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Biology can be murky, and medicine involves dealing with very complex mixtures of molecules. A new technology developed at Northwestern University now offers some clarity to scientists with precision measurements of proteins down to their atoms. The powerful new approach, called individual ion mass spectrometry, or I2MS, can determine the exact mass of a huge range of intact proteins. It weighs each and every molecule on an individual basis. This ability promises to aid the understanding of disease and infection and accelerate the design of vaccines for deadly viruses, such as the coronavirus....

The primary objective of the NuSTAR observations was to study the supernova – the explosion of a star much more massive than our Sun – that appears as a bright blue-green spot at the upper right. These violent events can briefly produce enough visible light to outshine entire galaxies consisting of billions of stars. They also generate many of the chemical elements in our universe that are heavier than iron....

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), a condition that is becoming increasingly common in industrialized countries, is characterized by chronic gastrointestinal inflammation. While investigators have identified roughly 200 genetic tags associated with the disease, there is a limited understanding of the specific environmental factors that influence the risk and severity of IBD. A new study leverages multiple research platforms to systematically identify environmental chemical agents that influence gastrointestinal inflammation. The findings identify a common herbicide, propyzamide, that may promote inflammation in the small and large intestines....

A big problem with dinosaurs is that there seems to be too many meat-eaters. From studies of modern animals, there is a feeding pyramid, with plants at the bottom, then plant-eater1, and then meat-eaters at the top. A new study by scientists at the University of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences, published today (November 3, 2019) in the journal Palaeontology, shows that dinosaurian meat-eaters, the theropod dinosaurs, specialized a great deal, and so broadened their food base....

“I just remember on that day, not knowing whether I should believe it or not,” he remembers. Rather than celebrate, he thought, “Did I make a mistake? Am I doing this all wrong?” This animation shows a kind of stellar explosion called a Fast-Evolving Luminous Transient. In this case, a giant star “burps” out a shell of gas and dust about a year before exploding. Most of the energy from the supernova turns into light when it hits this previously ejected material, resulting in a short, but brilliant burst of radiation....

Facing looming policy uncertainty beyond 2012, the U.S. remained one of the fastest-growing wind power markets in the world in 2011—second only to China—according to a new report released by the U.S. Department of Energy and prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Roughly 6.8 gigawatts (GW) of new wind power capacity were connected to the U.S. grid in 2011—more than the 5.2 GW built in 2010, but below the 10 GW added in 2009....

These kinds of laboratory astrophysical experiments, in which efforts were made to mimic the behavior of space-borne plasmas and other phenomena, have had to rely on the apparatus of energy research or fundamental physics. Now, astrophysicists are trying to make the field a discipline in its own right, with its dedicated funding and equipment. In June, the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Washington DC created its first new discipline in 30 years, dedicated to laboratory-based astrophysics....

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, with the company’s uncrewed Dragon spacecraft on top, lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida right on time, at 8:30 p.m. EDT. Credit: NASA Dragon is now safely in orbit. A series of thruster firings will help Dragon reach the space station about 36 hours later. Upon its arrival, it will autonomously dock to the station’s Harmony module, with NASA astronaut Woody Hoburg monitoring operations....

At the Moon’s North and South Poles, the Sun is never more than 1.5° above or below the horizon. The resulting pattern of daylight and shadows is unlike anywhere else on the Moon — or the Earth. After zooming in on a small lunar highland area near the South Pole, this visualization recreates the illumination conditions there over a period of two lunar days, equal to two months on Earth....

The majority of children infected with SARS-CoV-2 may not show typical symptoms such as fever, cough, or shortness of breath, according to a study published in Scientific Reports, which examined data on 12,306 children with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 across the United States. Pakaj Arora and colleagues found that 18.8% of the children included in the study were recorded as having symptoms such as fever, malaise, muscle or joint pain, and disturbances of smell or taste....

Many states continue to lack the policies and preparations needed to address safety concerns of holding elections in November, despite the lessons learned in recent 2020 primary elections that were disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, according to new research from the RAND Corporation. Nine states have none of the policies that researchers judged as being most important to encourage safer voter participation during the 2020 elections. Meanwhile, 12 states and the District of Columbia — encompassing about one-third of registered voters in the U....

Mount Sharp stands in the middle of Gale Crater, which is 96 miles (154 kilometers) in diameter. This mound, which Curiosity has been climbing since 2014, likely formed in the presence of water at various points of time in Mars’ ancient history. That makes it an ideal place to study how water influenced the habitability of Mars billions of years ago. The scene has been white-balanced so the colors of the rock materials resemble how they would appear under daytime lighting conditions on Earth....

The LNU (Lake Napa Unit) Lightning Complex fire is near the Napa Valley in northern California and the SCU (Santa Clara Unit) Lightning Complex fire is near Santa Clara in northern California as well. Both fires began during a particularly large number of lighting strikes from thunderstorms on August 17-18. The measurement tool within the Worldview application can measure distances in miles and kilometers, and it can also measure square miles....

The experiment was done in a Mach 2.5 wind tunnel in the Gas Dynamics Laboratory in The Grainger College of Engineering at Illinois. Researchers mounted a large cylinder model and forced a high-pressure air supply mixed with a large amount of smoke particles across it. “We shine a laser at the smoke particles to illuminate a desired region and then we can take a picture of those particles from multiple angles....

Jessica U. Meir was selected by NASA in 2013. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Brown University, a Master of Science in Space Studies from the International Space University, and a Doctorate in Marine Biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography (UCSD). From 2000 to 2003, Dr. Meir worked for Lockheed Martin’s Human Research Facility, supporting human physiology research. During this time, she also participated in research flights on NASA’s reduced gravity aircraft and served as an aquanaut in an underwater habitat for NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO)....

It’s a longstanding question in biology: How do cells know when to progress through the cell cycle? In simple organisms such as yeast, cells divide once they reach a specific size. However, determining if this holds true for mammalian cells has been difficult, in part because there has been no good way to measure mammalian cell growth over time. Now, a team of MIT and Harvard Medical School (HMS) researchers has precisely measured the growth rates of single cells, allowing them to answer that fundamental question....

According to a new theory from researchers out of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, gravity may be the cause of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), the most common gastrointestinal disorder. Brennan Spiegel, MD, MSHS, director of Health Services Research at Cedars-Sinai and author of the hypothesis, explains that IBS—and many other conditions—could result from the body’s inability to manage gravity. “As long as there’s been life on Earth, from the earliest organisms to Homo sapiens, gravity has relentlessly shaped everything on the planet,” said Spiegel, who is also a professor of Medicine....

EPFL researchers have teamed up with startup Xsensio to develop a tiny, fully portable system that can encapsulate and analyze biomarkers in a person’s sweat. The low-power system, which fits on a chip measuring under 1 cm², was presented this week at the International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in San Francisco. The miniature chip was developed by researchers at EPFL’s Nanoelectronic Devices Laboratory (Nanolab), headed by Professor Adrian Ionescu, working in association with startup Xsensio....

Once primarily confined to healthcare settings, these resistant strains of bacteria are now commonly found in other places, especially marine environments. To date, few studies have looked at long-term trends in antibiotic resistance in pathogens isolated from wildlife populations. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in collaboration with Georgia Aquarium, the Medical University of South Carolina, and Colorado State University, conducted a unique, long-term study (2003 to 2015) of antibiotic resistance among pathogens isolated from bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in Florida’s Indian River Lagoon....

Now researchers at MIT have found a way to track the thickness of a droplet’s rim as it splashes up from a variety of surfaces. This incredibly specific measurement, they say, is key to predicting the number, size, and speed of smaller droplets that can be ejected from the rim, into the air. Lydia Bourouiba, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Fluid Dynamics of Disease Transmission Laboratory at MIT, says the group’s results can be used to model the physics of sprays, such as pesticides that splash back up from crop leaves, or raindrops that may pick up and spread diseases as they bounce off contaminated surfaces....