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A crystalline compound called ruthenium dioxide is widely used in industrial processes, where it’s particularly important for catalyzing a chemical reaction that splits molecules of water and releases oxygen. But the exact mechanism that takes place on this material’s surface, and how that reaction is affected by the orientation of the crystal surfaces, had never been determined in detail. Now, a team of researchers at MIT and several other institutions has for the first time been able to directly study the process at an atomic level....

The review, published in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, found existing studies on long COVID in children and adolescents have major limitations and some do not show a difference in symptoms between those who have been infected by SARS-CoV-2 and those who haven’t. It comes as a new MCRI COVID-19 research brief also states after 10 months in circulation the Delta strain had not caused more serious disease in children than previous variants and most cases remained asymptomatic or mild....

Let’s say you have a runny nose, headache, and cough. Are they signs of COVID-19 or just a run-of-the-mill common cold? Northwestern University epidemiologist Dr. Sadiya Khan breaks down the symptoms for COVID-19 and how they compare to typical seasonal viruses and allergies, while also stressing the importance of getting a flu vaccine this year — something the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending people do by October 31....

The COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent paper in the journal Risk Analysis, shows that a refuge is a viable idea and may not necessarily need to be remote or far away. The authors examine how and why China and Western Australia were effective refuges during the pandemic’s first two years in their analysis. Seth Baum, a geographer and the executive director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute in Washington, D....

This newly released Hubble image shows the Antennae Galaxies, also known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has snapped the best ever image of the Antennae Galaxies. Hubble has released images of these stunning galaxies twice before, once using observations from its Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) in 1997, and again in 2006 from the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). Each of Hubble’s images of the Antennae Galaxies has been better than the last, due to upgrades made during the famous servicing missions, the last of which took place in 2009....

This image was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide-Field Camera 3, partially for an extensive observing program called RELICS. The program is imaging 41 massive galaxy clusters to find the brightest distant galaxies, which will be studied in more detail using both current telescopes and the future NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Messier 2 is located in the constellation of Aquarius (The Water-Bearer), about 55,000 light-years away. It is a globular cluster, a spherical group of stars all tightly bound together by gravity. With a diameter of roughly 175 light-years, a population of 150,000 stars, and an age of 13 billion years, Messier 2 is one of the largest clusters of its kind and one of the oldest associated with the Milky Way....

The blue color of UGCA 193 indicates the stars that we see are hot — some with temperatures exceeding 6 times that of our Sun. We know that cooler stars appear to our eyes more red, and hotter stars appear more blue. As the mass and surface temperature of a star, and therefore its color, are linked, heavier stars are able to “burn” at higher temperatures resulting in a blue glow from their surface....

Several stars are visible in front of the cluster — recognizable by their diffraction spikes — but aside from these, all other visible objects are distant galaxies. Their light has become redshifted by the expansion of space, making them appear redder than they actually are. By measuring the amount of redshift, we know that it took more than 5 billion years for the light from this galaxy cluster to reach us....

Dark matter is the invisible glue that keeps stars, dust, and gas together in a galaxy. This mysterious substance makes up the bulk of a galaxy’s mass and forms the foundation of our Universe’s large-scale structure. Because dark matter does not emit, absorb, or reflect light, its presence is only known through its gravitational pull on visible matter in space. Astronomers and physicists are still trying to pin down what it is....

This represents the first time scientists detected light tied to a gravitational-wave event, thanks to two merging neutron stars in the galaxy NGC 4993, located about 130 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra. Learn more about this phenomenon.

When it comes to intelligence, what factors distinguish the brains of exceptionally smart humans from those of average humans? As science has long suspected, overall brain size matters somewhat, accounting for about 6.7 percent of individual variation in intelligence. More recent research has pinpointed the brain’s lateral prefrontal cortex, a region just behind the temple, as a critical hub for high-level mental processing, with activity levels there predicting another 5 percent of variation in individual intelligence....

UCLA life scientists have identified a gene previously implicated in Parkinson’s disease that can delay the onset of aging and extend the healthy life span of fruit flies. The research, they say, could have important implications for aging and disease in humans. The gene, called parkin, serves at least two vital functions: It marks damaged proteins so that cells can discard them before they become toxic, and it is believed to play a key role in the removal of damaged mitochondria from cells....

“We on the Mars 2020 project feel a special kinship with the crew of Apollo 12,” said John McNamee, Mars 2020 project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “They achieved the first precision landing, deployed the most advanced suite of science instruments of the time, and were the first to interact with another spacecraft that put down on another world. That’s all part of the Mars 2020 playbook as well....

Situated in the northeast of the Arabian Peninsula, Kuwait shares its borders with Iraq to the north and Saudi Arabia to the south. Kuwait is generally low-lying, with the highest point being only 300 m (1,000 ft) above sea level. The flat, sandy Arabian Desert covers the majority of Kuwait and appears as a vast expanse of light sand-colored terrain in this image, captured on 25 July 2019. During the dry season, between April and September, the heat in the desert can be severe with daytime temperatures reaching 45°C (113°F) and, on occasion, over 50°C (122°F)....

The Falkland Islands lie in the South Atlantic Ocean, around 500 km northeast of the southern tip of South America. The Falklands comprise two main islands, West Falkland and East Falkland, as well as hundreds of other smaller islands and islets, which form a total land area approximately five times the size of Luxembourg. The two main islands are separated by the Falkland Sound, a channel that averages around 20 km in width....

The new solution was made possible by an innovative approach to compact fusion reactors, using high-temperature superconducting magnets. This method formed the basis for a massive new research program launched this year at MIT and the creation of an independent startup company to develop the concept. The new design, unlike that of typical fusion plants, would make it possible to open the device’s internal chamber and replace critical components; this capability is essential for the newly proposed heat-draining mechanism....

“These three studies provide important constraints on the present-day structure of Mars and are also key for improving our understanding of how the planet formed billions of years ago and evolved through time,” write Sanne Cottaar and Paula Koelemeijer in a related Perspective. Studying a planet’s interior layers — its crust, mantle and core — can reveal key insights into its formation and evolution, as well as uncovering any geomagnetic and tectonic activity it hosts....

Lepton universality is the idea that all three types of charged lepton particles – electrons, muons, and taus – interact in the same way with other particles. As a result, the different lepton types should be created equally often in particle transformations, or “decays,” once differences in their mass are accounted for. However, some measurements of particle decays made by the LHCb team and other groups over the past few years have indicated a possible difference in their behavior....

Invasions by alien insect and animal species have much in common with outbreaks of infectious diseases and could tell us a great deal about how pandemics spread, according to a research paper published today. Biological invasions, where animals, insects, plants, and microorganisms are transported around the globe by humans, are becoming more common and have a global annual cost of at least £118billion. An investigation by an international team of scientists, including the University of Leeds’ School of Biology, says the emergence of human diseases share many of the same challenges as species invasions and that studying them together could provide solutions....