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By synthesizing nanoparticles of sodium borohydride and encasing them inside nickel shells, chemical engineers at the University of New South Wales have demonstrated remarkable hydrogen storage properties, including the release of energy at much lower temperatures than previously observed. For the first time, engineers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) have demonstrated that hydrogen can be released and reabsorbed from a promising storage material, overcoming a major hurdle to its use as an alternative fuel source....

Neutrinos, Italian for “little neutral ones,” are often described as “ghost particles,” for their extremely weak interactions with ordinary matter. Indeed, billions of neutrinos stream through our fingernails every second, without ruffling so much as a molecule of matter. And yet, on September 22, 2017, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, based at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, detected a neutrino in signals picked up by its detectors buried deep in the Antarctic ice....

The findings, published today (April 3, 2020) in Cell, hold promise as a treatment capable of stopping early infection of the novel coronavirus that, as of April 2, has affected more than 981,000 people and claimed the lives of 50,000 people worldwide. The study provides new insights into key aspects of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and its interactions on a cellular level, as well as how the virus can infect blood vessels and kidneys....

When Gosser finally located the songbird, he found what looked like a rose-breasted grosbeak but sounded just like a scarlet tanager. He snapped a few photos and called for backup; shortly after, a team from National Aviary in Pittsburgh arrived to catch the bird and collect a blood sample. In order to follow up on Gosser’s tip, a group of scientists headed by Penn State was able to identify the specimen as a unique hybrid bird, whose relatives haven’t congregated in the same breeding location or lineage for 10 million years....

A research team led by the University of Washington may have solved the puzzle with the discovery of a new type of solid crystal that forms when water and table salt combine in cold and high-pressure conditions. Researchers believe the new substance created in a lab on Earth could form at the surface and bottom of these worlds’ deep oceans. Published on February 20 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study announces a new combination for two of Earth’s most common substances: water and sodium chloride, or table salt....

According to a recent analysis, men and women in the UK are more likely to die than expected, which might have a significant effect on the future viability of pension plans. The Bayes Business School study, which examines mortality rates for those 50 to 95 years old, offered a bleak picture for both men and women in the UK. The patterns of mortality rates between 1960 and 2010 were examined in an analysis of 21 high-income nations during a 50-year period, and it was then investigated if what had occurred after 2010 matched the predicted trends....

In a study that was published in the journal Developmental Cell, the researchers described how they identified the autophagy pathway in hair cells that is connected to the permanent hearing loss caused by the antibiotic class aminoglycosides. The researchers also created one of the first model systems that is insusceptible to hearing loss caused by aminoglycosides. “This work identifies multiple potential therapeutic targets for preventing hearing loss caused by aminoglycosides,” said Bo Zhao, Ph....

Scientists are working on a directional dark matter detector that will use strands of DNA and gold in order to detect the elusive non-baryonic matter. A combined team of physicists and biologists are collaborating in order to create a suitable detector that will try and find dark matter, which accounts for much of the universe’s mass. Dark matter cannot be seen but its effects can be inferred thanks to its gravitational influence on baryonic matter and the structure of the universe....

According to a new study conducted by researchers at Columbia University and the Université de Paris in France, the use of the device resulted in a consistent reduction of daytime ambulatory blood pressure by an average of 8.5 points among middle-aged individuals with hypertension. Doctors usually prescribe lifestyle changes, such as reducing salt intake or losing weight, and medications to lower blood pressure in patients with hypertension. Yet about one-third of hypertensive patients are unable to control their blood pressure despite these interventions....

In AVS Quantum Science, by AIP Publishing, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland show how quantum-enhanced receivers could play a critical role in addressing this challenge. The scientists developed a method to enhance receivers based on quantum physics properties to dramatically increase network performance while significantly reducing the error bit rate (EBR) and energy consumption. Fiber optic technology relies on receivers to detect optical signals and convert them into electrical signals....

The study, which conducted by Elder, who holds the York Research Chair in Human and Computer Vision and is Co-Director of York’s Centre for AI & Society, and Nicholas Baker, an assistant psychology professor at Loyola College in Chicago and a former VISTA postdoctoral fellow at York, finds that deep learning models fail to capture the configural nature of human shape perception. In order to investigate how the human brain and DCNNs perceive holistic, configural object properties, the research used novel visual stimuli known as “Frankensteins....

“Medin has been known for over 20 years, but its influence on diseases was previously underestimated. We were able to show that pathological changes in the blood vessels of Alzheimer’s patients are significantly enhanced by medin,” says Dr. Jonas Neher from the Tübingen site of the DZNE, who led the study. The Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research in Tübingen, the University of Tübingen, and various international institutions and partners were also involved in this long-term project....

“This is the second study confirming significantly high brain accumulation in familial Alzheimer’s disease, but it is the first to demonstrate an unequivocal association between the location of aluminum and amyloid-beta in the disease. It shows that aluminum and amyloid-beta are intimately woven in the neuropathology,” explained lead investigator Christopher Exley, Ph.D., Birchall Center, Lennard-Jones Laboratories, Keele University, Staffordshire, UK. An association between aluminum and amyloid-beta has been suggested for over 40 years....

You can see the world in a biofilm, or the universe in a neural network. Jellyfish, seahorses, and turtles fluoresce in the ocean depths, while deadly diseases shimmer virulently under a microscope. When viewed under the right conditions, the ordinary becomes extraordinary. An assortment of gelatinous biofluorescent and bioluminescent organisms, known as ctenophores and jellyfish, shot on a low-light camera. Biofluorescent organisms absorb light, transform it, and re-emit it as a different color, while bioluminescent organisms create their own light through chemical reactions....

Attending preschool boosts young children’s math, literacy skills, but peers catch up in kindergarten, study finds. Children who attend preschool enter kindergarten with greater skills than those who don’t, but that advantage is nearly halved by the end of the year as their counterparts quickly begin to catch up, according to research published in the by the American Psychological Association. “Ensuring that young children enter kindergarten ready to learn has been of great research and policy interest....

Almost immediately, astronomers began arguing about the actual value of this constant, and over time, realized that there was a discrepancy in this number between early universe observations and late universe observations. Early in the universe’s existence, light moved through plasma — there were no stars yet — and from oscillations similar to sound waves created by this, scientists deduced that the Hubble constant was about 67. This means the universe expands about 67 kilometers per second faster every 3....

When the heart fails in young athletes, the condition ARVC is often to blame. Half of all cases of sudden cardiac arrest in athletes occurring during physical activity are thought to be caused by ARVC. Researchers from the University of Copenhagen provide new insights into a process involved in the development of the disease in a recent study. In fact, they also present a viable treatment method, according to Professor Alicia Lundby, whose research team led the new study....

Led by Professor Karl Glazebrook, director of Swinburne’s Center for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, the new study is published in the journal Nature. The discovery team used MOSFIRE instrument on the 10-meter Keck I telescope to characterize the faint galaxy. “This observation was only possible due to the extreme sensitivity of the new MOSFIRE spectrograph,” said Glazebrook. “It is the absolute best in the world for faint near-IR spectra by a wide margin....

A recent study conducted by researchers from Boston College, the University of Michigan, and Microsoft Research, has shed light on the impact of anti-China sentiments on Asian restaurants. The study found that at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-China fervor fueled consumer discrimination, leading to a significant loss of $7.4 billion in revenue for Asian restaurants in 2020. The findings of the study were published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour....

Quantum gravity refers to a set of theories attempting to unify the microscopic world of quantum physics with the macroscopic world of gravity and space itself. Zurek, a theorist, and Adhikari, an experimentalist, have teamed up with others to design a new tabletop-size experiment with the potential to detect signatures of quantum gravity. In conversation with Caltech science writer Whitney Clavin, the scientists explain that at the microscopic, or quantum, level, matter, and energy are made up of discrete components; in other words, quantized....