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Stacking ultrathin complex oxide single-crystal layers — those composed of geometrically arranged atoms — allows researchers to create new structures with hybrid properties and multiple functions. Now, using a new platform developed by engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, researchers will be able to make these stacked-crystal materials in virtually unlimited combinations. The team published details of its advance today (February 5, 2020) in the journal Nature....

Data from NASA’s Curiosity rover has revealed the Martian environment lacks methane. This is a surprise to researchers because previous data reported by U.S. and international scientists indicated positive detections. The roving laboratory performed extensive tests to search for traces of Martian methane. Whether the Martian atmosphere contains traces of the gas has been a question of high interest for years because methane could be a potential sign of life, although it also can be produced without biology....

New microbial research at the University of Copenhagen suggests that ‘survival of the friendliest’ outweighs ‘survival of the fittest’ for groups of bacteria Bacteria share space and sacrifice traits to benefit the bacterial population as a whole. The discovery is a significant step forward in understanding complicated microbial interactions and developing novel treatment models for a wide variety of human illnesses and green technologies. New microbial research at the Department of Biology reveals that bacteria would rather unite against external threats, such as antibiotics, rather than fight against each other....

In an opinion article, Australian researchers argue that the ‘placebo effect’ — the idea that we can start to recover from illness after being given a sugar pill, simply because our brains and bodies believe we’ve really been treated — isn’t a real thing. They reviewed the evidence used to support the ideas behind the placebo effect, and say it is all flawed and that placebos only ever have a very small effect on patients....

The disappearance of many of the world’s largest mammal species occurred around the same time that two other major transformations in Earth’s history were unfolding: dramatic climatic change at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary (c. 10,000 B.P.) and the dispersal of Homo sapiens to new continents. Untangling the role each of these played in Late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions has been the subject of intense scholarly debate for decades. However, recent advances in archaeological and paleontological science methods have helped demonstrate that megafaunal extinctions are more complex than any single humans-versus-climate answer can provide....

Scientists have spent decades trying to build flexible plastic solar cells efficient enough to compete with conventional cells made of silicon. To boost performance, research groups have tried creating new plastic materials that enhance the flow of electricity through the solar cell. Several groups expected to achieve good results by redesigning pliant polymers of plastic into orderly, silicon-like crystals, but the flow of electricity did not improve. Recently, scientists discovered that disorder at the molecular level actually improves the polymers’ performance....

Black holes with masses of millions or even billions of suns appear to reside at the nuclei of galaxies. In dramatic cases like quasars they are thought to be responsible for the spectacular phenomena like the ejection of narrow jets of particles at nearly the speed of light. Such outflows are thought to be driven by matter accreting onto a hot disk around the black hole. Much smaller black holes, closer in size to one solar mass, are thought to form as the result of the cataclysmic death of a star in a supernova....

Dreaming during the COVID-19 pandemic: Computational assessment of dream reports reveals mental suffering related to fear of contagion. The current global threat brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic has led to widespread social isolation, posing new challenges in dealing with metal suffering related to social distancing, and in quickly learning new social habits intended to prevent contagion. Neuroscience and psychology agree that dreaming helps people to cope with negative emotions and to learn from experience, but can dreaming effectively reveal mental suffering and changes in social behavior?...

Drugs introduced more than a decade ago that target mutations in a protein known as the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) held the promise of personalized treatments for a common form of non-small cell lung cancer. But most patients quickly develop resistance to these drugs and are left with few or no treatment options, because it has been very difficult to design new drugs that act selectively upon the drug-resistant form....

In 2017, Rogers led a study that found that two lineages of ancient humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans, separated much earlier than previously thought and proposed a bottleneck population size. It caused some controversy — anthropologists Mafessoni and Prüfer argued that their method for analyzing the DNA produced different results. Rogers agreed but realized that neither method explained the genetic data very well. “Both of our methods under discussion were missing something, but what?...

Researchers studied cells collected by nasal swabs at the moment of diagnosis for both mild and severe COVID-19 patientsCells taken from patients who went on to develop severe disease had a muted antiviral response compared to those who went on to develop mild diseaseThis suggests that it may be possible to develop early interventions that prevent severe COVID-19 from developingThe team also identified infected host cells and pathways associated with protection against infection that may enable new therapeutic strategies for COVID-19 and other respiratory viral infections...

Research by computer scientists, biologists, and cognitive psychologists at Harvard, Northwestern, Wellesley, and Tufts suggests that collaborative touch-screen games have value beyond play. Two games, developed with the goal of teaching important evolutionary concepts, were tested on families in a busy museum environment, and on pairs of college students. In both cases, the games made the process of learning difficult material engaging and collaborative. The findings were presented last month at the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction conference....

The study also found that there were no significant side effects observed in newborns whose mothers received acupuncture therapy during pregnancy. However, the researchers note that the analysis included only a few studies that evaluated outcomes such as premature birth. Acupuncture is emerging as a potential therapy for various different types of pain because it doesn’t involve the need for drugs and is considered safe, say the researchers. Exactly how it might ease pain isn’t clear, but is thought to involve the release of the body’s innate ‘happy’ chemicals—endorphins—plus increases in blood flow to local skin and muscle....

The first photo was taken in August 2011 by NASA’s Landsat 5 satellite of the swollen river. This year, more than 60% of the lower 48 states were in drought and the Mississippi River is running low. An 11-mile stretch of the river had to be closed off since August 11th and more than 100 boats were lined up near Greenville, Mississippi, waiting permission to pass. Water levels near Memphis are 2....

Holograms creating impressive three-dimensional static images are well known. Dynamic holograms switchable at video rates using data from a high-speed internet connection are not possible until now. Previously, the limiting factor was the display resolution. Holographic images require a resolution of 50,000 dpi (pixels per inch) which is 100x more than the best smartphone displays. For such a resolution one has to reduce the pixel size to half a micrometer (one-thousandth of a millimeter)....

Researchers at MIT and in Saudi Arabia have developed a new way of making surfaces that can actively control how fluids or particles move across them. The work might enable new kinds of biomedical or microfluidic devices, or solar panels that could automatically clean themselves of dust and grit. “Most surfaces are passive,” says Kripa Varanasi, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, and senior author of a paper describing the new system in the journal Applied Physics Letters....

Carnivorous animals lack key genes needed to detect and respond to infection by pathogens, a study has found. Farming large numbers of carnivores, like mink, could allow the formation of undetected ‘disease reservoirs,’ in which a pathogen could spread to many animals and mutate to become a risk to human health. Research led by the University of Cambridge has discovered that carnivores have a defective immune system, which makes them likely to be asymptomatic carriers of disease-causing pathogens....

First-of-a-kind electro-optical device provides solution to faster and more energy efficient computing memories and processors. In collaboration with researchers at the universities of Münster and Exeter, scientists have created a first-of-a-kind electro-optical device that bridges the fields of optical and electronic computing. This provides an elegant solution to achieving faster and more energy-efficient memories and processors. Computing at the speed of light has been an enticing but elusive prospect, but with this development it’s now in tangible proximity....

Our Sun may seem pretty impressive: 330,000 times as massive as Earth, it accounts for 99.86 percent of the Solar System’s total mass; it generates about 400 trillion trillion watts of power; and it has a surface temperature of about 10,000 degrees Celsius. Yet for a star, it’s a lightweight. The real cosmic behemoths are Wolf-Rayet stars, which are more than 20 times as massive as the Sun and at least five times as hot....

A peculiar protein structure known as a “rippled beta sheet,” which was initially hypothesized in 1953, has now been generated in the laboratory and thoroughly characterized using x-ray crystallography. The new findings, which were published in the journal Chemical Science, may allow for the rational design of unique materials based on the rippled sheet architecture. “Our study establishes the rippled beta sheet layer configuration as a motif with general features and opens the road to the structure-based design of unique molecular architectures, with potential for materials development and biomedical applications,” said Jevgenij Raskatov, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, Santa Cruz and corresponding author of the paper....