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Engineers at Duke University have devised a model that can predict the early mechanical behaviors and origins of an earthquake in multiple types of rock. The model provides new insights into unobservable phenomena that take place miles beneath the Earth’s surface under incredible pressures and temperatures, and could help researchers better predict earthquakes — or even, at least theoretically, attempt to stop them. The results appear online on January 17, 2020, in the journal Nature Communications....

Fossilized remains of a fish that grew as big as a great white shark and the largest of its type ever found have been discovered by accident. The new discovery by scientists from the University of Portsmouth is a species of the so-called ‘living fossil’ coelacanths that still swim in the seas, surviving the extinction that killed off the dinosaurs. The discovery was purely serendipitous. Professor David Martill, a paleontologist from the University’s School of the Environment, Geography and Geosciences, had been asked to identify a large bone in a private collection in London....

However, in a study that was recently published in PLOS Biology, scientists led by Simone Di Giovanni at Imperial College London in the UK demonstrate that when given to mice 12 weeks after a serious injury, weekly treatments with an epigenetic activator can encourage the regrowth of sensory and motor neurons in the spinal cord. Continuing their past success, the researchers utilized a tiny molecule called TTK21 to activate genetic programming that induces axon regeneration in neurons....

ESA’s Science Program Committee announced the selection at a meeting on June 20. The mission will now be designed, budgeted and proposed for adoption before construction begins. LISA is expected to launch in 2034. NASA will be a partner with ESA in the design, development, operations and data analysis of the mission. Gravitational radiation was predicted a century ago by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Massive accelerating objects such as merging black holes produce waves of energy that ripple through the fabric of space and time....

If you have ever encountered seaweed, navigated through vegetation in a stream, or cleared a murky green aquarium, you are familiar with algae. These diverse aquatic organisms, which come in various shapes, colors, and sizes, thrive on water, light, and nutrients. Microalgae, a type of algae that is ultrasmall and invisible to the naked eye, play a crucial role in the Earth’s ecosystem as they serve as the foundation of all aquatic food chains....

More than a hundred bones of animals, some of which could be of human origin from the final stages of the Pleistocene period, were found in the Atontonilco de Tula, Hidalgo scattered within an area of 100 acres, between 7 and 10 meters in depth. The discovery was made during the construction of a water treatment plant. Archaeologists from the National Institute of Archeology and History (INAH) in Conaculta rescued the bones....

Optical end-to-end solution includes encryption, transmission, decryption, and detection. BGN Technologies, the technology-transfer company of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), Israel, is introducing the first all-optical “stealth” encryption technology that will be significantly more secure and private for highly sensitive cloud-computing and data center network transmission. The new all-optical encryption innovation will be introduced at the Cybertech Global Tel Aviv conference taking place on January 28-30, 2020 in Tel Aviv, Israel....

The scientists published their findings in the journal PNAS. While habits seem automatic, they still depend on an ongoing supervision from the ILC and other parts of the brain. They are ingrained, but subject to precise control. And they can also be disrupted. The researchers were stunned by how immediate these effects were. The change in activity of this small cortex area can profoundly change how habitual behavior was, in a matter of seconds....

The research, published today in PLOS ONE, details three years of research into the local flying fox population and their exposure to paramyxoviruses (Hendra, Cedar, and Tioman) and a rhabdovirus (Australian bat lyssavirus). Hendra virus and Australian bat lyssavirus are classified as zoonotic viruses. Hendra virus for example can be transmitted to horses and then to humans by airborne droplets causing acute respiratory diseases and death. In the case of Australian bat lyssavirus, humans and other animals need to be bitten or scratched by a carrier....

We tend to avoid choosing apples with brown spots, assuming that they taste bad. But if we are to end food waste, we’ll need to upend that assumption. UCPH researcher emphasizes that there’s nothing wrong with oddly shaped or bruised apples. Which bananas end up in your shopping basket— the uniformly yellow ones or those with brown spots? If you are like most people, you skip the spotted ones and select those that are perfectly yellow....

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which has more than 1400 member organizations, including countries, the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management, the PLuS Alliance, which is made up of Arizona State University, King’s College London, and UNSW Sydney, as well as more than 100 expert ecosystem scientists from around the world, were all involved in the extensive collaboration. The research, which was recently published in Nature, explores the science behind the typology and how it may assist individual nations accomplish goals of global policy....

In contrast to visible light, there are no comparably powerful lenses for “invisible” radiation, such as X-ray, neutron, or gamma radiation. However, these types of radiation are essential, for example, in nuclear medicine and radiology, as well as in industrial testing and material analysis. Uses for X-ray fluorescence include analyzing the composition of chemicals in paintings and cultural artifacts to determine authenticity, origin, or production technique, or the analysis of soil samples or plants in environmental protection....

The majority of spiral galaxies, like our home the Milky Way, host a large bar-like structure of stars in their center. Knowledge of the true bar size and rotational speed is crucial for understanding how galaxies form and evolve, as well as how they form similar bars throughout the Universe. However our galaxy’s bar size and rotational speed have been strongly contested in the last 5 years; while studies of the motions of stars near the Sun find a bar that is both fast and small, direct observations of the Galactic central region agree on one that is significantly slower and larger....

This interacting galaxy system is particularly bright at infrared wavelengths, making it an ideal proving ground for NASA/ESA/CSA Webb’s ability to study luminous galaxies. A team of astronomers captured IC 1623 across the infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum using a trio of Webb’s cutting-edge scientific instruments: MIRI, NIRSpec, and NIRCam. In so doing, they provided an abundance of data that will allow the astronomical community at large to fully explore how Webb’s unprecedented capabilities will help to unravel the complex interactions in galactic ecosystems....

Discrepancy driven primarily by an increase in death rates in middle-aged white people. Death rates among Black people remained highest overall, however, gap with those of white people halved. Death rates from chronic conditions like lung disease and cardiovascular disease and so-called “diseases of despair” such as opioid overdoses are known to be higher in rural areas than in large cities, with differing economic, social and political circumstances influencing people’s access to care....

By promoting “STEM Programs for High-Schoolers Engaging in Research Early” (SPHERE), the Global SPHERE Network aims to increase both the number of mentors (researchers who engage high school students in their research) and the number and diversity of high school students who participate in authentic STEM research. Founding partners in the coalition include the University of California, Santa Cruz; the New York Academy of Sciences; the Bay Area Teen Science Program at UC Berkeley; American Museum of Natural History; RockEDU Science Outreach at the Rockefeller University; and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Mass....

Traces of color patterns are extremely rare in Mesozoic Era fossils. However, UV light examination of scallops from the Triassic era — right at the start of the Mesozoic Era — reveals that color patterns are preserved much more often than previously believed. UV light, which is undetectable to the human eye, excites organic compounds in the fossils, causing them to glow. This exposes a surprising variety of color patterns, including many kinds of stripes, zigzags, and flame patterns....

An international research team led by members of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute; AEI) has obtained new measurements of how big neutron stars are. To do so, they combined a general first-principles description of the unknown behavior of neutron star matter with multi-messenger observations of the binary neutron star merger GW170817. Their results, which appeared in Nature Astronomy today, are more stringent by a factor of two than previous limits and show that a typical neutron star has a radius close to 11 kilometers....

Delicate wash cycles in washing machines were found to release more plastic microfibers than other cycles. New research led by Newcastle University has shown that it is the volume of water used during the wash cycle, rather than the spinning action of the washing machine, which is the key factor in the release of plastic microfibers from clothes. Millions of plastic microfibers are shed every time we wash clothes that contain materials such as nylon, polyester, and acrylic....

Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptors (GLP1R) are found on insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas and neurons in the brain. The receptor encourages the pancreas to release more insulin, stops the liver from producing too much glucose, and reduces appetite. This combination of effects can help to control blood sugar levels. As such, GLP1R has become a significant target for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, and a range of drugs are now available that are based on it....