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Promising alternative to address increasing mental health needs due to pandemic, study says. Computer- and smartphone-based treatments appear to be effective in reducing symptoms of depression, and while it remains unclear whether they are as effective as face-to-face psychotherapy, they offer a promising alternative to address the growing mental health needs spawned by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. “The year 2020 marked 30 years since the first paper was published on a digital intervention for the treatment of depression....

Dinosaur “mummies” aren’t as exceptional as we might expect. That’s because of a relatively simple process of desiccation (drying out) and deflation, according to a study by Stephanie Drumheller of the University of Tennessee–Knoxville and colleagues that was published on October 12, 2022, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. The term “mummy” is often used to describe dinosaur fossils with fossilized skin. These are relatively rare. Many scientists believe that such fossils only form under exceptional circumstances....

But how worried should we really be – and what would happen if such a body actually hit us? It has been my experience that killer asteroids tend to strike in the summer months, when news is thin on the ground. Maybe we are so tired of grim news about the spread of the omicron COVID-19 variant and associated problems that a killer asteroid (or comet) makes a refreshing change....

Rice materials scientist Enrique Barrera and his colleagues used atomic-level models of double-walled nanotubes to see how they might be tuned for applications that require particular properties. They knew from others’ work that double-walled nanotubes are stronger and stiffer than their single-walled cousins. But they found it may someday be possible to tune double-walled tubes for specific electronic properties by controlling their configuration, chiral angles and the distance between the walls....

We tend to take our skin’s protective function for granted, ignoring its other roles in signaling subtleties like a fluttering heart or a flush of embarrassment. Now, Stanford engineers have developed a way to detect physiological signals emanating from the skin with sensors that stick like band-aids and beam wireless readings to a receiver clipped onto clothing. To demonstrate this wearable technology, the researchers stuck sensors to the wrist and abdomen of one test subject to monitor the person’s pulse and respiration by detecting how their skin stretched and contracted with each heartbeat or breath....

The presented propulsion system for the maneuvering nanosatellite SamSat-M (its dimensions are 10x10x30 cm) is electrothermal. The scientists proposed a mixture of distilled water and ethyl alcohol as the working body of the propulsion system. Their choice was explained by the fact that a small molecular mass of water allows obtaining high rates of steam outflow, and, accordingly, a high maneuvering speed. And the addition of alcohol (about 40% of the mixture) prevents the working body from freezing at low temperatures in near-Earth orbits....

For decades pollution in China has paralleled economic growth. But this connection has been weakened in recent years, according to a new international research study published in the Science Advances journal. The study was conducted by an international team of researchers from five countries, including Deliang Chen, a professor of physical meteorology at the University of Gothenburg and a Coordinating Lead Author of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)....

An ancient fossil found in Canada reveals new insights into how the human hand evolved from fish fins. An international team of paleontologists from Flinders University in Australia and Universite du Quebec a Rimouski in Canada have revealed the fish specimen, as described in the journal Nature, has yielded the missing evolutionary link in the fish to tetrapod transition, as fish began to foray in habitats such as shallow water and land during the Late Devonian period millions of years ago....

According to the research findings, intravenous (IV) administration of the vaccine boosted the number of cytotoxic T cells capable of infiltrating and attacking tumor cells and engaged the innate immune system by inducing type I interferon. The innate immune response modified the tumor microenvironment, counteracting suppressive forces that otherwise would tamp down T-cell action. Modification of the tumor microenvironment was not found in mice that received the vaccine via subcutaneous administration (i....

Pulmonologist outlines factors that could determine severity of ’20/’21 flu season. As if the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t scary enough, flu season is not far away. How severe will the flu season be as it converges with the COVID-19 outbreak? What can we do to prepare? Dr. Benjamin Singer, a Northwestern Medicine pulmonologist who treats COVID-19 patients in the intensive care unit, outlines the best defense against influenza, which also may protect against coronavirus....

Even as vaccines are becoming more readily available in the U.S., protecting against the asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic spread of the virus (SARS-CoV-2) that causes COVID-19 is key to ending the pandemic, say two Georgetown infectious disease experts. In their Perspective, “SARS-CoV-2 Transmission Without Symptoms” published on March 19, 2021, in the journal Science, Angela L. Rasmussen, PhD, and Saskia V. Popescu, PhD, MA, faculty affiliates of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University Medical Center, make the case that symptomless transmission silently drives viral spread and is key to ending the pandemic....

The Strait of Gibraltar connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean and separates southernmost Spain from northernmost Africa. The channel is 58 km long and narrows to 13 km in width between Point Marroquí (Spain) and Point Cires (Morocco). Ferries and vessels can be seen traveling across the strait and crossing between the two continents. This false-color image, captured on October 28, 2020, was processed in a way that included the near-infrared channel....

New research to be presented at this year’s annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Barcelona, Spain (September 16-20, 2019) shows that specialist analysis of the lens in the eye can predict patients with type 2 diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) (also known as prediabetes, a condition that often leads to full-blown type 2 diabetes). This early pilot study is by Dr. Mitra Tavakoli, University of Exeter Medical School, Exeter, UK....

Thanks to the ESA Gaia spacecraft’s precise measurements, astronomers at the University of Vienna have now discovered that what we call a star cluster is only the tip of the iceberg of a much larger and often distinctly elongated distribution of stars. “Our measurements reveal the vast numbers of sibling stars surrounding the well-known cores of the star clusters for the first time. It appears that star clusters are enclosed in rich halos, or coronae, more than 10 times as large as the original cluster, reaching far beyond our previous guesses....

NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere spacecraft — AIM for short — first spotted wisps of these noctilucent, or night-shining, clouds over the Arctic on May 17, 2020. In the week that followed, the ghost-like wisps grew into a blur, quickly filling more of the Arctic sky. This is the second-earliest start of the northern season yet observed, and the season is expected to run through mid-August. The seasonal clouds hover high above the ground, about 50 miles overhead in a layer of the atmosphere called the mesosphere....

NASA’s most advanced Mars rover Curiosity has landed on the Red Planet. The one-ton rover, hanging by ropes from a rocket backpack, touched down onto Mars Sunday to end a 36-week flight and begin a two-year investigation. The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft that carried Curiosity succeeded in every step of the most complex landing ever attempted on Mars, including the final severing of the bridle cords and flyaway maneuver of the rocket backpack....

First large-scale peer-reviewed study of real-world effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccine by Israel’s Clalit Research Institute published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Major study, conducted in collaboration with researchers from Harvard University, examined data on 600,000 vaccinated individuals in Israel, along with 600,000 matched unvaccinated controls. Two doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine reduced symptomatic COVID-19 by 94% and severe disease by 92%; Single dose reduced symptomatic COVID-19 by 57% and severe disease by 62%; Vaccine effectiveness was found to be similar across age groups; B....

The team of chemists and composite materials researchers discovered a broadly applicable method of bonding plastics and synthetic fibers at the molecular level in a procedure called cross-linking. The cross-linking takes effect when the adhesive is exposed to heat or long-wave UV light making strong connections that are both impact-resistant and corrosion-resistant. Even with a minimal amount of cross-linking, the materials are tightly bonded. “It turns out the adhesive is particularly effective in high-density polyethylene, which is an important plastic used in bottles, piping, geomembranes, plastic lumber, and many other applications,” says Professor Abbas Milani, director of UBC’s Materials and Manufacturing Research Institute, and the lead researcher at the Okanagan node of the Composite Research Network....

The lifespan for individual honey bees kept in a controlled, laboratory environment is 50% shorter than it was in the 1970s according to a new study by University of Maryland entomologists. When scientists modeled the effect of today’s shorter lifespans, the results corresponded with the reduced honey production trends and increased colony loss seen by U.S. beekeepers in recent decades. Bee colonies naturally age and die off, making colony turnover an accepted factor in the beekeeping business....

According to a new model created by UW research professor James Anderson, this genetically predetermined limit on your immune system may be the key to why COVID-19 has such a devastating effect on the elderly. Anderson is the lead author of a paper published on March 31, 2022, in the journal The Lancet eBioMedicine detailing this modeled link between aging, COVID-19, and mortality. “When DNA split in cell division, the end cap — called a telomere — gets a little shorter with each division,” explains Anderson, who is a modeler of biological systems in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences....