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The Flinders mountains are a classic example of a folded mountain range, which are formed when two or more of Earth’s tectonic plates collide – folding and pushing layers of land into mountain ranges. The formation of the Flinders Range began to form around 800 million years ago, when an ancient sea deposited sediments into the Adelaide Geosyncline basin. Millions of years later, the sediments were folded into mountains, which have since eroded....

The archipelago covers an area of around 1,500,000 sq km (580,000 sq mi) and consists of 94 major islands and more than 36,000 minor ones. The archipelago is bound by the Beaufort Sea to the west and by Hudson Bay and the Canadian mainland to the south – largely obscured by clouds in this image. The various islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago are separated by a series of waterways collectively known as the Northwest Passage....

These aren’t easy puzzles to solve. We can’t directly sample the inner core, so the key to unraveling its mysteries lies in collaboration between seismologists, who indirectly sample it with seismic waves, geodynamicists, who create models of its dynamics, and mineral physicists, who study the behavior of iron alloys at high pressures and temperatures. Combining these disciplines, scientists have delivered an important clue about what’s happening miles beneath our feet....

“Minimoons can provide interesting science and technology testbeds in near-Earth space. These asteroids are delivered towards Earth from the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter via gravitational interactions with the Sun and planets in our solar system,” reports Dr. Robert Jedicke, lead author, based at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, USA. “The challenge lies in finding these small objects, despite their close proximity.” “At present, we don’t fully understand what asteroids are made of,” adds Dr....

“Improving our diet is one way to promote our brain health,” said study author Claudia L. Satizabal, PhD, of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. “If people could improve their cognitive resilience and potentially ward off dementia with some simple changes to their diet, that could have a large impact on public health. Even better, our study suggests that even modest consumption of omega-3 may be enough to preserve brain function....

A new CubeSat mission called The Electron Losses and Fields Investigation, or ELFIN, will study one of the processes that allows energetic electrons to escape the Van Allen Belts and fall into Earth. ELFIN is set to launch from the Vandenburg Air Force Base in California on September 15, 2018. During the last five years nearly 250 students have spent thousands of hours designing and building ELFIN, more formally the Electron Losses and Fields Investigation CubeSat....

Cholera outbreaks are usually caused by contaminated drinking water, and infections can turn fatal if not treated. The most common treatment is rehydration, which must be done intravenously if the patient is extremely dehydrated. However, intravenous treatment is not always available to patients who need it, and the disease kills an estimated 95,000 people per year. The MIT team’s new probiotic mix could be consumed regularly as a preventative measure in regions where cholera is common, or used to treat people soon after infection occurs, says James Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and Department of Biological Engineering....

But University of Utah electrical and computer engineering researchers have developed a new kind of optical lens that is much thinner and lighter than conventional camera lenses that also works with night imaging, a future boon for smartphones that could flatten those unsightly “camera bumps” as well as for drones and night vision cameras for soldiers. The team’s work is profiled in a new research paper published today (October 7, 2019) in the latest edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences....

A grant of DKK 3 million (EUR 0.4 million) from the Novo Nordisk Foundation will kick-start a new research project at Aarhus University aiming to develop a system that, via completely natural processes, converts organic waste into sustainable biofuel we can pump directly into our cars. It may sound too good to be true, but it’s not. The focal point is a special light-dependent enzyme, which was first discovered about two years ago....

The project, led by recent Ph.D. graduate Jeffrey Pisklak and MSc graduate Joshua Yong, examined the relationship between near-miss events and persistent gambling behavior in both human and animal subjects. “Across species, we were not able to replicate the finding that near misses caused an increase in the rate of play, despite a widespread belief that this is what should occur,” said Pisklak, who conducted the research under the supervision of Marcia Spetch, professor in the Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Science....

The challenge in simulating black holes lies in the necessity of solving the complex Einstein system of equations. This can only be done numerically and exploiting the power of parallel supercomputers. How accurately and how quickly a solution can be approximated depends on the algorithm used. In this case, the team headed by Professor Luciano Rezzolla from the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the Goethe University and the FIAS achieved a milestone....

Yonatan Tekleab and his colleagues explained how the valve works at the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics 72nd Annual Meeting on November 25, 2019, at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle. The talk is part of a larger session on biological fluid dynamics for medical devices. Approximately 80% of trauma-related deaths after the first hour of admission to the hospital are due to hemorrhagic shock. Tekleab said their system of an injectable magnetorheological suspension and externally placed small magnets would be able to significantly reduce bleeding before the patient is transported to the hospital....

In horses, unusual gaits have been traced to a single mutation. This endows them with a wider repertoire of gaits, showing that some seemingly complex physical traits can have a simple genetic basis. This could also elucidate the genes behind movement disorders in humans. The researchers published their findings in the journal Nature. Horses typically have three styles of gait, walking, trotting, and galloping. However, certain breeds can perform extra gaits, such as pacing, in which the legs on one side of the body move together....

But it was excitement, rather than fear and panic, that characterized the close encounter ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft made with Phobos in the run-up to Halloween this year. The recent flyby of the larger Martian moon offered the perfect opportunity to test one of the 19-year-old spacecraft’s latest upgrades. In-depth The MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding) instrument on Mars Express was originally designed to study the internal structure of Mars....

The geese that were affected by the fireworks rested for two hours less and flew longer distances, sometimes up to 500 kilometers non-stop. These behaviors continued for all studied days after the celebrations, as the geese spent more time foraging and never returned to their original roosting sites. Every year, fireworks are set off around the world to welcome the new year. This nighttime spectacle of light, color, and sound is enjoyable for humans, but less so for animals....

The scientists published their findings in the journal ACS Nano. Carbon has the potential to deliver high performance at low cost, states Zhenan Bao, a chemical engineer, at Stanford University. This is the first demonstration of a working solar cell in which all of its components are made out of carbon. Unlike rigid silicon solar panels, these thin prototypes are made up of carbon materials than can be coated from a solution....

The vaccine, made of disease-fighting proteins, could boost efficacy, accelerate production of seasonal flu vaccines. An experimental flu vaccine consisting of billions of tiny spherical sacs that carry infection-fighting proteins throughout the body has proven effective in preclinical studies. Described in a study published today (May 24, 2021) by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the vaccine has the potential to: Improve the effectiveness of seasonal flu vaccines, which typically work 40-60% of the time, according to the U....

Fluorescent probe could allow scientists to watch circuits within the brain and link their activity to specific behaviors. Using a fluorescent probe that lights up when brain cells are electrically active, MIT and Boston University researchers have shown that they can image the activity of many neurons at once, in the brains of mice. This technique, which can be performed using a simple light microscope, could allow neuroscientists to visualize the activity of circuits within the brain and link them to specific behaviors, says Edward Boyden, the Y....

Exserohilum rostratum is a plant-eating generalist fungus that has a spore-launching mechanism ideal for airborne infection. It is usually found in grasses, but it will dine on anything, including humans. The errant fungus has been identified in lab samples from 52 of those affected and was similarly found growing in unopened vials of steroids that seem to have been the cause of the outbreak, according to the CDC. E. rostratum prefers tropical and subtropical environments, and has been found on a number of different plant species....

They’re hypothesized to have formed about 100 million years after the Big Bang out of universal darkness from the primordial gases of hydrogen, helium, and trace light metals. These gases cooled, collapsed, and ignited into stars up to 1,000 times more massive than our sun. The bigger the star, the faster they burn out. The first stars probably only lived a few million years, a drop in the bucket of the age of the universe, at about 13....