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An international, Yale-led research team has taken a new approach to stabilize high-power lasers: They’re fighting chaos with chaos. There has been a rapidly growing demand for high-power lasers for applications such as materials processing, large-scale displays, laser surgery, and Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) remote sensing systems. A long-standing challenge for powerful lasers is taming their erratic pulsations and chaotic fluctuations of emission power and beam profile. These issues hinder practical applications that require stable, controllable laser light....

Planets orbiting close to low-mass stars — easily the most common stars in the universe — are prime targets in the search for extraterrestrial life. But new research led by an astronomy graduate student at the University of Washington indicates some such planets may have long since lost their chance at hosting life because of intense heat during their formative years. Low-mass stars, also called M dwarfs, are smaller than the sun, and also much less luminous, so their habitable zone tends to be fairly close in....

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and School of Pharmacy (UMSOP) have discovered new drug compounds to potentially treat the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The compounds disrupt the functioning of a protein complex inside human cells that the researchers discovered is critical for the replication and survival of coronaviruses. This finding could lead to the development of new broad-spectrum antiviral drugs that target viruses such as influenza, Ebola, and coronaviruses, according to a new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal....

“For years, the industry has told us that the holy grail is getting fuel cells to work at 500 degrees Celsius (900 degrees Fahrenheit) and with high power density, which means a longer life and less expensive components,” said Haile, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and professor of applied physics at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering. “With this research, we can now envision a path to making cost-effective fuel cells and transforming the energy landscape....

They found that both enzymes work with similar precision, but have clear differences in their reactions. Previously, scientists were unable to understand why modern enzymes often interrupt their activity, but this study showed that this tendency is actually an evolutionary advantage, which had puzzled biochemists for decades. The ancestral enzyme is processive, i.e. it works without interruption, but every now and then removes nucleotide building blocks that have already been correctly added....

Quasars are extremely remote celestial objects, emitting exceptionally large amounts of energy. Quasars contain supermassive black holes fueled by infalling matter that can shine 1,000 times brighter than their host galaxies of hundreds of billions of stars. As the black hole devours matter, hot gas encircles it and emits intense radiation, creating the quasar. Winds, driven by blistering radiation pressure from the vicinity of the black hole, push material away from the galaxy’s center....

The extinction event that ended the Devonian period 360 million years ago corresponds to a major change in the kinds of fishes populating ancient seas and lakes. Ray-finned fishes, the staple of the aquarium and dinner table, were uncommon before this major crisis, and their success had been linked to new opportunities in the aftermath of the extinction. After the extinction, in a period called the Carboniferous, the once rare ray-fins make up a sizeable percentage of fish species....

Massive objects such as RCS2 J2327 have such a strong influence on their surroundings that they visibly warp the space around them. This effect is known as gravitational lensing. In this way, they cause the light from more distant objects to be bent, distorted, and magnified, allowing us to see galaxies that would otherwise be far too distant to detect. Gravitational lensing is one of the predictions of Einstein’s theory of general relativity....

Current vaccination programs alone will have a limited effect in stopping the second wave of COVID infections in the US, according to a study conducted by scientists from Reykjavik University, University of Lyon, University of Southern Denmark and University of Naples Federico II, and published in the Nature Group journal Scientific Reports today (May 24, 2021). The findings suggest that strict social distancing and other non-pharmaceutical methods are still necessary to end the ongoing second wave in the US and prevent a new one from rising....

Thermoelectric materials can convert heat into electrical energy. This is due to the so-called Seebeck effect: If there is a temperature difference between the two ends of such material, the electrical voltage can be generated and current can start to flow. The amount of electrical energy that can be generated at a given temperature difference is measured by the so-called ZT value: The higher the ZT value of a material, the better its thermoelectric properties....

“Simply swapping fatty meat and dairy products for a low-fat plant-based diet led to a significant decrease in advanced glycation end-products—inflammatory compounds found to a greater degree in animal products than plants,” says lead study author Hana Kahleova, MD, Ph.D., director of clinical research at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. “The decrease in AGEs was also associated with weight loss and improved insulin sensitivity.” AGEs are compounds formed in the bloodstream when proteins or fats combine with glucose....

Exposure to e-cigarette aerosols can cause heart arrhythmias in animal models — both in the form of premature and skipped heart beats. These are the findings of a new study from University of Louisville (UofL) researchers in the Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute. Published on October 25 in Nature Communications, the research suggests that exposure to specific chemicals within e-cigarette liquids (e-liquids) promote arrhythmias and cardiac electrical dysfunction. “Our findings demonstrate that short-term exposure to e-cigarettes can destabilize heart rhythm through specific chemicals within e-liquids,” said Alex Carll, assistant professor in the UofL Department of Physiology who led the study....

Snowstorms lashing down at the northern hemisphere of Mars during the icy cold winters may be predicted several weeks in advance, say researchers from the Tohoku University in Sendai (Japan) and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Katlenburg-Lindau (Germany) in their newest publication. For the first time, the scientists’ calculations show a connection between these snowfalls and a special Martian weather phenomenon: fluctuations of pressure, temperature, wind speeds, and directions that in the northern hemisphere propagate in a wave-like manner and occur very regularly....

For the first time, scientists have succeeded in transforming human stem cells into functional lung and airway cells. The advance, reported by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers, has significant potential for modeling lung disease, screening drugs, studying human lung development, and, ultimately, generating lung tissue for transplantation. The study was published today in the journal Nature Biotechnology. “Researchers have had relative success in turning human stem cells into heart cells, pancreatic beta cells, intestinal cells, liver cells, and nerve cells, raising all sorts of possibilities for regenerative medicine,” said study leader Hans-Willem Snoeck, MD, PhD, professor of medicine (in microbiology & immunology) and affiliated with the Columbia Center for Translational Immunology and the Columbia Stem Cell Initiative....

The team built an automated system around the bag and brought down the cost of an emergency ventilator to just $500 per unit. The device’s components can be rapidly fabricated and the ventilator can be assembled in just 15 minutes. The device’s electronics and sensors rely on a robust supply chain from fields not related to healthcare that are unlikely to be affected by shortages. The UCSD MADVent Mark V is also the only device offering pressure-controlled ventilation equipped with alarms that can be adjusted to signal that pressure is too low or too high....

Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), led by CSHL Professor Adrian Krainer, now report in Genome Research that they have developed a method for identifying splicing-based biomarkers for the most common form of liver cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). They believe the method will be useful in other cancer types as well. “This study underscores the potential for learning how RNA splicing variants can contribute to cancer and points to these variants as potential biomarkers for cancer progression,” Krainer says....

Cambridge, Massachusetts – In 2005 the Hubble Space Telescope spotted unusually small galaxies densely packed with red stars in the distant, young universe. They were nicknamed “red nuggets,” not only because they are small and red but also their existence challenged current theories of galaxy formation, making them precious in astronomers’ eyes. Since no “red nuggets” were seen nearby, astronomers wondered why they had disappeared over time. New research shows that they didn’t disappear completely....

A team of researchers has uncovered a new pathway to help treat perinatal brain injuries, revealing that a synthetic molecule derived from the embryo called PreImplantation Factor (sPIF) protects against neuronal death and brain injury by targeting let-7. Researchers at Yale School of Medicine and their colleagues have uncovered a new pathway to help treat perinatal brain injuries. This research could also lead to treatments for traumatic brain injuries and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s....

Researchers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Harvard Medical School, the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), and Harvard-affiliated hospitals have uncovered an easily detectable, “premalignant” state in the blood that significantly increases the likelihood that an individual will go on to develop blood cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma, or myelodysplastic syndrome. The discovery, which was made independently by two research teams affiliated with the Broad and partner institutions, opens new avenues for research aimed at early detection and prevention of blood cancer....

Researchers uncovered for the first time what happens in animals’ brains when they learn from subconscious, visual stimuli. In time, this knowledge can lead to new treatments for a number of conditions. The study, a collaboration between KU Leuven, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard was published in Neuron. An experienced birdwatcher recognizes many more details in a bird’s plumage than the ordinary person. Thanks to extensive training, he or she can identify specific features in the plumage....