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Every step we take, every laugh we make, and every word we say requires energy. Mitochondria play a central role in our metabolism and energy production. Consequently, mitochondrial dysfunction causes a remarkably diverse group of metabolic diseases with a broad range of symptoms leading to severe disability. “Since the 1980s it was known that mutations in the mitochondrial DNA can lead to disease” explains James Stewart, group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing and continues “we have known of these patients for over 30 years and only now are we starting to develop treatments”....

SCHOTT at Mainz, Germany has completed the casting of the secondary mirror blank for ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). The completed mirror will be 4.2 meters in diameter and weigh 3.5 tonnes. It will be the largest secondary mirror ever employed on an optical telescope and also the largest convex mirror ever produced. ESO’s 39-meter Extremely Large Telescope will be the largest telescope of its kind ever built when it achieves first light in 2024....

Currently, there are no specific guidelines on the most effective materials and designs for facemasks to minimize the spread of droplets from coughs or sneezes to mitigate the transmission of COVID-19. While there have been prior studies on how medical-grade masks perform, data on cloth-based coverings used by the vast majority of the general public are sparse. Research from Florida Atlantic University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, just published in the journal Physics of Fluids, demonstrates through visualization of emulated coughs and sneezes, a method to assess the effectiveness of facemasks in obstructing droplets....

In manufacturing, controlling the three-dimensional shapes of macrocycles is critical. It helps decide, for example, whether the aroma in a perfume is unique or whether a prescription drug will work on a particular disease. But for synthetic chemists, those who study the construction of molecules, controlling the topology of the large rings has not been a straightforward process — until now, that is, thanks to research done at Université de Montréal....

Spitzer studied exoplanets (planets outside our solar system), distant galaxies, and cold matter found in the space between stars using infrared wavelengths between 3.6-160 microns until 2009 when it ran out of coolant. After the coolant was depleted, it studied wavelengths between 0.3-0.9 microns, which are primarily near infrared wavelengths, during its so called “warm mission.” SOFIA studies wavelengths of mid- and far-infrared light between 0.4-612 microns, letting scientists tackle big questions of how previously unseen forces shape the cosmos....

Just like our senses of hearing and vision, our sense of touch plays an important role in how we perceive and interact with the world around us. And technology capable of replicating our sense of touch — also known as haptic feedback — can greatly enhance human-computer and human-robot interfaces for applications such as medical rehabilitation and virtual reality. Scientists at EPFL’s Reconfigurable Robotics Lab (RRL), headed by Jamie Paik, and Laboratory for Soft Bioelectronic Interfaces (LSBI), headed by Stéphanie Lacour at the School of Engineering, have teamed up to develop a soft, flexible artificial skin made of silicone and electrodes....

The ongoing global pandemic has created an urgent need for rapid tests that can diagnose the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the pathogen that causes COVID-19, and distinguish it from other respiratory viruses. Now, researchers from Japan have demonstrated a new system for single-virion identification of common respiratory pathogens using a machine learning algorithm trained on changes in current across silicon nanopores. This work may lead to fast and accurate screening tests for diseases like COVID-19 and influenza....

Total lunar eclipses take place when the Moon moves completely into the shadow of the Earth. The Moon takes on a red color – the result of scattered sunlight refracted through the Earth’s atmosphere – but is much darker than normal. These spectacular events are regularly observed by astronomers and the wider public alike. The most recent lunar eclipse took place on 21 January 2019, with observers in North and South America and western Europe enjoying the best view....

The new distance measurements allowed astronomers to refine their calculation of the Hubble Constant, the expansion rate of the Universe, a value important for testing the theoretical model describing the composition and evolution of the Universe. The problem is that the new measurements exacerbate a discrepancy between previously measured values of the Hubble Constant and the value predicted by the model when applied to measurements of the cosmic microwave background made by the Planck satellite....

Data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton uncovered the account that began with a red giant star wandering too close to a supermassive black hole in a galaxy about 250 million light years from Earth. The black hole, located in a galaxy called GSN 069, has a mass about 400,000 times that of the Sun, putting it on the small end of the scale for supermassive black holes....

A new study finds that the pattern of heat coming from volcanoes on Io’s surface disposes of the generally-accepted model of internal heating. The heat pouring out of Io’s hundreds of erupting volcanoes indicates a complex, multi-layer source. These results come from data collected by NASA spacecraft and ground-based telescopes and appear in the June issue of the journal Icarus. A map of hot spots, classified by the amount of heat being emitted, shows the global distribution and wide range of volcanic activity on Io....

A new study has estimated for the first time how the eruption of Mount Tambora changed the probability of the cold and wet European ‘year without a summer’ of 1816. It found that the observed cold conditions were almost impossible without the eruption, and the wet conditions would have been less likely. 1816 recorded exceptionally low global temperatures, with central and Western Europe seeing a particularly cold and wet summer that led to widespread agricultural failures and famines....

Historic research based on group movements of humans and animals suggests three simple rules: move away from those that are too close.move toward those that are far away.match the direction of the movement of their neighbors. This research is especially useful for air travel when there is an increased risk for contagious infection or disease, such a durings the recent worldwide outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes COVID-19 disease....

The observation is reported in The Astrophysical Journal by a team of astronomers led by Carnegie’s Thomas Holoien, who is a founding member of the international network of telescopes that made the discovery — the Ohio State University based All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN). Tidal disruption events, or TDEs, occur when a star gets too close to a supermassive black hole — objects with immense gravitational pull that are thought to lie at the center of most large galaxies....

The asteroid Chariklo, which circles the Sun between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus, is surrounded by two thin rings of ice particles. It is thus the fifth body in the Solar System known to exhibit such a ring system – next to the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune – and the first rocky body. This result was obtained by an international observational campaign to which scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany contributed....

Pulsars — tiny spinning stars, heavier than the sun and smaller than a city — have puzzled scientists since they were discovered in 1967. Now, new observations by an international team, including University of Vermont astrophysicist Joanna Rankin, make these bizarre stars even more puzzling. The scientists identified a pulsar that is able to dramatically change the way in which it shines. In just a few seconds, the star can quiet its radio waves while at the same time it makes its X-ray emissions much brighter....

An unusually powerful tropical cyclone named Tauktae struck the Indian state of Gujarat on May 17, 2021. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite acquired this natural-color image of the storm a few hours before it made landfall between Porbandar and Mahuva. As Tauktae approached land, the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center reported maximum sustained winds of 100 knots (185 kilometers/125 miles per hour) and gusts up to 125 knots (230 kilometers/145 miles), equivalent to a category 3 or 4 hurricane....

NASA’s “You’ve Got Perseverance” awards opportunity invites U.S. teachers, educators, and community members to nominate students in grades 6-8 who have demonstrated that they have the right stuff to move past obstacles and reach their academic goals. The program will reward that dedication with recognition all the way from Mars. Events over these many months have taught us all about what it takes to persevere. Students have had to adapt and push forward through tough challenges – not unlike the team behind NASA’s Perseverance rover, which has overcome many obstacles to build, launch, and operate the mission on Mars....

Hannah Rowland head of the Max Planck Research Group on Predators and Toxic Prey at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology explains: “aposematism works because predators learn that eye-catching prey are best avoided. Predators learn faster when the visual signal is always the same. Bright orange means “`’don’t eat me’. But other scientists and I have repeatedly found that aposematic animals can have varying degrees of warning signal strength, and we wondered what about pale orange, or deep orange?...

One of the most remarkable aspects of modern cosmology is that the properties of the largest physical structures in the universe reveal the properties of the smallest. The largest structures include the grand patterns seen in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) and the filamentary collections and nodes of clusters of galaxies in the early universe; the smallest include the elusive neutrinos. These hard-to-detect particles were for many decades thought to have no mass and to travel at the speed of light, like photons (quanta /particles of light)....