Posts

Using less-expensive, more scalable processes allows Space X to launch missions on budgets and with a speed that would be unthinkable using NASA’s old-school manufacturing methods. And the new Tesla Cybertruck’s unorthodox design appears to take advantage of a simplified manufacturing process that does away with “die stamping” metal in favor of bending and folding metal sheets. Now a new manufacturing method dubbed “robotic blacksmithing” has the potential to revolutionize the way high-quality structural parts are made, resulting in a new class of customized and optimized products....

Vegetation growth at Earth’s northern latitudes increasingly resembles lusher latitudes to the south, according to a NASA-funded study based on a 30-year record of land surface and newly improved satellite data sets. An international team of university and NASA scientists examined the relationship between changes in surface temperature and vegetation growth from 45 degrees north latitude to the Arctic Ocean. Results show temperature and vegetation growth at northern latitudes now resemble those found 4 degrees to 6 degrees of latitude farther south as recently as 1982....

Promising candidates include widely used transplant-rejection drug cyclosporine. A team led by scientists in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has identified nine potential new COVID-19 treatments, including three that are already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treating other diseases. The team, whose findings were published in Cell Reports, screened thousands of existing drugs and drug-like molecules for their ability to inhibit the replication of the COVID-19-causing coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2....

The scientists published their findings in the journal Cell Metabolism. The research was built upon an earlier study that shed light on progeria, a rare genetic disease that prematurely ages one in four million babies. A mutation was found in the Lamin A protein, which lines the nucleus in human cells, disrupting the repair process and accelerating aging. They also found that normal and healthy Lamin A binds to and activates the gene SIRT1, which has been long associated with longevity....

Hot Jupiters are gas giants that orbit very close to their parent star, unlike any of the planets in our solar system. While Earth takes 365 days to orbit the Sun, hot Jupiters orbit their stars in less than 10 days. Their close proximity to a star means their temperatures can range from 1,000 to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (530 to 2,800 degrees Celsius) or even hotter. By comparison, a hot day on the surface of Mercury (which takes 88 days to orbit the Sun) reaches about 800 degrees Fahrenheit (430 degrees Celsius)....

Researchers from the United States and Europe listed and described 41 climate feedback loops that have major implications for the outlook on climate change. Climate feedback loops are processes that can either amplify or diminish the effects of our greenhouse gas emissions, initiating a cyclical chain reaction that keeps repeating again and again. There are many large amplifying feedbacks that accentuate warming. In total, the researchers identified 27 amplifying feedbacks, 7 dampening feedbacks, and 7 uncertain feedbacks....

The first in-depth look at the human ability to decode the range of emotions tied to the acoustic cues of screams. People are adept at discerning most of the different emotions that underlie screams, such as anger, frustration, pain, surprise, or fear, finds a new study by psychologists at Emory University. Screams of happiness, however, are more often interpreted as fear when heard without any additional context, the results show....

Scientists using the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) to study some of the hottest matter ever created in a laboratory have published their first data showing how three distinct variations of particles called upsilons sequentially “melt,” or dissociate, in the hot goo. The results, just published in Physical Review Letters, come from RHIC’s STAR detector, one of two large particle tracking experiments at this U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility for nuclear physics research....

A team of evolutionary biologists and engineers at Harvard University, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of South Carolina, has shed light on a decades-old mystery about sharkskin and, in the process, demonstrated a new, bioinspired structure that could improve the aerodynamic performance of planes, wind turbines, drones, and cars. The research is published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. Sharks and airplanes aren’t actually all that different....

An effort funded by the National Institutes of Health, comprising of researchers from Texas A&M University, the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), has employed human genomics to discover a novel genetic pathway that regulates sleep in humans and fruit flies. This breakthrough could lead to the development of new treatments for insomnia and other sleep-related disorders. Texas A&M geneticist and evolutionary biologist, Alex Keene, worked with Allan Pack and Philip Gehrman from the University of Pennsylvania and Struan Grant from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) on the innovative research....

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and University College London have found that some antibodies, created by the immune system during infection with common cold coronaviruses, can also target SARS-CoV-2 and may confer a degree of protection against the new viral strain. In response to infection with a virus, the immune system creates antibodies to help fight it. These antibodies remain in the blood for a period after infection, and in the case of re-infection, they are able to tackle the virus again....

This 22nd contracted resupply mission for SpaceX delivers the new ISS Roll-out Solar Arrays (iROSA) to the space station in the trunk of the Dragon spacecraft. The robotic Canadarm2 will extract the arrays and astronauts will install them during spacewalks planned for June 16 and 20. The Dragon launched on SpaceX’s 22nd contracted commercial resupply mission at 1:29 p.m. EDT Thursday, June 3 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida....

It comes down to stress – mechanical stress to be more precise – especially during potent recharging. “Just modest indentation, bending or twisting of the batteries can cause nanoscopic fissures in the materials to open and lithium to intrude into the solid electrolyte causing it to short circuit,” explained senior author William Chueh, an associate professor of materials science and engineering in the School of Engineering, and of energy sciences and engineering in the new Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability....

NGC 3532 is a bright open cluster located some 1,300 light-years away in the constellation of Carina (The Keel of the ship Argo). It is informally known as the Wishing Well Cluster, as it resembles scattered silver coins which have been dropped into a well. It is also referred to as the Football Cluster, although how appropriate this is depends on which side of the Atlantic you live. It acquired the name because of its oval shape, which citizens of rugby-playing nations might see as resembling a rugby ball....

The microbe-sized extraterrestrial particle, which originated from a nova explosion more than 4.5 billion years ago, was discovered inside a meteorite collected in Antarctica by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Alongside planetary scientists at the University of Arizona (UA), the grain was studied last year at the atomic-level by Professor Jane Howe (MSE, ChemE) while she was a senior scientist at Hitachi High Technologies. “This grain is presolar....

Right after the Big Bang, the Universe contained only hydrogen and helium. Other elements were formed later through nuclear fusion in stars or violent events like supernovae or binary neutron star mergers. However, the details of the various processes and their relative contributions are still poorly understood. Better understanding of the chemical evolution of galaxies is important to understand how the rich element environment of planets like Earth came to be....

“Determining an accurate distance to DF2 has been key in supporting our earlier results,” stated Danieli. “The new measurement reported in this study has crucial implications for estimating the physical properties of the galaxy, thus confirming its lack of dark matter.” The results, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters on June 9, 2021, are based on 40 orbits of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, with imaging by the Advanced Camera for Surveys and a “tip of the red giant branch” (TRGB) analysis, the gold standard for such refined measurements....

A team of U.S. astronomers studying the star RZ Piscium has found evidence suggesting its strange, unpredictable dimming episodes may be caused by vast orbiting clouds of gas and dust, the remains of one or more destroyed planets. “Our observations show there are massive blobs of dust and gas that occasionally block the star’s light and are probably spiraling into it,” said Kristina Punzi, a doctoral student at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in New York and lead author of a paper describing the findings....

A new study from MIT neuroscientists sheds light on a neural circuit that makes us likelier to remember what we’re seeing when our brains are in a more attentive state. The team of neuroscientists found that this circuit depends on a type of brain cell long thought to play a supporting role, at most, in neural processing. When the brain is attentive, those cells, called astrocytes, relay messages alerting neurons of the visual cortex that they should respond strongly to whatever visual information they are receiving....

The team strategically collected deep-sea corals, associated fauna, seawater, and geological samples from the abyssal depths (~4,000 meters or 13,000 feet) to the continental shelf (~200 meters or 660 feet). “We have already made a number of remarkable discoveries from the Bremer Canyon,” said Dr. Julie Trotter, the Chief Scientist from UWA who led the expedition. “The vertical cliffs and ridges support a stunning array of deep-sea corals that often host a range of organisms and form numerous mini-ecosystems....