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In a new study published in Nature Communications, a research team led by Prof. LI Chuanfeng and Prof. ZHOU Zongquan from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) extended the storage time of the optical memories to over one hour. It broke the record of one minute achieved by German researchers in 2013, and made a great stride towards the application of quantum memories. In the attempt to achieve optical storage in a zero-first-order-Zeeman (ZEFOZ) magnetic field, the complicated and unknown energy level structures in both the ground and excited states have challenged researchers for a long time....

In 2015, a Brazilian paleontologist from the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Dr. Rodrigo Temp Müller, unearthed an exceptionally well-preserved skeleton from a fossiliferous locality in southern Brazil. The skeleton, approximately 233 million years old (Triassic period), belongs to a small carnivorous dinosaur named Buriolestes schultzi and the entire braincase was preserved. Now, Brazilian researchers have reconstructed the first complete brain of one of the oldest dinosaurs worldwide. The study was published in Journal of Anatomy and performed by Rodrigo T....

Station Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin are in final preparations for Thursday’s spacewalk. This is set to begin at 9:20 a.m. EST (6:20 a.m. PST) with the objective to prepare a radiator and an airlock for installation on the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module. Roscosmos Flight Engineer Anna Kikina will operate the European robotic arm from inside Nauka and assist the duo working in the microgravity environment in their Orlan spacesuits....

In a recent study, NYU Abu Dhabi faculty Alberto Gandolfi proposes alternate weeks of in-classroom and remote teaching as a way to allow students to learn in the classroom while protecting them from COVID-19.The optimal strategy results in the school opening 90 days out of 200, with the number of COVID-19 cases among the individuals related to the school increasing by nearly 66 percent, instead of the almost 250 percent increase, which is predicted should schools fully reopen....

A small but significant percentage of college athletes with COVID-19 develop myocarditis, a potentially dangerous inflammation of the heart muscle, that can only be seen on cardiac MRI, according to a study being presented today (November 29, 2021) at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Myocarditis, which typically occurs as a result of a bacterial or viral infection, can affect the heart’s rhythm and ability to pump and often leaves behind lasting damage in the form of scarring to the heart muscle....

There appears to be a modest reduction in cancer among middle-aged and older men. The study also found that multivitamin use cut site-specific cancers, except for prostate cancer, by 12% and suggested a 12% reduction in deaths caused by cancer. However, this last figure wasn’t statistically significant. The study used new data from the Physicians Health Study II published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. According to the CDC, more than half of US adults use dietary supplements, and the most common one is a daily multivitamin....

The European Data Relay System (EDRS) was built to accelerate the flow of information from Earth-observation satellites to people on the ground. The second satellite in the network, EDRS-C, has now passed its user commissioning review and entered into full service. Launched on August 6, 2019, EDRS-C is in geostationary orbit some 36,000 kilometers above Earth. This geostationary position enables the communication satellite to maintain an almost constant connection with Earth-observation satellites that are closer to the planet’s surface and circle the Earth every 90 minutes or so....

People living in South Asia already experience potentially deadly heat waves, but these events will likely become more commonplace in the coming decades even if global warming is limited to the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) target from the Paris Agreement, according to new research. Residents of South Asia already periodically experience heat waves at the current level of warming. But a new study projecting the amount of heat stress residents of the region will experience in the future finds with 2 degrees Celsius of warming, the population’s exposure to heat stress will nearly triple....

How are so many animals catching the coronavirus? And what does this mean for human and animal health? We are veterinary researchers who investigate animal diseases, including zoonotic diseases that can infect both humans and animals. It is important, for both human and animal health, to know what species are susceptible to infection by the coronavirus. Our labs and others across the world have tested domestic, captive and wild animals for the virus, in addition to conducting experiments to determine which species are susceptible....

Zachary Amir, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Queensland’s School of Biological Sciences and the Ecological Cascades Lab, noted that populations of four species—tigers, Asian elephants, wild boars, and clouded leopards—increased in places with developed human infrastructure. “These results show that, under the right conditions, some large animals can live nearby humans and avoid extinction,” Mr. Amir said. “These results challenge the narrative within some conservation circles that humans and megafauna are incompatible....

A SARS-CoV-2 variant with traits similar to that of the Delta variant—enhanced transmissibility and an ability to infect people who had previous infections/vaccination—will cause a more severe pandemic with more infections and breakthrough infections/reinfections than variants with either trait alone, according to a mathematical model created by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Their work, which was published online November 19, 2021, in the journal Cell, could help researchers and public health officials interpret the significance of novel and existing variants and design tailored public health responses for various scenarios based on a variant’s characteristics....

According to a study conducted by the University of São Paulo in Brazil, which was published in the journal Scientific Reports, common anti-inflammatory drugs taken by children may be linked to dental enamel defects (DEDs). These defects, which affect around 20% of children worldwide, can have a significant impact on the health and appearance of the teeth. The study, conducted by researchers from the Ribeirão Preto Dental School and School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of São Paulo, examined the impact of celecoxib and indomethacin, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the initial step on the analgesic ladder, in addition to paracetamol....

Scientists have shown, using imaging tests, that fructose can trigger brain changes that lead to overeating. They found that after drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn’t register the fullness feeling as it does when simple glucose is consumed. Scientists think that even though this is a small study and that it doesn’t prove that fructose or high-fructose corn syrup causes obesity, it adds evidence that to the fact that they may play a role....

The digital rectal exam (DRE) is widely used by medical professionals to check the prostate gland with a finger for unusual swelling or lumps in the rectum as an initial check for the signs of prostate cancer in men. In some countries, such as Germany, it is the sole method used in a national screening program for the disease. But new research by scientists of the PROBASE trial coordinated at the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) in Heidelberg, suggests the technique may be missing many cancers in their early stages....

A team of scientists has created flexible electronic components that will dissolve inside the body or in water. These components could be used to make smart devices, implants and cybernetics that disintegrate once they are no longer useful. This could help alleviate the electronic waste that’s being created by medical implants. The scientists published their findings in the journal Science. The team has designed an imaging system that monitors tissue from within a mouse, a thermal patch that prevents infection after a surgical site is closed up, solar cells and strain and temperature sensors....

Now, an international research collaboration made new discoveries regarding autism onset in mouse models. The researchers included Kobe University’s Professor Toru Takumi and Researcher Chia-wen Lin et al. In their detailed series of experiments and analyses of BTBR/J mice and the other subspecies BTBR/R, they revealed that endogenous retrovirus[2] activation increases a fetus’s susceptibility to autism. They also discovered that BTBR/R exhibits autistic-like behaviors without reduced learning ability, making it a more accurate model of autism than the widely-used BTBR/J model....

SpaceX Crew-1 Dragon, which arrived 3 weeks ago, is still docked at the station. This is the first time two SpaceX capsules have been docked at the ISS. Some of the science being delivered on this mission includes a study aimed at better understanding heart disease to support development of treatments for patients on Earth, research into how microbes can be used for biomining on asteroids, and a tool being tested for quick and accurate blood analysis in microgravity....

The findings, based on an analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 1999-2020, indicate that age-adjusted rates of death attributed to acute myocardial infarction (the medical term for heart attack) fell by an average of over 4% per year across all racial groups over the two-decade period. “It’s good news,” said Muchi Ditah Chobufo, MD, a cardiology fellow at West Virginia University and the study’s lead author....

The study, which appears today (March 2, 2020) in Nature Geoscience, takes advantage of a quirk of hydrothermal chemistry to suggest that the surface of Earth was likely covered by a global ocean 3.2 billion years ago. It may even have looked a bit like the post-apocalyptic, and land-free, future imagined in Costner’s infamous film Waterworld. The group’s findings could help scientists to better understand how and where single-cell organisms first emerged on Earth, said Boswell Wing, a coauthor of the research....

Gas turbine buckets have to withstand extreme conditions: They are exposed to tremendous centrifugal forces under high pressure and at high temperatures. In order to further maximize energy yields, the buckets have to hold up to temperatures that are actually higher than the melting point of the material. This is made possible using hollow turbine buckets which are air-cooled from the inside. These turbine buckets can be made using Laser Powder Bed Fusion, an additive manufacturing technology: Here the starter material in powder form is built up layer by layer by selective melting with a laser....