Posts

Siegel says the findings suggest a previously unobserved relationship between body temperature and REM sleep, a period of sleep when the brain is highly active. Published recently in Lancet Neurology, the study was authored by Prof. Siegel, who directs the Center for Sleep Research at the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. Birds have the highest body temperature of any warm-blooded, or homeotherm, animal group at 41°C (106°F) while getting the least REM sleep at 0....

“From worms to flies to humans, neurons are the starting block for generalized intelligence,” says first author Brett Kagan. “So, the question was, can we interact with neurons in a way to harness that inherent intelligence?” Kagan is chief scientific officer at Cortical Labs in Melbourne, Australia. First, the scientists connected the neurons to a computer in such a way that the neurons received feedback on whether their in-game paddle was hitting the ball....

Monash researchers are part of an international collaboration applying ‘twistronics’ concepts (the science of layering and twisting 2D materials to control their electrical properties) to manipulate the flow of light in extreme ways. The findings, published today in the journal Nature, hold the promise for leapfrog advances in a variety of light-driven technologies, including nano-imaging devices; high-speed, low-energy optical computers; and biosensors. This is the first application of Moire physics and twistronics to the light-based technologies, photonics, and polaritonics, opening unique opportunities for extreme photonic dispersion engineering and robust control of polaritons on 2D materials....

While multiple robotic arm devices already exist, most are heavy, expensive, and outside the reach of individuals who lack the expertise to use them. Mantis, designed by experts in human-computer interaction from Bristol’s world-renowned team of engineers, is the first system of its kind that enables light, affordable, and accessible haptic force feedback. Human beings have five senses, but electronic devices communicate with us using predominantly just two: sight and hearing....

All across galaxies in our Universe, stars are dying and forming. And while our life on Earth is based on a rich jumble of various elements and molecules, the cold dense gas out of which stars form is pretty monotonous with 99% molecular hydrogen (H2). So if you want to map where stars are born, you’d better have a good grasp on how to detect H2. Unfortunately, this material is hard to observe due to a lack of a strong characteristic signal at low temperatures—unlike its atomic cousin (H) which emits radio waves at an easily distinguishable wavelength of 21 cm....

Although Mars is a very alien planet, some aspects of its geology are surprisingly familiar. The flowing cracks and fault-like lines in this image form part of the Claritas Rupes escarpment, a 950 km-long network of steep cliffs and sloping outcrops. This escarpment lies within a larger geological system named Claritas Fossae, a weaving network of ‘grabens’ (a German term meaning ditch or trench) that stretches for some 2000 km....

Diet may be an important modifiable risk factor for dementia that could be targeted for disease prevention and risk reduction but previous studies exploring the impact of a Mediterranean diet have typically been limited to small sample sizes and low numbers of dementia cases. Oliver Shannon and colleagues analyzed data from 60,298 individuals from the UK Biobank who had completed a dietary assessment. The authors scored individuals using two measures for adherence to the Mediterranean diet....

Spotted in recent images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, the iceberg is around 170 km (~105 miles) in length and 25 km wide (~15 miles), and is slightly larger than the Spanish island of Majorca. The enormity of the berg makes it the largest in the world, snatching first place from the A-23A iceberg (approximately 3880 sq km in size) which is also located in the Weddell Sea. In comparison, the A-74 iceberg that broke off the Brunt Ice Shelf in February earlier this year, was only 1270 sq km....

Scientists in Christine Hendon’s and Michal Lipson’s research groups at Columbia University, New York, have used a microchip to map the back of the eye for disease diagnosis. The interference technology, like bat sonar but using light instead of sound waves, used in the microchip has been around for a little while. This is the first time that technical obstacles have been overcome to fabricate a miniature device able to capture high-quality images....

A team of MIT chemists revealed how they developed a method for drawing gas sensors on paper using a tailor-made, super-conductive carbon nanotube pencil. The scientists published their findings in the German journal Angewandte Chemie. Electrically charged carbon nanotubes, about 50,000 times thinner than human hair, make for great sensors. When a gas molecule disturbs its surface, it binds to the nanotube, altering the current flow. This kind of system can be used to detect chemical changes in the air, and could lead to the development of biosensors for national security reasons....

One-third of clinical trial participants who received no vaccine reported systemic adverse advents like headache and fatigue. The placebo effect is the well-known phenomenon of a person’s physical or mental health improving after taking a treatment with no pharmacological therapeutic benefit – a sugar pill, or a syringe full of saline, for example. While the exact biological, psychological, and genetic underpinnings of the placebo effect are not well understood, some theories point to expectations as the primary cause and others argue that non-conscious factors embedded in the patient-physician relationship automatically turn down the volume of symptoms....

An international team of astronomers led by researchers at the University of California, Riverside, has discovered an unusual massive cluster of young galaxies forming in the early universe. The newly discovered growing galactic metropolis, named MAGAZ3NE J095924+022537, is a newborn galaxy cluster, or protocluster, consisting of at least 38 member galaxies, and is about 11.8 billion light-years away from Earth. Galaxy clusters grow over time under gravity and presently can contain hundreds or even thousands of galaxies, as well as hot gas and dark matter....

Given a legitimate need to protect Earth from the most intense forms of space weather — great bursts of electromagnetic energy and particles that can sometimes stream from the sun — some people worry that a gigantic “killer solar flare” could hurl enough energy to destroy Earth, but this is not actually possible. Solar activity is indeed currently ramping up toward what is known as solar maximum, something that occurs approximately every 11 years....

An ultra-high-resolution NASA computer model has given scientists a stunning new look at how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere travels around the globe. Plumes of carbon dioxide in the simulation swirl and shift as winds disperse the greenhouse gas away from its sources. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/K. Sharghi Plumes of carbon dioxide in the simulation swirl and shift as winds disperse the greenhouse gas away from its sources....

An international team of scientists scoured over a decade of Fermi observations to find seven spiders that undergo these eclipses, which occur when the low-mass companion star passes in front of the pulsar from our point of view. The data allowed them to calculate how the systems tilt relative to our line of sight and other information. “One of the most important goals for studying spiders is to try to measure the masses of the pulsars,” said Colin Clark, an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Hannover, Germany, who led the work....

This is an odd-looking image. It shows gullies during the winter while entirely in the shadow of the crater wall. Illumination comes only from the winter skylight. We acquire such images because gullies on Mars actively form in the winter when there is carbon dioxide frost on the ground, so we image them in the winter, even though not well illuminated, to look for signs of activity. The dark streaks might be signs of current activity, removing the frost, but further analysis is needed....

In less than three days, on Thursday, September 29, at 2:36 a.m. PDT (5:36 a.m. EDT), NASA’s Juno spacecraft will come within 222 miles (358 kilometers) of the surface of Jupiter’s ice-covered moon, Europa. During the close flyby, the solar-powered spacecraft is expected to obtain some of the highest-resolution images ever taken of portions of Europa’s surface. It will also collect valuable data on the moon’s interior, surface composition, and ionosphere, along with its interaction with Jupiter’s magnetosphere....

One of the main exploration targets within Jezero crater is the well-preserved delta deposit, and many of the predicted landing sites for the rover were clustered very near the scarp of this delta. However, during landing, the rover’s computer diverted the rover away from the delta to the eastern side of Séítah, which itself was considered too sandy and rocky for a safe landing. While the rover’s detailed exploration of the Jezero delta will have to wait until later in the mission, the rover’s landing site has given the team an opportunity to dig into the geology and origin of the crater floor rock units....

NASA’s long-lived rover Opportunity has returned an image of the Martian surface that is puzzling researchers. Spherical objects concentrated at an outcrop Opportunity reached last week differ in several ways from iron-rich spherules nicknamed “blueberries” the rover found at its landing site in early 2004 and at many other locations to date. Opportunity is investigating an outcrop called Kirkwood in the Cape York segment of the western rim of Endeavour Crater....

Colliding neutron stars can yield gold, plutonium, and a variety of other elements. Theoretically, they also generate gravitational waves as they spiral together at breakneck speed before merging. The first gravitational wave signal from a neutron star merger was detected on August 17. It was accompanied by gamma rays and other light, allowing astronomers to locate a gravitational wave source for the first time. Hubble photographed the glow from this titanic collision, shining within the galaxy NGC 4993 at a distance of 130 million light-years....