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Rising hundreds of meters from the seafloor and dispersing thousands of kilometers away from their origin, hydrothermal plumes might appear to be inhospitable environments. Yet, a study recently published in Nature Microbiology reveals that specific bacteria manage to thrive in these seemingly precarious locations. More than just temporary visitors? “We took a detailed look at bacteria of the genus Sulfurimonas”, says first author Massimiliano Molari from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany....

Like human beings, every cell in our body tries to ward off death as long as it can. This is particular true for a specific type of immune cells, called T-lymphocytes, or T cells for short. These cells keep viruses, bacteria, parasites and cancerous cells at bay. While T cell production is an active process in infants, children and young adults, it comes to a gradual stop upon aging, meaning that in order to maintain adequate immunity up to an old age, your T cells should better live as long as you....

The highly anticipated Breaking Bad movie El Camino storyline focusing on drug production is more relevant than ever — with contamination of houses from methamphetamine cooking or smoking an increasing public health problem around the world. Researchers from Flinders University — Dr. Jackie Wright, Associate Professor Stewart Walker and Dr. Kirstin Ross — have analyzed the contamination levels in everyday household items from a home suspected to have previously been used for cooking methamphetamine, to determine whether surface wipe samples can adequately establish contamination levels and define the health risks....

A tenth of all intensive care unit patients worldwide, and many critical patients with COVID-19, have acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Therapeutic hypothermia, an intentional cooling of the body, has been suggested as a way to improve ARDS. New research by Chiara Autilio and colleagues in the lab of Jesus Perez-Gil at the Complutense University of Madrid shows not only how therapeutic hypothermia works in the lungs at the molecular level, but also why it could be successfully applied to ARDS....

Three of Saturn’s moons — Tethys, Enceladus and Mimas — are captured in this group photo from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Tethys (660 miles or 1,062 kilometers across) appears above the rings, while Enceladus (313 miles or 504 kilometers across) sits just below center. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across) hangs below and to the left of Enceladus. This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 0....

As part of attempts to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic, paper masks are increasingly being made mandatory. Their relative effectiveness is no longer in question, but their widespread use has a number of drawbacks. These include the environmental impact of disposable masks made from layers of non-woven polypropylene plastic microfibers. Moreover, they merely trap pathogens instead of destroying them. “In a hospital setting, these masks are placed in special bins and handled appropriately,” says László Forró, head of EPFL’s Laboratory of Physics of Complex Matter....

A team of international researchers, headed by Thomas Karl from the University of Innsbruck’s Department of Atmospheric and Cryospheric Sciences, has utilized the data collected from the Innsbruck Atmospheric Observatory to conduct a comprehensive examination of the chemistry of ozone, nitrogen monoxide, and nitrogen dioxide in urban environments. The high proportion of diesel vehicles in European cities leads to strong concentrations of nitrogen monoxide. This reacts with ozone to produce nitrogen dioxide....

A black hole is a single point in space that has a lot of mass. One of the ways that we look for black holes is to develop new instruments and new technologies that can try to search for them. As we’ve observed black holes including the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy, because it has such a strong gravity because it has lots of mass, stars will orbit black holes and as stars get closer and closer to the center of a black hole as it crosses over the Event Horizon, what will happen is that the material of these stars will get shredded apart, because the gravitational pull of a black hole is so strong that the material of the stars gets pulled apart....

An international team of researchers using data from Arecibo Observatory and the Fermi Space Telescope have discovered what they call a “gamma-ray heartbeat” coming from a cosmic gas cloud. The cloud is in the constellation Aquilla and “beats” in rhythm with a black hole 100 light years away in a microquasar system known as SS 433. The results were published in August 2020 in the journal Nature Astronomy. “This result challenges obvious interpretations and is unexpected from previously published theoretical models,” says Jian Li, a Humboldt Fellow with the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron in Zeuthen, Germany, and study co-author....

Following the first recorded death of an anesthetist from COVID-19 in the UK in November 2020, a review of available data published in Anaesthesia (a journal of the Association of Anaesthetists) shows that unexpectedly, despite their perceived increased exposure to COVID-19 patients and high-risk procedures, anesthetists and intensive care doctors appear to be at lower risk of being infected with SARS-CoV-2 and developing COVID-19. The analysis was carried out by Professor Tim Cook, Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine, Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust, Bath, UK, and School of Medicine, University of Bristol, UK, and Dr Simon Lenanne, General Practitioner, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, UK....

Earlier this month, US health agencies added SARS to the list of select agents that pose a severe threat to public health and safety. The agencies opened public consultation about whether H5N1 should also be listed as a Tier 1 agent. SARS, as well as two new hemorrhagic-fever viruses, Lujo and Chapare, will be on the Tier 1 list, meaning that dozens of US labs holding the virus have until April 3rd to upgrade their biosecurity measures or destroy or transfer them....

These Fridge-Free COVID Vaccines Are Grown in Plants and Bacteria Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed COVID-19 vaccine candidates that can take the heat. Their key ingredients? Viruses from plants or bacteria. The new fridge-free COVID-19 vaccines are still in the early stage of development. In mice, the vaccine candidates triggered high production of neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. If they prove to be safe and effective in people, the vaccines could be a big game changer for global distribution efforts, including those in rural areas or resource-poor communities....

In 2016, Farhad Yusef-Zadeh of Northwestern University reported the discovery of an unusual filament near the center of the Milky Way Galaxy using the NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). The filament is about 2.3 light-years long and curves around to point at the supermassive black hole, called Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), located in the Galactic center. Now, another team of astronomers has employed a pioneering technique to produce the highest-quality image yet obtained of this curved object....

Researchers from The University of Queensland (UQ), The Mater Hospital, and the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital have shown that changes in the structure and function of our neurons may be the cause of the human brain’s increased processing power. They recently published their findings in the journal Cell Reports. Professor Stephen Williams of UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) explained that his team has researched the electrical properties of human neocortical pyramidal neurons embedded in their neuronal networks....

Providence, Rhode Island (Brown University) — A widely presumed problem of aging is that the brain becomes less flexible — less plastic — and that learning may therefore become more difficult. A new study led by Brown University researchers contradicts that notion with a finding that plasticity did occur in seniors who learned a task well, but it occurred in a different part of the brain than in younger people....

A new study by researchers at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University has found that while Americans are consuming more whole-grain foods than ever before, there is still a significant gap between current consumption and the recommended daily intake. The study, which was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, also revealed that there are competing definitions of what constitutes a whole-grain food, which can lead to confusion and inaccuracies in measuring consumption levels....

A recent meta-analysis published in Nature Immunology has shed light on the biological reasons why some people’s immune systems respond differently to vaccinations. These findings have significant implications for the development and distribution of vaccines globally. As part of a series of studies for The Human Immunology Project Consortium (HIPC), a network of national research institutions studying the range of responses to different infections and vaccinations, Emory University researchers analyzed the molecular characteristics of 820 healthy young adults who were immunized with 13 different vaccines to identify specific biomarkers that generate antibody response to vaccines....

How Hunger Makes Food Tastier: A Neural Circuit in the Hypothalamus Researchers at the National Institute for Physiological Sciences in Okazaki identify the neural pathways that cause hunger-induced increases in the preference for sweet foods and the decreased sensitivity to aversive tastes in mice. Why does everything taste better when we’re hungry? According to recent research from Japan’s National Institute for Physiological Sciences, not only does food taste sweeter when our stomachs rumble, but bitter food also becomes easier to eat—and both effects are modulated by a neural circuit in the hypothalamus....

The Bush Fire is by far the largest of the four at 114,941 and is only 5 percent contained. This fire began on Saturday, June 13, 2020 and it has been determined that this fire was human-caused. The Bush Fire is located in the Tonto National Forest, about 8 miles northeast of Mesa, Arizona along Hwy 87. Due to the growth of the fire and its movement near communities Emergency Management Services in Gila and Maricopa counties are evacuating Apache Lake, Sunflower, Punkin Center and Tonto Basin....

New research by Yale University scientists suggests rocky planets orbiting other stars may hide thick layers of diamond beneath the surface. “A carbon-rich planet likely forms from a material called silicon carbide, but at the high temperatures inside of the planet, that silicon carbide would decompose into silicon and diamond,” said lead researcher Kierstin Daviau, a Yale graduate student in geology and geophysics. “The density difference between silicon and diamond would cause the two materials to separate and form layers....