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Computer scientists are now devising guardians called symbiotes, which could run on embedded computers regardless of the operating system. This could help protect the critical infrastructure of nations and corporations. Attacks against embedded systems may have gone unseen for years. In 2011, computer scientists identified more than 1.4 million publicly accessible embedded computers in 144 countries that still had factory default passwords. This could give anyone with online access total control over these machines....

A new data analysis tool developed by Yale researchers has revealed the specific immune cell types associated with increased risk of death from COVID-19, they reported on February 28, 2022, in the journal Nature Biotechnology. Immune system cells such as T cells and antibody-producing B cells are known to provide broad protection against pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. And large-scale data analyses of millions of cells have given scientists a broad overview of the immune system response to this particular virus....

Study demonstrates that network-level brain activity can detect specific types of mental effort. Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the United States experience mental illness in a given year. Severe mental illnesses cause the brain to have trouble dealing with cognitively effortful states, like focusing attention over long periods of time, discriminating between two things that are difficult to tell apart, and responding quickly to the information that is coming in fast....

One element of particular complexity is the nuclear pore complex. Surrounding the eukaryotic cell nucleus is a double membrane, the nuclear envelope, which encloses the genetic material of the cell nucleus. Spanning that nuclear envelope is the nuclear pore complex, which though microscopic in size, is incredibly complex molecular machinery comprised of a vast number of different proteins. Whatever you are doing, whether it is driving a car, going for a jog, or even at your laziest, eating chips and watching TV on the couch, there is an entire suite of molecular machinery inside each of your cells hard at work....

Graphene, the single-atom-thick form of carbon, has become famous for its extraordinary strength. But less-than-perfect sheets of the material show unexpected weakness, according to researchers at Rice University in Houston and Tsinghua University in Beijing. The kryptonite to this Superman of materials is in the form of a seven-atom ring that inevitably occurs at the junctions of grain boundaries in graphene, where the regular array of hexagonal units is interrupted....

Hurricane-force winds, dust storms, tornadoes, wildfires, snow squalls, heavy rain, and record-breaking heat accompanied an unusual December storm system. An anomalous and historic December derecho—a windstorm associated with an unusually strong and fast-moving line of thunderstorms—swept from the U.S. Southwest to the Upper Midwest on December 15, 2021. High-wind warnings were issued from the Central and Southern High Plains to the Great Lakes, including storm warnings over the Great Lakes....

The results, which have implications for biotechnology and understanding life in extreme conditions, were in the Proceedings of the National Academy Of Sciences (PNAS), Astrobiology, and the International Journal of Astrobiology. “Our work capitalizes on the abundance of genomic and transcriptomic data. Genomic data represent road maps, and genetics, biochemistry, and microbiology are the vehicles for exploring and expanding knowledge,” said the principal author on the studies, Shiladitya DasSarma, professor at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology in the UMSOM Department of Microbiology and Immunology “Using this interdisciplinary approach in our series of recent papers, we have better defined the limits to life and the mechanisms that these hardy microbes and their proteins use to survive and function in cold, salty, and water-limited environments, such as exist on Mars....

The mysteries of the evolution of the universe since the Big Bang are one step closer to being solved, thanks to research from The Australian National University. Astrophysics PhD candidate Mr. David Nicholls from the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, part of the ANU College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, used the ANU 2.3 meter telescope at the Siding Spring Observatory to study distant dwarf galaxies. The galaxies are regarded as ideal ‘laboratories’ for finding out how the Universe has evolved since the Big Bang....

World Wetlands Day raises global awareness about the vital role of wetlands for our planet, paying particular attention to wetland biodiversity. This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image takes us over Lake George, in western Uganda. In 1988, Lake George was designated as Uganda’s first Ramsar site, given its importance as a center for biological diversity. This equatorial lake covers an area of around 250 sq km (100 sq mi) and has an average depth of around 2....

While dinosaurs ruled the land, ichthyosaurs and other aquatic reptiles (that were emphatically not dinosaurs) ruled the waves, reaching similarly gargantuan sizes and species diversity. Evolving fins and hydrodynamic body-shapes seen in both fish and whales, ichthyosaurs swam the ancient oceans for nearly the entirety of the Age of Dinosaurs. “Ichthyosaurs derive from an as yet unknown group of land-living reptiles and were air-breathing themselves,” says lead author Dr. Martin Sander, paleontologist at the University of Bonn and Research Associate with the Dinosaur Institute at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM)....

The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign study found that 50 minutes of dry heat in an electric cooker, such as a rice cooker or Instant Pot, decontaminated N95 respirators inside and out while maintaining their filtration and fit. This could enable wearers to safely reuse limited supplies of the respirators, originally intended to be one-time-use items. Led by civil and environmental engineering professors Thanh “Helen” Nguyen and Vishal Verma, the researchers published their findings in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters....

Collisions might result in serious issues if satellites, which cost billions of dollars, are destroyed since society is becoming more and more reliant on satellites for navigation systems, mobile communications, and monitoring Earth. The study, which was recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, offers the first realistic estimate of climate change in the upper atmosphere over the next 50 years. Although several studies have examined the changes that would occur in the lower and middle atmosphere, there has been far less research into situations that occur at higher altitudes....

The Lupus 3 star forming region lies within the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion), only 600 light-years away from Earth. It is part of a larger complex called the Lupus Clouds, which takes its name from the adjacent constellation of Lupus (The Wolf). The clouds resemble smoke billowing across a background of millions of stars, but in fact these clouds are a dark nebula. This short podcast showcases a new picture of this dramatic object, created from images taken using the VLT Survey Telescope and the MPG/ESO 2....

James McKerrow, MD, PhD, dean of the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of California San Diego, has long studied neglected tropical diseases — chronic and disabling parasitic infections that primarily affect poor and underserved communities in developing nations. They’re called “neglected” because there is little financial incentive for pharmaceutical companies to develop therapies for them. One of these neglected diseases is Chagas disease, the leading cause of heart failure in Latin America, which is spread by “kissing bugs” carrying the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi....

While studying extinction threat due to habitat loss, scientists found that the relationship between geographic area and richness of species primarily depends on the mean size of species’ geographic ranges. As human encroachment continues to shrink the habitable area for other animal species, a new study suggests that associated extinctions may be more severe than previously thought. Working with David Storch from Charles University in Prague, Yale researchers Petr Keil and Walter Jetz found that the relationship between geographic area and richness of species primarily depends on a single critical characteristic — the mean size of species’ geographic ranges....

A relentless heat wave has engulfed India and Pakistan since mid-March, causing dozens of deaths, fires, increased air pollution, and reduced crop yields. Weather forecasts show no prospect of relief any time soon. NASA’s Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station instrument (ECOSTRESS) has been measuring these temperatures from space, at the highest spatial resolution of any satellite instrument. This ECOSTRESS Land Surface Temperature image, taken shortly before local midnight on May 5, shows urban areas and agricultural lands northwest of Delhi (the large red area in the lower right) that are home to about 28 million people....

Imagine traveling to the Moon in just 20 seconds! That’s how fast material from a 170-year-old stellar eruption sped away from the unstable, eruptive, and extremely massive star Eta Carinae. Astronomers conclude that this is the fastest jettisoned gas ever measured from a stellar outburst that didn’t result in the complete annihilation of the star. The blast, from the most luminous star known in our galaxy, released almost as much energy as a typical supernova explosion that would have left behind a stellar corpse....

Around 25% of the general population and over 80% of severely obese individuals are affected by NAFLD. While prior studies have shown the harm that an unhealthy diet and obesity can inflict on brain function, this study is believed to be the first to clearly associate NAFLD with brain decline and identify a potential therapeutic target. The research, conducted in collaboration with Inserm (the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research) and the University of Poitiers in France, involved feeding two different diets to mice....

The scientists published their findings in the journal Nature.[1] Back in 2007, scientists first reported that cells could be reprogrammed to an embryo-like state. Medical researchers wanted to use these iPS cells to create an endless supply of genetically matched replacement tissues to treat a range of diseases, from diabetes to Parkinson’s. This strategy seemed to offer a way around the ethical issues of using stem cells derived from human embryos....

How fatigued certain activities make an older person feel can predict the likelihood death is less than three years away, according to research published today in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences by University of Pittsburgh epidemiologists. It is the first study to establish perceived physical fatigability as an indicator of earlier mortality. Older people who scored the highest in terms of how tired or exhausted they would feel after activities were more than twice as likely to die in the following 2....