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The ozone layer in the atmosphere protects Earth from potentially harmful ultraviolet radiation. In the 1970s, scientists discovered that the ozone layer was being depleted. Atmospheric conditions of ozone vary naturally depending on temperature, weather, latitude and altitude, while substances ejected by natural events such as volcanic eruptions can also affect ozone levels. However, these natural phenomena couldn’t explain the levels of depletion observed and it was discovered that certain human-made chemicals were the cause....

Why do some people get ADHD, while others do not? And how early in life or in the womb is the seed of ADHD sown? Scientists from Aarhus University in Denmark have come closer to answering this question in a large study, which has just been published in the journal Nature Genetics. Together with national and international partners, the researchers have studied more than six million genetic variants in 38,691 people with ADHD and 186,843 people without ADHD....

Recent research has identified the cluster of neurons that drive these responses, known as sickness behaviors. Researchers discovered that a particular population of cells in the brainstem can cause three telltale sickness behaviors in mice by triggering immune responses. Furthermore, inhibiting these neurons dampens each of these behavioral aspects of the sickness response. The results, published in Nature, establish a direct relationship between inflammation and neural pathways that regulate behavior, providing insight into how the immune system interacts with the brain....

The century-old Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine against tuberculosis is one of the world’s oldest and most widely used vaccines, used to immunize 100 million newborns every year. Given in countries with endemic TB, it has surprisingly been found to protect newborns and young infants against multiple bacterial and viral infections unrelated to TB. There’s even some evidence that it can reduce the severity of COVID-19. What’s special about BCG vaccine?...

RA is a chronic autoimmune disorder that causes inflammation and damage in the joints, as well as other organs in the body. It affects up to 1% of the world’s population and is characterized by symptoms such as joint pain, stiffness, and swelling. While it’s known that cigarette smoking increases the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, it isn’t known what impact breathing in workplace dusts and fumes might have. In a bid to find out, the researchers drew on data from the Swedish Epidemiological Investigation of RA....

The scientists published their findings in the journal Biology Letters¹. People wrongly assume that wrinkling is the result of water passing into the outer layer of the skin, making it swell up. Researchers have known since the 1930s that the effect doesn’t occur when there is nerve damage in the fingers. This indicates that the change is an involuntary reaction by the body’s autonomic nervous system, which also controls breathing, heart rate, and perspiration....

In 1982, Australian scientists extracted bacteria from a person’s stomach, grew them in a petri dish and identified them as the cause of ulcers and gastritis. Three decades later, scientists have now used powerful X-rays at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford to reveal a potential way to attack the common stomach bacteria. At least half the world’s population carries the bacteria, Helicobacter pylori, and hundreds of millions suffer health problems that ultimately increase the odds of developing stomach cancer....

New research from Yale University shows that a compound produced by the body when dieting or fasting can block a part of the immune system involved in several inflammatory disorders such as type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, and Alzheimer’s disease. In their study, published in the February 16 online issue of Nature Medicine, the researchers described how the compound ß-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) directly inhibits NLRP3, which is part of a complex set of proteins called the inflammasome....

Black holes are at the center of almost all galaxies that have been studied so far. They have an unimaginably large mass and therefore attract matter, gas, and even light. But they can also emit matter in the form of plasma jets — a kind of plasma beam that is ejected from the center of the galaxy with tremendous energy. A plasma jet can extend several hundred thousand light years far into space....

According to Professor Tara Haas of the Faculty of Health’s School of Kinesiology and Health Science at York University, men have a higher likelihood of developing obesity-related conditions like cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance, and diabetes compared to women. “People have used rodent models to study obesity, and the diseases that are associated with obesity — like diabetes — but they’ve typically always studied male rodents because females are resistant to developing the same kinds of diseases,” says Haas, lead on the study....

On these timescales, a blink of an eye — one-tenth of a second — seems like eternity. Researchers from the University of New South Wales have now broken new ground in demonstrating that ‘spin qubits,’ which are the fundamental informational units of quantum computers, can store data for up to two milliseconds. The accomplishment is 100 times longer than prior benchmarks in the same quantum processor for what is known as “coherence time,” the amount of time qubits can be manipulated in increasingly complicated calculations....

The study, which tracked intentional misuse and abuse reported to the National Poison Data System (NPDS) until 2020, found 338,000 instances of intentional abuse or misuse among American children aged 6-18. The majority of these cases involved males (58.3%), and more than 80% of all reported cases occurred among teenagers aged 13 to 18. In total, over 32% of these instances resulted in “worse than minor clinical outcomes.” The new report demonstrates a change in patterns over time....

An international team of researchers led by Yale paleontologist Javier Luque announced the discovery of hundreds of exceptionally well-preserved specimens from rock formations in Colombia and the United States that date back to the mid-Cretaceous period of 90-95 million years ago. The cache includes hundreds of tiny comma shrimp fossils, with their telltale comma-esque curve; several carideans, which are the widely found “true” shrimp; and an entirely new branch of the evolutionary tree for crabs....

About 400,000 years after the universe was created began a period called “The Epoch of Reionization.” During this time, the once hotter universe began to cool and matter clumped together, forming the first stars and galaxies. As these stars and galaxies emerged, their energy heated the surrounding environment, reionizing some of the remaining hydrogen in the universe. The universe’s reionization is well known, but determining how it happened has been tricky....

While light cannot escape a black hole, the bright glow of rapidly orbiting gas (recall the 2019 images of M87’s black hole) has its own unique flicker. In a recent paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters on June 17, Lena Murchikova, William D. Loughlin Member at the Institute for Advanced Study; Chris White of Princeton University; and Sean Ressler of the University of California Santa Barbara were able to use this subtle flickering to construct the most accurate model to date of our own galaxy’s central black hole—Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*)—providing insight into properties such as its structure and motion....

Although both mother and baby recovered, the case highlights the importance of limiting COVID-19 exposure for pregnant women. A pregnant mother who tested positive for COVID-19 transmitted the virus causing the disease to her prematurely born baby, UT Southwestern physicians report. Both were treated and recovered. The case, detailed in an article published last month in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, adds to a growing body of evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can be transmitted in utero....

However, entering this new regime is not at all a straightforward endeavor. A first step for achieving such quantum control is to isolate the object under investigation from influences of the environment and to remove all thermal energy — by cooling it down to temperatures very close to absolute zero (-273.15 °C) such that quantum mechanics dominates the particle’s motion. To show this the researchers chose to experiment with a glass bead approximately a thousand times smaller than a typical grain of sand and containing a few hundred million atoms....

Sharks, rays, and ratfish are a group of ancient animals known as cartilaginous fishes, which have been present on earth for over 400 million years, predating the dinosaurs. They have also endured all five mass extinctions and their fossil remains can be found globally in great quantities. However, typically only their teeth remain intact as the cartilaginous skeleton decays along with the rest of the body and does not fossilize....

Giant turtle 100 times heavier than its closest relative Males carried horns on their carapace In some individuals, the complete carapace showed a peculiar and unexpected feature: horns. “The two shell types indicate that two sexes of Stupendemys existed — males with horned shells, and females with hornless shells,” concludes Sánchez. According to the paleobiologist, this is the first time that sexual dimorphism in the form of horned shells has been reported for any of the side-necked turtles, one of the two major groups of turtles world-wide....