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During the next six weeks, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will continue executing the series of asteroid approach maneuvers designed to fly the spacecraft through a precise corridor during its final slow approach to Bennu. The last of these, AAM-4, scheduled for November 12, will adjust the spacecraft’s trajectory to arrive at a position 12 miles (20 km) from Bennu on December 3. After arrival, the spacecraft will initiate asteroid proximity operations by performing a series of fly-bys over Bennu’s poles and the equator....

The new funding will support OzGrav’s work investigating the fundamental nature of relativistic gravity, ultra-dense matter, and the universe, generating critical discoveries to cement Australia’s leadership role in the growing field of gravitational wave science. Centre Director Professor Matthew Bailes says the funding will not only allow OzGrav make to landmark discoveries about the nature of our universe, but also lay the foundations for the Australian mega-science instruments that could transform physics in the 2030s and 2040s....

The scientists published their findings in the journal Science[1,2] and in pre-prints in arXiv.[3,4] It’s been theorized previously that there are many obstacles to quantum computing, such as the fact that certain quantum particles, like photons, have behaviors that are impossible to predict using ordinary computers. In the most recent studies, researchers have injected four identical photons into a network of beam splitters on a chip.[1] Thanks to quantum interference, which happens when photons strike a beam splitter simultaneously, the photons take a different path through the optical maze each time the experiment is run....

White dwarfs are glowing embers of stars that have burned through all their hydrogen fuel. Nearly all stars, including the Sun, will eventually become white dwarfs, but very little is known about their planetary systems. In the study, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, an international team of researchers measured light from a white dwarf in the Milky Way known as WD1054–226, using data from ground- and space-based telescopes....

DART will be the world’s first planetary defense test mission, heading for the small moonlet asteroid Dimorphos, which orbits a larger companion asteroid called Didymos, and intentionally crashing into the asteroid to slightly change its orbit. While neither asteroid poses a threat to Earth, DART’s kinetic impact will prove that a spacecraft can autonomously navigate to a target asteroid and kinetically impact it. Then, using Earth-based telescopes to measure the effects of the impact on the asteroid system, the mission will enhance modeling and predictive capabilities to help us better prepare for an actual asteroid threat should one ever be discovered....

A new study shows that the Bering Land Bridge, the strip of land that once connected Asia to Alaska, emerged far later during the last ice age than previously thought. The unexpected findings shorten the window of time that humans could have first migrated from Asia to the Americas across the Bering Land Bridge. The findings also indicate that there may be a less direct relationship between climate and global ice volume than scientists had thought, casting into doubt some explanations for the chain of events that causes ice age cycles....

Previous studies by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers showed that psychedelic treatment with psilocybin relieved major depressive disorder symptoms in adults for up to a month. Now, in a follow-up study of those participants, the researchers report that the substantial antidepressant effects of psilocybin-assisted therapy, given with supportive psychotherapy, may last at least a year for some patients. A report on the new study was published on February 15, 2022, in the Journal of Psychopharmacology....

The article analyzes the translation’s paper stock, style, and crucially the handwriting preserved in the manuscript to positively identify Elizabeth I as the translation’s author. Researchers here also trace the manuscript’s transmission from the Elizabethan Court to the Lambeth Palace Library, via the collection of Archbishop Thomas Tenison in the seventeenth century. Thanks to his interest in the Elizabethan court and in Francis Bacon, Tenison made the library at Lambeth one of the largest collections of State Papers from the Elizabethan era....

The device, named Wi-Peep, can fly close to a building and then utilize the WiFi network of the inhabitants to quickly identify and locate any WiFi-enabled devices within. The Wi-Peep exploits a loophole the researchers call polite WiFi. Even if a network is password protected, smart devices will automatically respond to contact attempts from any device within range. The Wi-Peep sends several messages to a device as it flies and then measures the response time on each, enabling it to identify the device’s location within a meter....

Researchers have found a new way to probe molecules and atoms with an X-ray laser, setting off cascading bursts of light that reveal precise details of what is going on inside. The technique may allow scientists to see details of chemical reactions and home in on the properties of specific elements within complex molecules in a way not possible before. The experiment at SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) demonstrated a new X-ray technique, called stimulated X-ray Raman scattering, in which samples absorb X-ray light and then emit it at a slightly different energy....

The quantum internet The power of the Internet is that it allows any two computers on Earth to be connected with each other, enabling applications undreamt of at the time of its creation decades ago. Today, researchers in many labs around the world are working towards first versions of a quantum internet — a network that can connect any two quantum devices, such as quantum computers or sensors, over large distances....

The findings were recently published in the journal Nature Genetics. Schizophrenia affects approximately 1 in every 100 people and is considered one of the most severe mental illnesses. It can disrupt a person’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, causing them to feel disconnected from reality. This can be a distressing experience for both the individual with schizophrenia and their loved ones. In the study—the first known work of its kind to investigate schizophrenia risk across diverse populations, particularly those of African ancestry—the investigators found the two risk genes, SRRM2 and AKAP11, by comparing the gene sequences of people with schizophrenia to those of healthy controls....

Hearing loss is a significant public health problem affecting almost 50 million people in the United States alone. Sensorineural hearing loss is the most common form and is caused by the loss of sensory hair cells in the cochlea. Hair cell loss results from a variety of factors including noise exposure, aging, toxins, infections, and certain antibiotics and anti-cancer drugs. Although hearing aids and cochlear implants can ameliorate the symptoms somewhat, there are no known treatments to restore hearing, because auditory hair cells in mammals, unlike those in birds or fish, do not regenerate once lost....

That’s changing with a new innovation developed by a team of researchers based in Japan. They designed a new method to improve the wear and corrosion resistance of the machines that produce super engineering plastics. The researchers published their results on August 27, 2019, in npj Materials Degradation, a Nature journal. “The global market for super engineering plastics has grown in recent years because they have remarkably high-temperature resistance, good mechanical strength, and exceptional chemical and solvent resistance in high-temperature environments,” said Kenta Yamanaka, paper author and associate professor of deformation processing at the Institute for Materials Research at Tohoku University....

Surfactant, a critical layer made of lipids and proteins, is essential for easy breathing by reducing surface tension in the lungs. Without surfactant, it would take more effort to breathe and a person would need mechanical help to do so. “Vaping continues to be popular but not much is known about what happens with the aerosol when it enters the lungs,” says Dr. Ruud Veldhuizen, Lawson Scientist and Professor at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry....

The circadian clock system (from Latin “circa diem,” about a day) allows the organisms to anticipate periodical changes of geophysical time, and to adjust to these changes. Nearly all the cells in our body comprise molecular clocks that regulate and synchronize metabolic functions to a 24-hour cycle of day-night changes. Today, increasing evidence shows that disturbances in our internal clocks stemming from frequent time zone changes, irregular working schedules, or aging, have a significant impact on the development of metabolic diseases in human beings, including type-2 diabetes....

Study stopped early by data safety monitoring board because of difficulty recruiting patients after COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China brought under control, so the true effectiveness of antiviral drug remdesivir remains unclear.Treatment with remdesivir did not speed recovery or reduce deaths from COVID-19 compared with placebo in hospitalized patients in the trial.While not statistically significant, pre-specified secondary outcomes found that time to clinical improvement and duration of invasive mechanical ventilation were shorter in people treated with remdesiver within 10 days of showing symptoms, compared to standard care....

Rice University astrophysicist Matthew Baring and his team were able to test a new theory about the cause of the uncommon slowdown, or “anti-glitch,” of SGR 1935+2154, a highly magnetic neutron star referred to as a magnetar, due to timely measurements from specialized orbiting telescopes. In a study published this month in Nature Astronomy, Baring and co-authors used X-ray data from the European Space Agency’s X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission (XMM-Newton) and NASA’s Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) to analyze the magnetar’s rotation....

Contemporary robots can move quickly. “The motors are fast, and they’re powerful,” says Sabrina Neuman. Yet in complex situations, like interactions with people, robots often don’t move quickly. “The hang up is what’s going on in the robot’s head,” she adds. Perceiving stimuli and calculating a response takes a “boatload of computation,” which limits reaction time, says Neuman, who recently graduated with a PhD from the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)....

Of the countless equinoxes Saturn has seen since the birth of the solar system, this one, captured here in a mosaic of light and dark, is the first witnessed up close by an emissary from Earth … none other than our faithful robotic explorer, Cassini in this image from 2009. Seen from our planet, the view of Saturn’s rings during equinox is extremely foreshortened and limited. But in orbit around Saturn, Cassini had no such problems....