Posts

Operators at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, confirmed at 9:53 p.m. (EST) that New Horizons, operating on pre-programmed computer commands, had switched from hibernation to “active” mode. Moving at light speed, the radio signal from New Horizons – currently more than 2.9 billion miles from Earth, and just over 162 million miles from Pluto – needed four hours and 26 minutes to reach NASA’s Deep Space Network station in Canberra, Australia....

Published today (September 26, 2018) in Royal Society Open Science – Vorombe titan (meaning ‘big bird’ in Malagasy and Greek), has taken the title reaching weights of up to 800 kg (1,750 pounds) and three meters (10 feet) tall, with the research also discovering unexpected diversity in these Madagascan creatures. Until now, it was previously suggested that up to 15 different species of elephant birds had been identified under two genera, however, research by ZSL scientists boasts new rigorous and quantitative evidence – that shows, in fact, this is not the case....

Their findings dispel the so-called firewall paradox which shocked the physics community when it was announced in 2012 since its predictions about large black holes contradicted Einstein’s crowning achievement – the theory of general relativity. Those results suggested that anyone falling into a black hole would be burned up as they crossed its edge – the so-called event horizon. Now Professor Sam Braunstein and Dr. Stefano Pirandola have extinguished the fire....

An underused natural resource might be just what the airline industry needs to reduce carbon emissions. U.S. researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Washington State University, and the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) report success in using lignin as a path toward a drop-in 100% sustainable aviation fuel. Lignin makes up the rigid part of plant cell walls. Other plant parts are utilized for biofuels, but lignin has generally been overlooked due to the difficulty in chemically breaking it down and turning it into useful compounds....

The findings were recently published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Pfizer BioNTech (BNT162b2) and Moderna Spikevax (mRNA-1273) are the two mRNA COVID-19 vaccines that have been given approval for usage, and as of March 20, 2022, more than 52 million doses of Pfizer and 22 million doses of Moderna have been given in Canada, where this study was conducted. Clinical trials have shown that the vaccines are safe, and monitoring of vaccinated people has shown that side effects are minor and disappear on their own....

An important lesson for vaccine design. Australian scientists researching how our immune system responds to COVID-19 have revealed that those infected by early variants in 2020 produced sustained antibodies, however, these antibodies are not as effective against contemporary variants of the virus. The research is one of the world’s most comprehensive studies of the immune response against COVID-19 infection. It suggests vaccination is more effective than the body’s natural immune response following infection and shows the need to invest in new vaccine designs to keep pace with emerging COVID variants....

Researchers at Yale University and Portland State University found that residential, suburban land use is altering the dynamics of the food chain, as well as where nutrients originate and how they move through pond ecosystems. The findings appear in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. They build upon an extensive body of Yale research into the effects of fertilizers, lawn treatments, and human populations on suburban ponds. “It suggests that tadpoles and other pond organisms are made up of human waste,” said Meredith Holgerson, a research fellow at Portland State who conducted the research at 18 Connecticut ponds when she was a Yale Ph....

Lots of SpotsOver the past month (August 25 – September 25, 2014) the Sun has produced quite a few sunspot groups, with some of them being significantly large. Sunspots are darker, cooler areas in the Sun’s atmosphere generated by intense magnetic fields emerging from below the Sun’s surface. Most solar storms are produced in and above sunspots. Since we are near the period of solar maximum, this frequency of sunspot production is not surprising....

“The Chestnut-bellied Flycatcher is not as well-known as Darwin’s finches,” said lead author Leonardo Campagna, an evolutionary geneticist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “But this complex of birds has also gone through many evolutionary changes, many of which involve changes in the coloration and patterning of their plumage.” The scenario: A large population of chestnut-bellied birds dwells on one of the Pacific chain’s larger islands. From there, some birds started new colonies on a few smaller islands....

The majority of marine microbes, however, remain largely unstudied since they do not grow in lab settings, which restricts the scientific community’s understanding of whether these species engage in photosynthesis. Using a Raman spectroscopy technique, scientists from the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have directly identified carbon-dioxide-fixing cells or cells that take in CO2, from seawater. This finding suggests that the bacteria do engage in photosynthesis....

First evidence that early treatment with triple antiviral therapy of interferon beta-1b, lopinavir-ritonavir, and ribavirin — alongside standard care — is safe and shortens duration of viral shedding compared to lopinavir-ritonavir alone (average 7 days vs 12 days), in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19.The authors say that larger phase 3 studies in critically ill patients are needed to confirm whether this triple regimen can provide clinically meaningful benefit. A two-week course of antiviral therapy with interferon beta-1b plus lopinavir-ritonavir and ribavirin, started within 7 days of showing COVID-19 symptoms, is safe and more effective at reducing the duration of viral shedding than lopinavir-ritonavir alone in patients with mild to moderate illness, according to the first randomized trial of this triple combination therapy involving 127 adults (aged 18 and older) from six public hospitals in Hong Kong....

The novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that emerged in the city of Wuhan, China, last year and has since caused a large-scale COVID-19 epidemic and spread to more than 70 other countries is the product of natural evolution, according to findings published yesterday (March 17, 2020) in the journal Nature Medicine. The analysis of public genome sequence data from SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered....

The scientists published their findings in the journal mBio. The findings might help public health officials track the source of the outbreak and identify the role of wild animals and livestock in the spread of the virus. The hCoV-EMC (human coronavirus-Erasmus Medical Center) was identified in the Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, from a sample obtained from a 60-year-old Saudi. Cases have appeared in Qatar and Jordan, and researchers have confirmed nine infections, including five deaths....

It was predicted by plasma theorist Eric Weibel more than six decades ago but only now has been unambiguously observed in the laboratory. The new research finds that this process can convert a significant fraction of the energy stored in the temperature anisotropy into magnetic field energy. It also finds that the Weibel instability could be a source of magnetic fields that permeate throughout the cosmos. The Impact The matter in our observable universe is plasma state and it is magnetized....

By measuring the EM polarizabilities, researchers can learn about the internal structure of the proton. This knowledge helps to validate the scientific understanding of how nucleons (protons and neutrons) form by comparing the results to theoretical descriptions of gamma-ray scattering from nucleons. Physicists call this scattering process nucleon Compton scattering. The Impact When scientists examine the proton at a distance and scale where EM responses dominate, they can determine values of EM polarizabilities with high precision....

In a detailed review of the status of the world’s 126 marine mammal species — which include whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions, manatees, dugongs, sea otters, and polar bears — scientists found that accidental capture by fisheries (bycatch), climate change and pollution are among the key drivers of decline. A quarter of these species are now classified as being at risk of extinction (vulnerable, endangered, or critically-endangered on the IUCN Red List), with the near-extinct vaquita porpoise and the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale among those in greatest danger....

Analysis by researchers from King’s College London of data from the ZOE COVID Symptom study app is published today (June 18, 2022) in a letter to the medical journal The Lancet. The findings are from the first peer-reviewed study to report on long COVID risk and the Omicron variant. Long COVID is defined by NICE guidelines as having new or ongoing symptoms four weeks or more after the start of the disease....

But there is no easy escape for users as researchers from the University of Surrey, who have previously developed a quick fingerprint test to identify users, have created a definitive way to prove the difference between those using cocaine and heroin, and those exposed to the drugs due to environmental factors. In a study published by Clinical Chemistry, researchers from the University tested the fingerprints of 50 drug-free volunteers and 15 drug users who testified to taking either cocaine or heroin in the previous 24 hours....

Earth is the largest, brightest spot in the center of the image, with the smaller, dimmer Moon appearing to the right. Several constellations are also visible in the surrounding space. The bright cluster of stars in the upper left corner is the Pleiades in the Taurus constellation. Hamal, the brightest star in Aries, is located in the upper right corner of the image. The Earth-Moon system is centered in the middle of five stars comprising the head of Cetus the Whale....

People with congenital heart defects who were hospitalized with COVID-19 were up to twice as likely to suffer severe illness or death from the virus compared to people who were not born with a heart defect, according to a new study.People with a heart defect plus another underlying medical condition, including heart failure, pulmonary hypertension, Down syndrome, diabetes, or obesity, were among those most at risk of having severe COVID-19 illness....