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The new findings, which help us understand the sun’s activity and ultimately could provide an early warning for solar storms, come from one of the four instrument suites aboard NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, a spacecraft that has completed its first passes near the fiery orb. Results from all four suites appear today in a set of articles published in the journal Nature. The finding that these energetic particle events are more varied and numerous than previously known was one of several discoveries made by the instrument suite known as the Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun (ISʘIS), a project led by Princeton University that involves multiple institutions as well as NASA....

In a study published on February 15, 2023, in the journal Nature, the team led by physicists at The Ohio State University reported on their finding of the key role that quantum geometry plays in allowing this twisted graphene to become a superconductor. Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms, the lead that is found in a pencil. In 2018, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology discovered that, under the right conditions, graphene could become a superconductor if one piece of graphene were laid on top of another piece and the layers were twisted to a specific angle – 1....

DNA’s unique structure is ideal for carrying genetic information, but scientists have recently found ways to exploit this versatile molecule for other purposes: By controlling DNA sequences, they can manipulate the molecule to form many different nanoscale shapes. Chemical and molecular engineers at MIT and Harvard University have now expanded this approach by using folded DNA to control the nanostructure of inorganic materials. After building DNA nanostructures of various shapes, they used the molecules as templates to create nanoscale patterns on sheets of graphene....

The study shows that remote fear memories from the distant past are permanently stored in the connections between memory neurons in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). “It is the prefrontal memory circuits that are progressively strengthened after traumatic events and this strengthening plays a critical role in how fear memories mature to stabilized forms in the cerebral cortex for permanent storage,” said Jun-Hyeong Cho, an associate professor of molecular, cell and systems biology, who led the study....

The gut microbiome undergoes rapid and dramatic changes in species composition and gene expression when the host switches between eating cooked or raw vegetables, according to a team of scientists led by the University of California San Francisco and Harvard University. Their new study, published in Nature Microbiology, is the first to investigate how this aspect of diet affects the microbiome, and included experiments in both mice and humans. The scientists also observed that mice lost weight during their stint eating raw vegetables (groups of animals were fed cooked and raw sweet potato, white potato, corn, peas, carrots, and beets), but when the microbiomes of these newly svelte mice were transplanted into other mice, the new hosts gained weight — an unexpected result that exemplifies how the interplay of gut microbes and host metabolism is complex, and requires further study....

Researchers have known from several lines of evidence that the ancient hominins known as the Denisovans interbred with modern humans in the distant past. Now researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on August 12, 2021, have discovered that the Philippine Negrito ethnic group known as the Ayta Magbukon have the highest level of Denisovan ancestry in the world. In fact, they carry considerably more Denisovan DNA than the Papuan Highlanders, who were previously known as the present-day population with the highest level of Denisovan ancestry....

And now, physicists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and their collaborators have demonstrated that computers are ready to tackle the universe’s greatest mysteries. The team fed thousands of images from simulated high-energy particle collisions to train computer networks to identify important features. The researchers programmed powerful arrays known as neural networks to serve as a sort of hivelike digital brain in analyzing and interpreting the images of the simulated particle debris left over from the collisions....

Researchers throughout the world are struggling to build a quantum computer. One of the great challenges is to overcome the sensitivity of quantum systems to decoherence, collapse of superpositions. One track within quantum computer research is therefore to make use of what are known as Majorana particles, which are also called Majorana fermions. Microsoft is also committed to the development of this type of quantum computer. Majorana fermions are highly original particles, quite unlike those that make up the materials around us....

Their research solves the mystery of forming two-dimensional quasicrystals from metal oxides and was recently published in the journal Nature Communications. Hexagons are frequently found in nature. The best-known example is honeycomb, but graphene or various metal oxides, such as titanium oxide, also form this structure. “Hexagons are an ideal pattern for periodic arrangements,” explains Dr. Stefan Förster, a researcher in the Surface and Interface Physics group at MLU’s Institute of Physics....

As more states legalize marijuana for both medicinal and recreational use and use increases nationwide, cardiologists should advise patients about the potential risks, including effects of marijuana with some commonly prescribed cardiovascular medications, according to a research review published today (January 20, 2020) in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The authors estimate that more than 2 million cardiovascular disease patients are currently using marijuana or have used marijuana previously....

Scientists have long puzzled over why areas such as South Africa’s Highveld region are so elevated and flat, with unexpectedly hot rocks below the surface. Geologists have revealed that carbon dioxide-rich gases bubbling up through natural springs in South Africa originate from a column of hot, treacle-like material— called a hotspot — located deep inside the Earth. Hotspots are known to generate volcanic activity in Hawaii, Iceland and Yellowstone National Park....

The U.S. Army’s Combat Capability Development’s Army Research Laboratory’s Center for Distributed Quantum Information, funded and managed by the lab’s Army Research Office, saw researchers at the University of Innsbruck achieve a record for the transfer of quantum entanglement between matter and light — a distance of 50 kilometers using fiber optic cables. Entanglement is a correlation that can be created between quantum entities such as qubits. When two qubits are entangled and a measurement is made on one, it will affect the outcome of a measurement made on the other, even if that second qubit is physically far away....

“Water is considered one of the fundamental requirements for life. This is the first stable body of liquid water ever found on Mars, and it could be considered a potential habitat,” explained Roberto Orosei, a lead scientist at the Institute of Radioastronomy in Italy who analyzed the data. The Red Planet was likely once rich in liquid water much like Earth, but has since become arid and desolate. Traces of water have been found in its atmosphere and leeching through its soils, but efforts to locate bodies of water — a likely place to find life as we know it — have not yet been successful....

Along the genome, proteins form liquid-like droplets that appear to boost the expression of particular genes. In recent years, MIT scientists have developed a new model for how key genes are controlled that suggests the cellular machinery that transcribes DNA into RNA forms specialized droplets called condensates. These droplets occur only at certain sites on the genome, helping to determine which genes are expressed in different types of cells. In a new study that supports that model, researchers at MIT and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research have discovered physical interactions between proteins and DNA that help explain why these droplets, which stimulate the transcription of nearby genes, tend to cluster along specific stretches of DNA known as super-enhancers....

As Arctic summers warm, Earth’s northern landscapes are changing. Using satellite images to track global tundra ecosystems over decades, a team of researchers finds the region has become greener as warmer air and soil temperatures lead to increased plant growth. “The Arctic tundra is one of the coldest biomes on Earth, and it’s also one of the most rapidly warming,” said Logan Berner, assistant research professor with Northern Arizona University’s School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems (SICCS), who led the research in collaboration with scientists at eight other institutions in the U....

In the summer of 2011, visitors to the University of California, Davis, Arboretum may have witnessed an unusual site: small teams of students wielding large nets, leaping into the arboretum’s waterway to snag basking turtles. The students weren’t in search of new pets — quite the opposite, in fact. The teams were part of a massive project to remove hundreds of invasive red-eared slider turtles from the arboretum in an effort to observe how California’s native western pond turtles fare in the absence of competitors....

A European Commission-funded project supported by the United Nations is calling for consumers to demand electronic and electrical products made with recycled plastic, and for manufacturers to redesign products to both improve recyclability and integrate recycled plastics in new products. The call is made by PolyCE (for Post-Consumer High-tech Recycled Polymers for a Circular Economy), a multinational consortium led by Fraunhofer IZM and consisting of universities (UN University, Bonn; University of Ghent, Belgium; Technical University Berlin; and University of Northampton, UK), civil society organizations (European Environmental Bureau), and numerous companies — including Philips and Whirlpool....

These giant penguins differed from their living descendants in the length of their front limbs and elongated beaks, perhaps suggesting differences in ecological roles when compared with living penguins. The preserved hindlimbs of the new North Island fossil are also significantly longer than all previously described specimens. Giovanardi adds, “The Kawhia giant penguin is mostly complete and largely articulated in life position, which helps a great deal with reconstructing the relatively long and slender body....

The answer has eluded scientists for centuries and, in the age of COVID-19, has come to represent one of the holy grails of biomedical research. Ed Chuong, an assistant professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU Boulder), proposes an intriguing answer: Exposure to ancient parasites by our ancestors forever altered our genome, shaping the varied responses of our immune systems today. “If you look closely at our genome, viruses have been shaping not only our lives but also our biology and evolution for hundreds of millions of years,” said Chuong, who today was awarded the prestigious $875,000 Packard Fellowship to explore the idea....

The daily time spent in moderate and intense physical activity is linked to mid-life brain power, according to new research published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. The results indicate that the optimal level for working memory and mental tasks, such as planning and organization, is at this intensity level. Replacing it with just 6-7 minutes of light-intensity activities or sedentary behavior per day is linked to decreased cognitive performance....