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Emirati national Aisha Al Yazeedi, a research scientist at the NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Center for Astro, Particle, and Planetary Physics, has published her first research paper, featuring some key findings on the evolution of galaxies. Galaxies eventually undergo a phase in which they lose most of their gas, which results in a change into their properties over the course of their evolution. Current models for galaxy evolution suggest this should eventually happen to all galaxies, including our own Milky Way; Al Yazeedi and her team are delving into this process....

“One of the most recently discovered of these ‘large holes’ are called calcium homeostasis modulators (CALHMs),” said Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor Furukawa. “They’re basically pores on the surface of some cells such as neurons,” that let various molecules enter and exit the cell. As described recently in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, researchers from Furukawa’s lab showcased the detailed structure of two CALHMs and how they function. “If you have large holes in cells, you’d think the cells would burst open or shrink,” said Johanna Syrjanen, a postdoctoral researcher who helped lead the research....

Using a mixture of gold, copper and platinum nanoparticles, IBN researchers have developed a more powerful and longer-lasting fuel cell material. This breakthrough was published recently in the leading journal, Energy and Environmental Science. Fuel cells are a promising technology for use as a source of electricity to power electronic devices, vehicles, military aircraft and equipment. A fuel cell converts the chemical energy from hydrogen (fuel) into electricity through a chemical reaction with oxygen....

On August 20, NASA announced the selection of InSight, a new Discovery-class mission that will probe Mars at new depths by looking into the deep interior of Mars. “We are certainly excited, but our veterans on this team know the drill,” said Tom Hoffman, project manager for InSight from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “Which is fortunate, because one of the great things we’ll get to do on Mars is drill below the surface....

The ability to distinguish and isolate rare cells from among a large population of assorted cells has become increasingly important for the early detection of disease and for monitoring disease treatments. Circulating cancer tumor cells are a perfect example. Typically, there are only a handful of them among a billion healthy cells, yet they are precursors to metastasis, the spread of cancer that causes about 90 percent of cancer mortalities....

Research by the UK Center for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) at the University of Leeds has produced the first complete map of how the ice sheet’s submarine edge, or “grounding line,” is shifting. Most Antarctic glaciers flow straight into the ocean in deep submarine troughs, the grounding line is the place where their base leaves the sea floor and begins to float. Their study, published today in Nature Geoscience, shows that the Southern Ocean melted 1,463 km2 (565 mi2) of Antarctica’s underwater ice between 2010 and 2016 – an area the size of Greater London....

Achieving herd immunity to COVID-19 is an impractical public health strategy, according to a new model developed by University of Georgia scientists. The study recently appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Controlling COVID-19 has presented public health policymakers with a conundrum: How to prevent overwhelming their health care infrastructure, while avoiding major societal disruption? Debate has revolved around two proposed strategies. One school of thought aims for “suppression,” eliminating transmission in communities through drastic social distancing measures, while another strategy is “mitigation,” aiming to achieve herd immunity by permitting the infection of a sufficiently large proportion of the population while not exceeding health care capacity....

A new study from an international team of researchers has measured the lowest dust mass of a galaxy to date, leaving the researchers to believe that current theories to describe the formation of stars when the Universe was very young are incomplete, and are built on invalid assumptions. Dust may be more rare than expected in galaxies of the early Universe, according to an international research team, led by Swinburne University of Technology astrophysicist Dr David Fisher....

Lifestyle choices, such as diet and smoking, and illness all contribute to accelerating biological age beyond one’s chronological age. Researchers have discovered that grip strength, a measure of overall muscle strength, is linked to biological age in this way. In particular, the study, which was published in the Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia, and Muscle, found that people with weaker grip strength had older biological ages. Researchers at Michigan Medicine modeled the relationship between biological age and grip strength of 1,274 middle-aged and older adults using three “age acceleration clocks” based on DNA methylation, a process that provides a molecular biomarker and estimator of the pace of aging....

Coronavirus antibodies can last at least three months after a person becomes infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a new study published today in Science Immunology. Researchers from the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute (LTRI) at Sinai Health and the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto used both saliva and blood samples from COVID-19 patients to measure and compare antibody levels for over three months post-symptom onset....

The findings by researchers from Yale, the University of California-Los Angeles, Louisiana State University, and the University of Michigan were published March 12 in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. About 18,000 species of spiny-rayed fishes exist today, a diverse group that includes basses, tunas, deep-sea anglerfishes, pufferfishes, and seahorses, and that comprises more than 25% of all living vertebrate species. The research team analyzed more than 1,000 genes in living fish species and the spiny-rayed fish fossil record in order to estimate the timing of the evolutionary origin of the lineages that account for most of the species diversity of modern marine fishes....

Fibroblasts, the cells that form the protein structure beneath the surface of the skin, were once thought to be fairly uniform in their function. However, the new study found that subsets of fibroblasts may explain why skin regeneration is less robust in older people and how certain types of scars form. “These subsets of cells may explain different healing potentials in different people,” said senior author Valerie Horsley, associate professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology....

In order to promote health benefits for various American populations, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released evidence-based guidelines in 2018 that outline the recommended kinds and levels of physical exercise. However, patterns at the national population level indicate that there hasn’t been much progress made in meeting these recommendations. Mema and colleagues used earlier research demonstrating that peer social interactions may significantly increase physical activity within a community to help solve this problem....

After the probe’s mission ended in 2015, planetary scientists estimated Mercury’s crust was roughly 22 miles (35 kilometers) thick. One University of Arizona scientist disagrees. Using the most recent mathematical formulas, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory associate staff scientist Michael Sori estimates that the Mercurial crust is just 16 miles (26 kilometers) thick and is denser than aluminum. His study, “A Thin, Dense Crust for Mercury,” will be published on May 1 in Earth and Planetary Science Letters and is currently available online....

They found that some regions of the genome are more vulnerable to mutations, indicating that any mutations there might have catastrophic or fatal consequences. Their results might aid clinicians in looking for the causes of serious genetic diseases. The name of Siepel’s program is ExtRaINSIGHT. It searches for harmful mutations by looking for their absence. Every region of the human genome should, by chance, contain mutations, however certain regions have none....

The researchers, whose report was published on February 8, 2022, in JCI Insight, found that the drug disulfiram protected rodents from immune-mediated lung injury in two separate models of this type of injury: infection with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19, and a lung failure syndrome called TRALI that in rare cases occurs after blood transfusion. “As we learn more about the underlying biology of these lung injuries, we may be able to specifically target the processes that are damaging the lung tissue,” said senior co-author Dr....

Results from the initial primary analysis of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine trial conducted by Wits VIDA in SA have been published. The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published findings of the Phase 2b clinical trial conducted in South Africa. NEJM is recognized as the world’s leading medical journal. Shabir Madhi, Professor of Vaccinology, co-author of the study, and the Director of the Vaccines & Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit (Wits VIDA), led the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine trial in South Africa....

Addiction to social networking sites reduces nurses’ performance and affects their ability to concentrate on assigned tasks, according to a study published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing. The study found that nurses can take “self-management” steps to address the issue, however. For the study, information was collected through an online survey taken by nurses in 53 countries across the world. “Our study also has some important implications for hospital management, doctors, and nurses,” the authors wrote....

As is the case for other land planarians including the New Guinea flatworm, Platydemus manokwari, and giant hammerhead flatworms from Asia, already reported in France, the origin of the invasion by O. nungara is likely to be via the international trade of plants, since adult planarians and cocoons can easily travel in potted plants. However, in contrast to the previously recorded species of land planarians that have been found only in a limited part of the country, the flatworm Obama nungara is reported from an area representing three quarters of metropolitan France....

Imagined Music and Silence Trigger Similar Brain Activity Imagining a song triggers similar brain activity as moments of silence in music, according to a pair of studies recently published in JNeurosci. The results reveal how the brain continues responding to music, even when none is playing. When we listen to music, the brain attempts to predict what comes next. A surprise, such as a loud note or disharmonious chord, increases brain activity....