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Infrared (IR) thermography is used to determine the temperature of humans and objects with high precision and without interfering with the system. A single image taken with an IR camera can capture the same amount of information as hundreds to millions of thermocouples (temperature sensors) at once. Furthermore, modern IR cameras can achieve fast acquisition frequencies of over 50 Hz, which allows the investigation of dynamic phenomena with high resolution....

Infections treated with specialty hospital care in early- and mid-life are associated with an increased subsequent risk of Alzheimer’s (AD) and Parkinson’s diseases (PD), but not amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This is according to a new study published recently in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine by Jiangwei Sun of Karolinska Institute, Sweden, and colleagues. Experimental studies in animals have indicated that infection plays a role in the development of some neurodegenerative diseases....

Superconductivity is a remarkable phenomenon: superconductors can transport electric current without any resistance and thus without any losses whatsoever. It is already in use in some niche areas, for example as magnets for nuclear spin tomography or particle accelerators. However, the materials must be cooled to very low temperatures for this purpose. But during the past year, an experiment has provided some surprise. With the aid of short infrared laser pulses, researchers have succeeded for the first time in making a ceramic superconducting at room temperature – albeit for only a few millionths of a microsecond....

By creating a microdevice that mimics lung function on single-cell levels, researchers at Rutgers, Yale, and Johns Hopkins have learned more about asthmatic trigger response, leading to better treatment. Researchers at Rutgers and other institutions have discovered how muscle contraction (bronchospasm) in the airway, which causes breathing difficulty in people with asthma, occurs by creating a microdevice that mimics the behavior of the human airways. The study, published in the July 2019 issue of the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering and previously online, could lead to new treatment strategies for respiratory diseases, said co-author Reynold Panettieri, director of the Rutgers Institute for Translational Medicine and Science....

A recent study published in Science Reports has revealed a direct connection between hypospadias and the presence of epigenetic alterations. The analysis, led by Washington State University, found that hypospadias tissue samples showed changes to the molecular factors and processes surrounding DNA that determine gene behavior. In contrast, no epigenetic alterations were found in penile tissue samples from healthy babies without hypospadias. The research helps answer long-standing questions surrounding the increased frequency and potential root cause of hypospadias, a birth defect in which the opening of the urethra is located on the underside of the penis instead of the tip....

Over three days in December, four research groups announced progress on a quantum-computing proposal made two years ago by MIT researchers. In early 2011, a pair of theoretical computer scientists at MIT proposed an optical experiment that would harness the weird laws of quantum mechanics to perform a computation impossible on conventional computers. Commenting at the time, a quantum-computing researcher at Imperial College London said that the experiment “has the potential to take us past what I would like to call the ‘quantum singularity,’ where we do the first thing quantumly that we can’t do on a classical computer....

By using light, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have manipulated the quantum state of a single atomic-sized defect in diamond – the nitrogen-vacancy center – in a method that not only allows for more unified control than conventional processes, but is more versatile, and opens up the possibility of exploring new solid-state quantum systems. Their results are published in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences....

Autumn is usually not such a great time for big special effects movies as the summer blockbusters have faded and those for the holiday season have not yet opened. Fall is more often the time for thoughtful films about small subjects, which makes it perfect for the unveiling of a new movie produced by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Through a combination of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and their own unique graphene liquid cell, the researchers have recorded the three-dimensional motion of DNA connected to gold nanocrystals....

Dark matter is a mysterious substance that makes up 85% of the matter in the universe. Originally introduced to explain why the Strong Force (which holds together protons and neutrons) is the same backward and forwards in time, the so-called axion would provide a natural explanation for dark matter. Rather than discrete particles, axion dark matter would form a pervasive wave flowing throughout space. The axion is one of the best explanations for dark matter but has only recently been the focus of large-scale experimental efforts....

There may be a link between exposure to light during pregnancy and fetal brain development. New findings by researchers at Umeå University, Sweden, working in collaboration with American colleagues, may provide better understanding of certain neurological diseases later in life. “Ultimately, this discovery may open up possibilities for using the right kind of light stimulation during pregnancy to reduce the risk of neurological disorders in adulthood,” says Professor Lena Gunhaga at Umeå Centre for Molecular Medicine, Umeå University....

This week, Gray, who has been tracking the object ever since, released an update on the situation. He confirmed that there is indeed a rocket stage on course to crash into the far side of the Moon, but it’s not a SpaceX rocket at all. Instead, it’s a Chinese booster: the upper stage of the rocket that carried China’s Chang’e 5-T1 mission to the Moon in 2014. Gray, who manages the near-Earth object tracking software Pluto Project, explained that the erroneous identification of the object as DSCOVR’s upper stage back in 2015 was based on shaky evidence....

In October 2021, natural-color images from the Landsat and Terra satellites returned striking views of record-breaking backlogs of container ships idling offshore of some of America’s largest ports. Surging demand for consumer goods, labor and equipment shortages, and an array of COVID-related supply chain snarls have contributed to the backlogs. Now atmospheric scientists are working with air pollution data collected by satellites to find out whether the unusual shipping activity is affecting air quality near ports....

Adélie penguin populations have declined significantly in some areas even as the global population increases. Scientists want to understand why these changes have occurred since they may indicate a change in the Southern Ocean environment or the availability of penguin prey. A NASA-funded team recently unlocked some long-standing secrets about the Adélie penguin—a species that can provide an early-warning of threats to Antarctica’s delicate ecosystem. Casey Youngflesh, a graduate student from Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, along with Stony Brook associate professor Heather Lynch, are part of the team that has been tapping into Landsat satellite imagery to see if the Adélie’s diet has been changing in response to Antarctica’s changing climate....

A small near-Earth asteroid (or NEA) will briefly visit Earth’s neighborhood on Thursday, September 24, zooming past at a distance of about 13,000 miles (22,000 kilometers) above our planet’s surface. The asteroid will make its close approach below the ring of geostationary satellites orbiting about 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) away from Earth. Based on its brightness, scientists estimate that 2020 SW is roughly 15 to 30 feet (5 to 10 meters) wide — or about the size of a small school bus....

Mountain landscapes all over the globe are at risk of becoming more dangerous to populations around them as a result of climate change, while their accelerated evolution may bring additional environmental risks to surrounding regions. This is according to a scientist from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, who underscores the sensitivity of mountains to global climate change in a new recent study recently published in the journal PeerJ....

The team’s research has now identified several avenues by which ringed molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, can form in space. The latest study is a part of an ongoing effort to retrace the chemical steps leading to the formation of complex carbon-containing molecules in deep space. PAHs – which also occur on Earth in emissions and soot from the combustion of fossil fuels – could provide clues to the formation of life’s chemistry in space as precursors to interstellar nanoparticles....

The results of their research, reported on August 22 in the journal Neuron, reveal that TMC1, a protein discovered in 2002, forms a sound- and motion-activated pore that allows the conversion of sound and head movement into nerve signals that travel to the brain — a signaling cascade that enables hearing and balance. Scientists have long known that when the delicate cells in our inner ears detect sound and movement, they convert them into signals....

Hungtang Ko and David Hu presented the science behind this insect behavior, focusing their discussion on how the living raft changes size under various environmental conditions at the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics 72nd Annual Meeting on November 26, 2019. The red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) can optimize its ability to repel water by linking its body together with tens of thousands of its peers to build massive floating colonies....

But one critical question has bedeviled astronomers for generations: Is there water deep in Jupiter’s atmosphere, and if so, how much? Gordon L. Bjoraker, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, reported in a recent paper in the Astronomical Journal that he and his team have brought the Jovian research community closer to the answer. This animation takes the viewer on a simulated flight into, and then out of, Jupiter’s upper atmosphere at the location of the Great Red Spot....

A group of astronomers from across the world, including those from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, has discovered the most distant astronomical object ever: a galaxy. The galaxy candidate, known as HD1, is 13.5 billion light-years distant and was first detailed in The Astrophysical Journal on April 7, 2022. A supermassive black hole 100 million times the mass of our Sun might exist inside the galaxy. HD1 will be the most distant — and oldest — galaxy ever discovered, if current estimations are true....