Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have designed a new face mask that they believe could stop viral particles as effectively as N95 masks. Unlike N95 masks, the new masks were designed to be easily sterilized and used many times. As the number of new COVID-19 cases in the United States continues to rise, there is still an urgent need for N95 masks for health care workers and others....
An evanescent shell of glowing gas spreading into space — the planetary nebula ESO 577-24 — dominates this image[1]. This planetary nebula is the remains of a dead giant star that has thrown off its outer layers, leaving behind a small, intensely hot dwarf star. This diminished remnant will gradually cool and fade, living out its days as the mere ghost of a once-vast red giant star. Red giants are stars at the end of their lives that have exhausted the hydrogen fuel in their cores and begun to contract under the crushing grip of gravity....
One of the original design goals of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) was for its four Unit Telescopes (UTs) to work together to create a single giant telescope. With the first light of the ESPRESSO spectrograph using the four-Unit-Telescope mode of the VLT, this milestone has now been reached. After extensive preparations by the ESPRESSO consortium (led by the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Geneva, with the participation of research centers from Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland) and ESO staff, ESO’s Director General Xavier Barcons initiated this historic astronomical observation with the push of a button in the control room....
A new image from ESO’s Very Large Telescope provides the best view to date of planetary nebula ESO 378-1. This extraordinary bubble, glowing like the ghost of a star in the haunting darkness of space, may appear supernatural and mysterious, but it is a familiar astronomical object: a planetary nebula, the remnants of a dying star. Nicknamed the Southern Owl Nebula, this shimmering orb is a planetary nebula with a diameter of almost four light-years....
The theory of the Breit-Wheeler process says it should be possible to turn light into matter by smashing two particles of light (photons) together to create an electron and a positron. However, past attempts to do this have required the addition of other high-energy particles. Physicists from Imperial College London, led by Professor Steven Rose, came up with a way of testing the theory that did not rely on these added extras in 2014, and today an experiment is running in the hope of turning light directly into matter for the first time....
Smartphone apps that assess the risk of suspicious moles cannot be relied upon to detect all cases of skin cancer, finds a review of the evidence published by The BMJ today (February 10, 2020). The researchers warn that the current regulatory process for these apps “does not provide adequate protection to the public.” The World Health Organization estimates between 2 and 3 million non-melanoma skin cancers and 132,000 melanoma skin cancers occur globally each year, but survival is high if melanoma is spotted early, which makes prompt detection and treatment crucial....
Solar flares are intense explosions of energy that can disrupt radio communications, damage power grids, and affect navigation signals. They also pose a threat to spacecraft and astronauts. An X1.9 class solar flare flashes on the left edge of the Sun on January 9, 2023. This video was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and shows a blend of light from the 171, 131 and 304 angstrom wavelengths. Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO This flare is classified as an X1....
A new, faster DNA-sequencing machine, as well as streamlined analysis of its results, will allow physicians to diagnose genetic disorders in days rather than weeks. Up to a third of babies admitted to neonatal intensive care have a genetic disease, this may help pin down the genetic causes. The researchers published their findings in the journal Science Translational Medicine. There are thousands of genetic diseases, but there are relatively few tests that detect them and those may only detect the most common mutations....
Scientists already know that people who are overweight or obese are more likely to suffer from wheezing and asthma, but the reasons for this have not been completely explained. The new study, published in the European Respiratory Journal on October 17, 2019, suggests that this fatty tissue alters the structure of people’s airways and this could be one reason behind the increased risk of asthma. The study’s author is Mr....
The Houston Methodist researchers culled through thousands of existing drugs to see if they could identify a compound that would prevent cancer cells from spreading, or metastasizing. They discovered edelfosine, which has been FDA-approved as an investigational leukemia treatment, and has also been used in clinical research for primary brain tumors. In the March 22 online issue of Cancer Research, scientists explained how they injected triple-negative breast cancer stem cells from patients into mice....
New long-term study could mean more sustainable burgers. A bit of seaweed in cattle feed could reduce methane emissions from beef cattle as much as 82 percent, according to new findings from researchers at the University of California, Davis. The results, published today (March 17, 2021) in the journal PLOS ONE, could pave the way for the sustainable production of livestock throughout the world. “We now have sound evidence that seaweed in cattle diet is effective at reducing greenhouse gases and that the efficacy does not diminish over time,” said Ermias Kebreab, professor and Sesnon Endowed Chair of the Department of Animal Science and director of the World Food Center....
After more than 10 years of gathering and analyzing data produced by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Tevatron collider, scientists from the CDF and DZero collaborations have found their strongest indication to date for the long-sought Higgs particle. Squeezing the last bit of information out of 500 trillion collisions produced by the Tevatron for each experiment since March 2001, the final analysis of the data does not settle the question of whether the Higgs particle exists, but gets closer to an answer....
Back in January, a new X-ray source flared and rapidly brightened in the Andromeda galaxy (M31), located 2.5 million light-years away. Classified as an ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX), the object is only the second ever seen in M31 and became the target of an intense observing campaign by orbiting X-ray telescopes — including NASA’s Swift — and radio observatories on the ground. These efforts resulted in the first detection of radio-emitting jets from a stellar-mass black hole outside our own galaxy....
For the first time, researchers have been able to obtain data from underneath Thwaites Glacier, also known as the “Doomsday Glacier.” They find that the supply of warm water to the glacier is larger than previously thought, triggering concerns of faster melting and accelerating ice flow. With the help of the uncrewed submarine Ran that made its way under Thwaites glacier front, the researchers have made a number of new discoveries....
University of California, Berkeley researchers have simulated the impacts of food insecurity on young mice and discovered long-lasting changes later in life. “We show that irregular access to food in the late juvenile and early adolescent period affects learning, decision-making, and dopamine neurons in adulthood,” said Linda Wilbrecht, UC Berkeley professor of psychology and member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. One key behavioral difference involved cognitive flexibility: the ability to generate new solutions when the world changes....
Michigan State University and University of Nebraska Medical Center researchers are refuting an earlier French government-funded study that claims titanium dioxide, a common food additive used worldwide, causes digestive inflammation and lesions in rats. Results of the French study have led leaders of the country to prohibit all food products with the additive from being placed on the market starting January 2020. France’s ban could have implications for other countries, including the United States....
NASA’s Rapid Analysis and Manufacturing Propulsion Technology project, or RAMPT, is advancing development of an additive manufacturing technique to 3D print rocket engine parts using metal powder and lasers. The method, called blown powder directed energy deposition, could bring down costs and lead times for producing large, complex engine components like nozzles and combustion chambers. Prior developments in additive manufacturing did not have the large-scale capabilities this emerging technology provides....
“We have observed forms with different morphologies, such as a spiral similar to a screw shell. The existence of these substructures has been observed for the first time thanks to the unprecedented accuracy of the data provided by the Gaia satellite, of the European Space Agency (ESA),” explains Teresa Antoja, a researcher at ICCUB (IEEC-UB) and first signing of the article. “These substructures – adds – allow us to conclude that the disk of our galaxy suffered an important gravitational disturbance now between 300 and 900 million years ago....
“We are now coming back over 20 years later to take a new look at some of the data that was never published and finish the story,” said Glyn Collinson, lead author of a recent paper about Ganymede’s magnetosphere at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We found there’s a whole piece no one knew about.” The new results showed a stormy scene: particles blasted off the moon’s icy surface as a result of incoming plasma rain, and strong flows of plasma pushed between Jupiter and Ganymede due to an explosive magnetic event occurring between the two bodies’ magnetic environments....
Despite global coverage, each LEO sounder provides observations only twice per day for a given location. However, the hyperspectral IR sounders from geostationary Earth orbiting (GEO) satellites can provide higher resolution 4-D temperature (including time), moisture, and dynamic motion information needed to initialize, or start a model simulation. To accurately reflect atmospheric changes throughout an entire 24-hour period, LEO satellites can provide more frequent data updates for NWP models to use....
