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Gut microbes encourage specialized cells to prune back extra connections in brain circuits that control social behavior, new University of Oregon research in zebrafish shows. The pruning is essential for the development of normal social behavior. The researchers also found that these ‘social’ neurons are similar in zebrafish and mice. That suggests the findings might translate between species — and could possibly point the way to treatments for a range of neurodevelopmental conditions....

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain issues have rattled consumers and the businesses they frequent. From Clorox wipes to semiconductors to computer chips, inventory of many products at big box stores, dealerships and even grocers is low or out of stock. The problem is creating growing concern as the U.S. inches toward Black Friday and the holiday season, the biggest spending period of the year. Most supply chains were built to provide optimal value for relatively steady and predictable demand, but the pandemic and other factors have contributed to abrupt swings in demand patterns that long and extended supply chains are not designed to accommodate....

Researchers have successfully developed a rapid point-of-care test for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies (NAbs). This simple test, only requiring a drop of blood from a fingertip, can be performed within 10 minutes without the need for a laboratory or specially trained personnel. Currently, no similar NAb tests are commercially available within Singapore or elsewhere. The work was led by the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) interdisciplinary research group at Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) and the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), alongside collaborators at National University Hospital, MIT, and the Centre for Life Sciences and Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at National University of Singapore....

Black holes may be dark, but the areas around them definitely are not. These dense, spinning behemoths twist up gas and matter just outside their event horizon, and generate heat and energy that gets radiated, in part, as light. And when black holes merge, they produce a bright intergalactic burst that may act as a beacon for their collision. Astrophysicists became deeply interested in black holes in the 1960s, but the idea of their event horizon was first intimated in a paper by Karl Schwarzschild published after Einstein introduced general relativity in 1915....

A new study, published in Frontiers in Fungal Biology, has revealed that small mammals could act as a reservoir for these fungal infections. This implies that these rodents may act as reservoirs, dispersion agents, and incubators for emerging fungal pathogens. “Our analysis, which specifically focused on lung pathogens that cause disease in humans, detected a wide range of fungi in the lung tissues of small mammals,” said Paris Salazar-Hamm, first author of this research, of the University of New Mexico....

On most days, our normally calm Sun goes about its business, delivering a steady and predictable amount of heat and light that keeps planet Earth and its humans ticking. But just as the Sun drives weather on Earth, solar activity is responsible for disturbances in our space environment, dubbed ‘space weather.’ Besides emitting a continuous stream of electrically charged atomic particles, the Sun periodically sneezes out billions of tonnes of material threaded with magnetic fields in colossal-scale ‘coronal mass ejections....

Although the picture appears to be full of galaxies, they are actually beyond this void, and instead form part of other galaxy groups or clusters. Cosmic voids, such as this one, are the spaces within the web-like structure of the Universe wherein very few or no galaxies exist. Adjacent to the Local Group, this region of empty space is at least 150 million light-years across. For perspective, our own Milky Way galaxy is estimated to be 150,000 light-years across, making this void immense in its nothingness....

Angel Martí and his team have found experimental evidence of an alternative binding site on amyloid-beta aggregates through a new approach using time-resolved spectroscopy and computational chemistry, opening the door to the development of new therapies for Alzheimer’s and other diseases associated with amyloid deposits. The study was recently published in the journal Chemical Science. Amyloid plaque deposits in the brain are a main feature of Alzheimer’s. “Amyloid-beta is a peptide that aggregates in the brains of people that suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, forming these supramolecular nanoscale fibers, or fibrils,” said Martí, a professor of chemistry, bioengineering, and materials science and nanoengineering and faculty director of the Rice Emerging Scholars Program....

Quasars are active black holes – primarily from the early universe. Using a special method where you observe light that has been bent by gravity on its way through the universe, a group of physics students from the Niels Bohr Institute have observed a quasar whose light has been deflected and reflected in six separate images. This is the first time a quasar has been observed with so many light reflections....

Major Canadian-led study finds there’s no need to cut down red and processed meat consumption. Most people can continue to eat red and processed meat as they do now. A panel of international scientists led by researchers at Dalhousie and McMaster universities systematically reviewed the evidence and have recommended that most adults should continue to eat their current levels of red and processed meat. The researchers performed four systematic reviews focused on randomized controlled trials and observational studies looking at the impact of red meat and processed meat consumption on cardiometabolic and cancer outcomes....

Published in the journal Scientific Reports, the research shows for the first time that groups of gorillas recognize “ownership” of specific regions. They are also more likely to avoid contact with other groups the closer they are to the center of their neighbors’ home range, for fear of conflict. The study, which was carried out by academics from the University of Cambridge, Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), the University of Barcelona, SPAC Scientific Field Station Network, and the University of Vienna, involved monitoring the movements of groups of western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla)....

The first randomized clinical study on medical abortion “reversal” Anti-abortion activists claim that women who take mifepristone for abortion and change their minds before using misoprostol can take progesterone to stop the abortion process. The UC Davis Health study is the first rigorous clinical study to test the efficacy of progesterone after mifepristone. The process of reversing mifepristone’s binding to progesterone receptors is referred to medically as mifepristone antagonization. Before this study, the medical literature on mifepristone reversal consisted of case reports and series, which do not provide evidence on whether progesterone treatment is effective or safe....

Environmental change can drive hard-wired evolutionary changes in animal species in a matter of generations. A University of Leeds-led study, published in the journal Ecology Letters, overturns the common assumption that evolution only occurs gradually over hundreds or thousands of years. Instead, researchers found significant genetically transmitted changes in laboratory populations of soil mites in just 15 generations, leading to a doubling of the age at which the mites reached adulthood and large changes in population size....

But why did the ability to shout, bark, bellow or moo evolve in the first place? In what is likely the first study to trace the evolution of acoustic communication across terrestrial vertebrates, John J. Wiens of the University of Arizona and Zhuo Chen, a visiting scientist from Henan Normal University in Xinxiang, China, traced the evolution of acoustic communication in terrestrial vertebrates back to 350 million years ago. The authors assembled an evolutionary tree for 1,800 species showing the evolutionary relationships of mammals, birds, lizards and snakes, turtles, crocodilians, and amphibians going back 350 million years....

The eruption started at around 16:15 local time, with a thick column of gas, with possible volcanic ash content, rising to around 200 m above the crater.

A strong winter storm brought snow, sleet, and rain to the Great Lakes area of the U.S. and Canada on February 17 and 18, 2022. After the storm, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) snapped this photograph on February 20, 2022. At the time, the space station was orbiting directly over northern Iowa, but the oblique angle of the photo shows areas farther to the east including Michigan, Ontario, and the Great Lakes....

SLAC and Stanford scientists have set a world record for energy storage, using a clever “yolk-shell” design to store five times more energy in the sulfur cathode of a rechargeable lithium-ion battery than is possible with today’s commercial technology. The cathode also maintained a high level of performance after 1,000 charge/discharge cycles, paving the way for new generations of lighter, longer-lasting batteries for use in portable electronics and electric vehicles....

In a report by Greenpeace last year, India was named the world’s largest emitter of anthropogenic sulfur dioxide – a significant contributor to air pollution. Sulfur dioxide causes many health-related problems, can harm sensitive ecosystems and is also a precursor to acid rain. While some atmospheric sulfur dioxide is produced from natural processes, such as volcanoes, a substantial amount is produced by human activities – predominantly from power plants burning fossil fuels....

Future advanced gravitational-wave detectors, engineered to be more sensitive, could possibly detect a supernova—a core-collapse supernova could be the first object to be observed simultaneously in electromagnetic light, neutrinos and gravitational waves. To detect a core-collapse supernova in gravitational waves, scientists need to predict what the gravitational wave signal will look like. Supercomputers are used to simulate these cosmic explosions to understand their complicated physics. This allows scientists to predict what the detectors will see when a star explodes and its observable properties....

The advancement surpasses silicon and other mature technologies, and could help improve distances that electric cars, locomotives can travel. People love their electric cars. But not so much the bulky batteries and related power systems that take up precious cargo space. Help could be on the way from a gallium oxide-based transistor under development at the University at Buffalo. In a study published in the June edition of IEEE Electron Device Letters, electrical engineers describe how the tiny electronic switch can handle more than 8,000 volts, an impressive feat considering it’s about as thin as a sheet of paper....