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Each of the candidate galaxies may have existed at the dawn of the universe roughly 500 to 700 million years after the Big Bang, or more than 13 billion years ago. They’re also gigantic, containing almost as many stars as the modern-day Milky Way Galaxy. “It’s bananas,” said Erica Nelson, co-author of the new research and assistant professor of astrophysics at the University of Colorado Boulder. “You just don’t expect the early universe to be able to organize itself that quickly....

A rise in cases of short-sightedness (myopia) among children in Hong Kong may be linked to a significant decrease in the time they have been able to spend outdoors and a sharp rise in screen time during the coronavirus pandemic, suggests research published online in the British Journal of Ophthalmology. By September 2020, more than 180 countries had closed schools and colleges, affecting one billion learners, or 80% of the world’s students, in a bid to control the march of coronavirus, say the researchers....

While many people in wealthier countries have been vaccinated against COVID-19, there is still a need for vaccination in much of the world. A new vaccine developed at MIT and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center may aid in those efforts, offering an inexpensive, easy-to-store, and effective alternative to RNA vaccines. In a new paper, the researchers report that the vaccine, which comprises fragments of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein arrayed on a virus-like particle, elicited a strong immune response and protected animals against viral challenge....

Breast MRI Shows IUDs Have Systemic Effects Intrauterine contraceptive devices (IUDs) appear to have systemic effects on the body like those of hormone replacement therapy, according to a breast MRI study being presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). “It has been claimed that IUDs have a purely local effect on the uterus,” said Luisa Huck, M.D., radiology resident in the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology at RWTH Aachen University in Aachen, Germany....

Earth’s potassium arrived by meteoritic delivery service finds new research led by Carnegie’s Nicole Nie and Da Wang. Their work, published on January 26 in the journal Science, shows that some primitive meteorites contain a different mix of potassium isotopes than those found in other, more chemically processed meteorites. These results can help elucidate the processes that shaped our Solar System and determined the composition of its planets. “The extreme conditions found in stellar interiors enable stars to manufacture elements using nuclear fusion,” explained Nie, a former Carnegie postdoc now at Caltech....

The study takes the most comprehensive look thus far at the structure of the American professoriate. In fact, it captures data on nearly 300,000 tenure-track faculty (including where they obtained their own graduate degrees) at more than 10,000 university departments at 368 PhD-granting institutions from 2011 to 2020. The paper will be published today (September 21) in the journal Nature. The study finds that in all fields of academia, most professors come from a small number of institutions....

A Cornell-led collaboration has created the first microscopic robots that incorporate semiconductor components, allowing them to be controlled – and made to walk – with standard electronic signals. These robots, roughly the size of paramecium, provide a template for building even more complex versions that utilize silicon-based intelligence, can be mass produced, and may someday travel through human tissue and blood. The collaboration is led by Itai Cohen, professor of physics, Paul McEuen, the John A....

Purdue University engineers have created a laser treatment method that could potentially turn any metal surface into a rapid bacteria killer – just by giving the metal’s surface a different texture. In a study published in the journal Advanced Materials Interfaces, the researchers demonstrated that this technique allows the surface of copper to immediately kill off superbugs such as MRSA. “Copper has been used as an antimicrobial material for centuries....

Associate Professor Bryan Fry, of UQ’s Venom Evolution Lab, said a new technique could replace conventional methods of testing paralytic neurotoxins, which previously required euthanasia of test subjects. “The old method, while extremely efficient, is limited in that it’s slow and requires the euthanization of animals in order to obtain the necessary tissue,” Dr. Fry said. “Our new method uses optical probes dipped into a solution containing the venoms and we measure the binding to these probes – the critical factor – by analyzing changes in the light reflected back....

Diabetes is a common disease that affects health in many ways. It results from a lack of insulin and/or decreased insulin action. Insulin is a hormone that regulates glucose (sugar) and thus energy to the cells. When a person has type 1 diabetes, the body stops producing insulin, while in type 2 diabetes, the cells have become less sensitive to insulin, which contributes to high blood glucose levels. One effect of diabetes is that it compromises the innate immune system....

A team of astronomers led by ASTRON astronomer Dr. George Heald has discovered a previously unknown gigantic radio galaxy, using initial images from a new, ongoing all-sky radio survey. The galaxy was found using the powerful International LOFAR Telescope (ILT), built and designed by ASTRON. The team is currently performing LOFAR’s first all-sky imaging survey, the Multi-frequency Snapshot Sky Survey (MSSS). While browsing the first set of MSSS images, Dr....

Plastics in our waste streams are breaking down into tiny particles, causing potentially catastrophic consequences for human health and our aquatic systems, finds research from the University of Surrey and Deakin’s Institute for Frontier Materials in a new study published by Journal of Water Research. Led by Dr. Judy Lee and Marie Enfrin from the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Surrey and Dr. Ludovic Dumée at Deakin’s Institute for Frontier Materials, the project investigated nano and microplastics in water and wastewater treatment processes....

Quantum key distribution (QKD), as the jargon says, is safe against attacks on the communication channel but not against attacks or manipulations of the devices themselves. As a result, the devices may output a key that the manufacturer had previously kept and could have passed to a hacker. It’s a different story with device-independent QKD (abbreviated DIQKD). The cryptographic protocol is unaffected by the device. This technology has been theoretically known since the 1990s, but it has only just been experimentally implemented by an international research team headed by Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich physicist Harald Weinfurter and Charles Lim from the National University of Singapore (NUS)....

After nearly a year of trying to dig into the Martian surface, the heat probe belonging to NASA’s InSight lander is about to get a push. The mission team plans to command the scoop on InSight’s robotic arm to press down on the “mole,” the mini pile driver designed to hammer itself as much as 16 feet (5 meters) down. They hope that pushing down on the mole’s top, also called the back cap, will keep it from backing out of its hole on Mars, as it did twice in recent months after nearly burying itself....

The first Martian rock NASA’s Curiosity rover has reached out to touch presents a more varied composition than expected from previous missions. The rock also resembles some unusual rocks from Earth’s interior. The rover team used two instruments on Curiosity to study the chemical makeup of the football-size rock called “Jake Matijevic” (matt-EE-oh-vick) The results support some surprising recent measurements and provide an example of why identifying rocks’ composition is such a major emphasis of the mission....

Radiation emitted in the vicinity of black holes could be used to measure distances of billions of light years, says Tel Aviv University (TAU) researcher. A few years ago, researchers revealed that the universe is expanding at a much faster rate than originally believed — a discovery that earned a Nobel Prize in 2011. But measuring the rate of this acceleration over large distances is still challenging and problematic, says Prof....

From an engineer’s perspective, plants such as palm trees, bamboo, maples and even potatoes are examples of precise engineering on a microscopic scale. Like wooden beams reinforcing a house, cell walls make up the structural supports of all plants. Depending on how the cell walls are arranged, and what they are made of, a plant can be as flimsy as a reed, or as sturdy as an oak. An MIT researcher has compiled data on the microstructures of a number of different plants, from apples and potatoes to willow and spruce trees, and has found that plants exhibit an enormous range of mechanical properties, depending on the arrangement of a cell wall’s four main building blocks: cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin and pectin....

A penny-sized rocket thruster may soon power the smallest satellites in space. The device, designed by Paulo Lozano, an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, bears little resemblance to today’s bulky satellite engines, which are laden with valves, pipes and heavy propellant tanks. Instead, Lozano’s design is a flat, compact square — much like a computer chip — covered with 500 microscopic tips that, when stimulated with voltage, emit tiny beams of ions....

Using specialized carbon nanotubes, MIT engineers have designed a novel sensor that can detect SARS-CoV-2 without any antibodies, giving a result within minutes. Their new sensor is based on technology that can quickly generate rapid and accurate diagnostics, not just for COVID-19 but for future pandemics, the researchers say. “A rapid test means that you can open up travel much earlier in a future pandemic. You can screen people getting off of an airplane and determine whether they should quarantine or not....

Two of NASA’s great observatories, the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes, have teamed up to uncover a mysterious infant star that behaves like a strobe light. Every 25.34 days, the object, designated LRLL 54361, unleashes a burst of light. Although a similar phenomenon has been observed in two other young stellar objects, this is the most powerful such beacon seen to date. The heart of the fireworks is hidden behind a dense disk and envelope of dust....