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The earliest stars most likely formed when the Universe was barely 100 million years old, or less than one percent of its present age. These early stars, known as Population III, were so colossally huge that when they died as supernovae, they tore themselves apart, dispersing a unique mixture of heavy elements across interstellar space. However, despite astronomers’ careful investigation over many years, there hasn’t been any conclusive proof of these ancient stars until now....

The airborne Lunar Spectral Irradiance Instrument (air-LUSI) is flying aboard NASA’s ER-2 airplane. The ER-2 is able to soar above clouds, about 70,000 feet (21,000 meters) above the ground. The flights, which occur at night to avoid scattered light from the Sun, began November 13 and will wrap up November 17 from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California. The NASA-funded instrument is “measuring how much sunlight is reflected by the Moon at various phases in order to accurately characterize it and expand how the Moon is used to calibrate Earth observing sensors,” said Kevin Turpie, a professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, leading the air-LUSI effort....

Around 11,000 coronary heart disease and stroke deaths in the UK each year are attributable to air pollution, specifically due to particulate matter (PM), or small particles in the air that cause health problems. PM2.5 is one of the finest and most dangerous type of PM, and is a compound for which the UK has failed to meet EU limits. Researchers of this study looked across all vertebrates and particularly focused on a set of compounds that binds to the surface of PM, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) as the amount of PAH on PM is associated with the detrimental effect air pollution has on the heart....

To help answer these and other intriguing questions, a team of astronomers has conducted ALMA‘s first large-scale, high-resolution survey of protoplanetary disks, the belts of dust and gas around young stars. Known as the Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP), this “Large Program” of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has yielded stunning, high-resolution images of 20 nearby protoplanetary disks and given astronomers new insights into the variety of features they contain and the speed with which planets can emerge....

Web-based content has surpassed newspapers and radio to become the second most popular news source for Americans, just after TV. Internet is on a clear upward trend whereas TV is in a soft, but stable decline. Among the 18-29 demographic, viewership has declined from 49 to 34 points in the last six years. It’s obvious that TV is failing to engage new, younger viewers. TV producers are trying to curb this trend by offering more technology and gaming....

Albicidin, a new antibiotic, is produced by the plant pathogen Xanthomonas albilineans, responsible for causing sugar cane’s destructive leaf scald disease. The toxin is believed to aid the pathogen’s spread by attacking the plant. Albicidin has been shown to be highly effective against harmful bacteria, including drug-resistant superbugs such as E. coli and S. aureus. Despite its antibiotic potential and low toxicity in pre-clinical experiments, pharmaceutical development of albicidin has been hampered because scientists did not know precisely how it interacted with its target, the bacterial enzyme DNA gyrase (gyrase)....

At Advanced Light Source (ALS) Beamline 12.2.2, researchers performed x-ray diffraction experiments on a nickel–argon mixture while subjecting it to pressures greater than 1.5 million times Earth’s atmospheric (surface) pressure and temperatures above 2000 K (1,700 C or 3,100F). The results strongly indicated that a new compound does indeed form—an alloy of 50% argon and 50% nickel. Theoretical calculations revealed that argon engages in significant electron transfer with nickel, resulting in a material with the crystal structure of an intermetallic alloy, with the argon and nickel equally interspersed in a solid solution....

Support for mandates has increased across partisan and demographic subgroups. As infections from the delta variant surge, the percentage of Americans who support vaccine mandates has risen to 64% from 58% in April. According to the latest poll by the COVID States Project, majorities of respondents from nearly all states approve of an overall vaccine mandate as well as specific mandates for plane travel and in-person schooling. The poll was conducted by a university consortium that includes Northwestern, Northeastern, Harvard and Rutgers University....

Some galaxies, like the Milky Way and Andromeda, have relatively slow and measured rates of starbirth, with about one new star igniting each year. Other galaxies, known as starburst galaxies, forge 100s or even 1000s of stars each year. This furious pace, however, cannot be maintained indefinitely. To avoid burning out in a short-lived blaze of glory, some galaxies throttle back their runaway starbirth by ejecting – at least temporarily – vast stores of gas into their expansive halos, where the gas either escapes entirely or slowly rains back in on the galaxy, triggering future bursts of star formation....

For only the second time in history, a team of scientists including Michele Fumagalli from the Carnegie Institution for Science in the United States has discovered an extremely rare triple quasar system. Their work is published in the Oxford University Press journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Quasars are extremely bright and powerful sources of energy that sit in the center of a galaxy, surrounding a black hole....

Researchers have discovered the brightest quasar yet known, detected from the period when the universe’s star-making hydrogen gas became ionized, known as “reionization.” The international research team found the quasar’s exceptional brightness to be caused by gravitational lensing, a phenomenon by which the gravity of objects closer to Earth acts as a magnifying glass to observe objects much farther away in space. Quasars are the bright cores found in some galaxies, powered by supermassive black holes....

The extremely rare phenomenon is connected to the death of a star and was discovered in observations made by European Space Agency’s (ESA) Herschel space observatory. When low- to middleweight stars like our Sun approach the end of their lives they eventually become dense, white dwarf stars. In the process, they cast off their outer layers of gas and dust into space, creating a kaleidoscope of intricate patterns known as a planetary nebula....

The scientists, led by Tahar Amari, an astrophysicist at the Center for Theoretical Physics at the École Polytechnique in Palaiseau Cedex, France, considered solar flares, which are intense bursts of radiation and light. Many strong solar flares are followed by a coronal mass ejection, or CME, a massive, bubble-shaped eruption of solar material and magnetic field, but some are not — what differentiates the two situations is not clearly understood....

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have spotted a distant galaxy hungrily snacking on nearby gas. Gas is seen to fall inwards towards the galaxy, creating a flow that both fuels star formation and drives the galaxy’s rotation. This is the best direct observational evidence so far supporting the theory that galaxies pull in and devour nearby material in order to grow and form stars. The results will appear in the 5 July 2013 issue of the journal Science....

An international team of researchers led by McMaster University has found that while higher heat and humidity can slow the spread of COVID-19, longer hours of sunlight are associated with a higher incidence of the disease, in a sign that sunny days can tempt more people out even if this means a higher risk of infection. The findings, published online the journal Geographical Analysis, inform the widespread scientific debate over how seasonal changes, specifically warmer weather, might shape the spread of COVID-19....

Even low-carbon energy technologies like solar cells and wind power plants have associated greenhouse gas emissions, but those impacts pale in comparison with the emissions prevented by the displacement of fossil fuel sources, a new study co-authored by a Yale researcher finds. The study, published in the journal Nature Energy, calculates the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions for a range of power sector technologies, and integrates energy, economic, and climate models to estimate the most cost-optimal strategies to combat climate change....

You’re on a diet, but the aroma of popcorn in the movie theater lobby triggers a seemingly irresistible craving. Within seconds, you’ve ordered a tub of the stuff and have eaten several handfuls. Impulsivity, or responding without thinking about the consequences of an action, has been linked to excessive food intake, binge eating, weight gain, and obesity, along with several psychiatric disorders including drug addiction and excessive gambling. A team of researchers that includes a faculty member at the University of Georgia has now identified a specific circuit in the brain that alters food impulsivity, creating the possibility scientists can someday develop therapeutics to address overeating....

Inflammation is usually the body’s response to injury and stress — such as the redness and swelling that accompanies an injury or infection. However, inflammation in the brain — known as neuroinflammation — has been recognized and linked to many disorders including depression, psychosis, and multiple sclerosis. It has also recently been linked to the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. In a study published today in the journal Brain, a team of researchers at the University of Cambridge set out to examine whether neuroinflammation also occurs in other forms of dementia, which would imply that it is common to many neurodegenerative diseases....

The Queen Charlotte Islands are a biodiverse archipelago and Parks Canada has been trying to restore the balance in the ecosystem by getting rid of rats, which seem to be the main culprits of hobbling the ecosystem. The Queen Charlotte Islands were invaded by rats three centuries ago, and are being restored to their original rat-free state in a bid to save the beleaguered populations of nesting seabirds, whose eggs and chicks are eaten by the rodents....

The starburst explanation should produce many hot young stars with abundant ultraviolet light and supernovae resulting from the deaths of the most massive and short-lived stars. The AGN explanation will produce hotter gas with more X-ray emission and characteristic spectral features. So far signs of both processes have been detected. Astronomers generally have concluded that stars are being made at a rate of about ten thousand solar masses per year, dominating the luminosity, and that the AGN contributes only modestly to the output, less than 25%....