published in Nature Communications recently, the University of Melbourne’s Dr. Stroud from the School of Biomedical Sciences, and colleagues detail how they used state-of-the art equipment at the University of Melbourne’s Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute’s Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics Faculty to analyze in detail how our muscles respond to exercise....

A novel state of matter has been discovered by physicists at the University of Leicester. In recent years, active, self-propelled particles have received growing interest amongst the scientific community. Examples of active particles and their systems are numerous and very diverse, ranging from bacterium films to flocks of birds or human crowds. These systems can demonstrate unusual behavior, which is challenging to understand or model. To this end, large-scale models of active particles were being scrutinized by experts at Leicester, in order to understand basic principles underlying active particle dynamics and apply them in a scenario of an evacuation strategy for customers in crowded place....

Somewhat confusingly, the 11 Terzan globular clusters are numbered from Terzan 1 to Terzan 12. This is due to a mistake Terzan made in 1971, when he rediscovered Terzan 5 — a cluster he had already discovered and reported back in 1968 — and named it Terzan 11. He published its discovery alongside those of Terzan 9, 10, and 12. He quickly realized his error, and attempted to have Terzan 12 renamed as Terzan 11....