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Data also show people who are Hispanic or Black half as likely to receive booster than people who are white. A nationwide study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the first to show that immunity against severe COVID-19 disease begins to wane 4 months after receipt of the third dose of an mRNA vaccine (Pfizer or Moderna). Waning immunity was observed during both the Delta and Omicron variant waves in similar fashion to how mRNA vaccine effectiveness wanes after a second dose....

“I’m trained as a drummer, and most of my research career has been focused on the rhythmic aspects of music and how they make us move,” says first author Daniel Cameron, a neuroscientist from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. “Music is a biological curiosity—it doesn’t reproduce us, it doesn’t feed us, and it doesn’t shelter us, so why do humans like it and why do they like to move to it?...

Many people turn to ‘Dr. Google’ to self-diagnose their health symptoms and seek medical advice, but online symptom checkers are only accurate about a third of the time, according to new Edith Cowan University (ECU) research published in the Medical Journal of Australia today. The study analyzed 36 international mobile and web-based symptom checkers and found they produced the correct diagnosis as the first result just 36 percent of the time, and within the top three results 52 percent of the time....

Consuming large amounts of daily caffeine may increase the risk of glaucoma more than three-fold for those with a genetic predisposition to higher eye pressure according to an international, multi-center study. The research led by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is the first to demonstrate a dietary — genetic interaction in glaucoma. The study results published in the June print issue of Ophthalmology may suggest patients with a strong family history of glaucoma should cut down on caffeine intake....

Three researchers were awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics for their ground-breaking work in understanding quantum entanglement, one of nature’s most puzzling phenomena. Quantum entanglement, in the simplest terms, means that aspects of one particle of an entangled pair depend on aspects of the other particle, no matter how far apart they are or what lies between them. These particles could be, for example, electrons or photons, and an aspect could be the state it is in, such as whether it is “spinning” in one direction or another....

While Australians may be focused on the havoc the Delta variant is wreaking on our shores, Delta is in fact driving waves of COVID infections all around the world. With the World Health Organization (WHO) warning Delta will rapidly become the dominant strain, let’s take a look at this variant in a global context. The rise and rise of Delta The Delta variant (B.1.617.2) emerged quietly in the Indian state of Maharashtra in October 2020....

The chytrid fungus causes a deadly skin disease and has been linked to dramatic amphibian declines worldwide over the past 40 years, most notably in moderate- and high-elevation frog communities—where the climate is cool—in mountainous regions of western North America, Central America, South America, and eastern Australia. But little attention has been paid to the role of tropical lowlands in the pathogen’s persistence, because such areas were thought to be too warm to harbor significant levels of the Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis fungus, which is known as Bd....

Covering more than 70% of Earth’s surface, the oceans are what makes this our Blue Planet. Our seas influence the climate, produce the oxygen we breathe, serve as a means of transport and a major source of food and resources. But they are under stress from climate change, pollution and ocean acidification – all of which affect ecosystems and biodiversity. Satellite data increase our scientific understanding and support a range of environmental monitoring services in support of ocean conservation....

Scientists have now developed a novel interferometric technique capable of measuring time delays with zeptosecond (a trillionth of a billionth of a second) resolution. The work was conducted at the Australian Attosecond Science Facility and the Centre for Quantum Dynamics of Griffith University in Brisbane Australia and led by Professor Robert Sang and Professor Igor Litvinyuk. They have used this technique to measure the time delay between extreme ultraviolet light pulses emitted by two different isotopes of hydrogen molecules – H2 and D2 – interacting with intense infrared laser pulses....

The surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa features a widely varied landscape, including ridges, bands, small rounded domes and disrupted spaces that geologists call “chaos terrain.” Three newly reprocessed images, taken by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s, reveal details in diverse surface features on Europa. Although the data captured by Galileo is more than two decades old, scientists are using modern image processing techniques to create new views of the moon’s surface in preparation for the arrival of the Europa Clipper spacecraft....

Skilled pilots approaching a runway usually can’t see small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) encroaching on their airspace, and they virtually never detect motionless drones, a newly published study shows. During an airborne human factors experiment, certificated pilots failed to see a common type of quadcopter during 28 of 40 close encounters, researchers with Oklahoma State University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University reported. In other words, the pilots got a bead on the invading drone in 12 out of 40 cases, or only about 30 percent of the time....

The ancient Egyptians believed that when we died, our spiritual body sought out an afterlife similar to this world. But entry into this afterlife wasn’t guaranteed: it first required a perilous journey through the underworld, followed by an individual last judgment. For this reason, relatives and embalmers did everything they could to ensure that their loved one might reach a happy destination. Here, scientists from Egypt used computerized tomography (CT) to ‘digitally unwrap’ the intact, never-opened mummy of a 2,300-year-old teenage boy of high socioeconomic status....

“Although bloating is a common symptom, some patients may not bring it up with their doctors,” said Janice Oh, MD, a resident physician within the Division of General Internal Medicine Division at Cedars-Sinai and first author of the study. “It’s important that people feel comfortable discussing bloating because it could be a symptom of a serious condition and there are treatments available.” People who are bloated may feel tightness or swelling in the abdomen....

If you use a computer for hours a day, there’s a good chance you know what it’s like to have eyestrain or dry eyes. Maybe you experience tension headaches behind your eyes or even get blurred vision. With some tweaks to your routine and simple habits, you can counteract eyestrain and keep your eyes going all day long. Dry Eye Causes Not blinking enough, which we often do when looking at screensYour eyelids not fully closing when you sleepSide effect of certain medications...

Melamine and cyanuric acid were discovered in virtually all research participants’ samples, although the greatest levels were observed among women of color and those who had greater exposure to tobacco. Four aromatic amines, which are commonly used in products containing dyes and pigments, were also discovered in virtually all pregnant participants. People may come into contact with melamine and aromatic amines through the air they breathe, contaminated food they eat, household dust they inhale, drinking water, or by using objects that contain plastic, dyes, and pigments....

Astronomers have made a groundbreaking discovery of an exoplanet whose orbit is deteriorating as it orbits an aging star. The doomed planet, first discovered by the Kepler space telescope, is on a collision course with its expanding star, ultimately leading to its destruction. The discovery of an exoplanet whose orbit is decaying as it orbits an aging star provides a new understanding of the gradual process of planetary orbital decay by offering the first glimpse of a solar system in its final stages....

“Water desalination membranes should simultaneously exhibit high water flux and high salt rejection,” says Yu Han, who led the study. Carbon nanomaterials, such as carbon nanotubes and graphene, are projected to match these requirements because of their unique surface chemistry and tendency to stack into channels with diameters less than one nanometer. However, the challenges of channel alignment and stacking prevent their large-scale use in membranes. “One way to address these limitations is through two-dimensional porous carbonaceous membranes with regular and uniformly distributed subnanometer-sized molecular transport channels,” says first author Jie Shen, a postdoc in Han’s group....

The study, which was funded by the Medical Research Council and led by researchers at the University of Exeter, involved giving 448 patients with type 2 diabetes three commonly prescribed drugs, each for a 16-week period in turn. The researchers monitored the effect of each drug on the patient’s glucose levels and weight and recorded any side effects. At the end of the study, which was recently published in Nature Medicine, patients were able to choose the drug that worked best for them....

Face masks protect against the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19, but they are also worn by people with respiratory problems to filter out harmful pollutants. However, in some circumstances, high levels of filtration aren’t needed, such as when air pollution levels are low, or when someone is exercising outdoors alone — which is generally considered a low-risk activity for spreading COVID-19. But current masks can’t adjust to changing conditions....

USC computer scientists and psychologists teamed up to investigate how music affects how you act, feel and think. In a new paper, a team of USC computer scientists and psychologists teamed up to investigate how music affects how you act, feel and think Your heart beats faster, your palms sweat and part of your brain called the Heschl’s gyrus lights up like a Christmas tree. Chances are, you’ve never thought about what happens to your brain and body when you listen to music in such a detailed way....