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At the center of every galaxy in our Universe lives a supermassive black hole—a black hole that’s millions to billions times the mass of our Sun. Big galaxies are assembled from smaller galaxies merging together, so collisions of supermassive black holes are expected to be common in the cosmos. But merging supermassive black holes remain elusive: no conclusive evidence of their existence has been found so far. One way to look for these mergers is through their emission of gravitational waves—ripples in the fabric of space and time....

However, these findings contradict those of a previous study, which proposed that a hypothetical structure attached to the end of a diplodocid tail – similar to a tuft at the end of a bullwhip – could move faster than the speed of sound (340 meters per second or 1100 feet per second) and create a small supersonic boom. Simone Conti and colleagues simulated diplodocid tail movements using a model based on five fossilized diplodocid specimens....

A study of 1,095 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 discovered that two easily measurable signs of health — respiration rate and blood-oxygen saturation — are distinctly predictive of higher mortality. Notably, the authors said, anyone who receives a positive COVID-19 screening test can easily monitor for these two signs at home. This context is lacking in current guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which tells people with COVID-19 to seek medical attention when they experience overt symptoms such as “trouble breathing” and “persistent pain or pressure in the chest” — indications that may be absent even when respiration and blood oxygen have reached dangerous levels, the authors say....

Vaccination is over 90 percent effective at preventing deaths from the Delta variant of COVID-19, according to the first country-level data on mortality. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is 90 percent effective and the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine 91 percent effective in preventing deaths in people who have been double vaccinated, but who have tested positive for coronavirus in the community, research shows. The study, using data from the Scotland-wide EAVE II COVID-19 surveillance platform, is the first to show across an entire country how effective vaccines are at preventing death from the Delta variant, which is now the dominant form of COVID-19 in the UK and many other countries....

A newly published study in Science of the Total Environment is the first to evaluate the impact of food losses and its relationship to resources on a global scale, finding that an additional one billion people can be fed from our current resources if the food losses could be halved. More efficient use of the food production chain and a decrease in the amount of food losses will dramatically help maintaining the planet’s natural resources and improve people’s lives....

Some types of bacteria have the ability to punch holes into other cells and kill them. They do this by releasing specialized proteins called “pore-forming toxins” (PFTs) that latch onto the cell’s membrane and form a tube-like channel that goes through it. This hole (structure?) across the membrane is called a pore. Punctured by multiple PFTs, the target cell self-destructs. However, PFTs have garnered much interest beyond bacterial infections. The nano-sized pores that they form are used for “sensing” biomolecules: a biological molecule e....

The origin of flowering plants famously puzzled Charles Darwin, who described their sudden appearance in the fossil record from relatively recent geological times as an “abominable mystery.” This mystery has further deepened with an inexplicable discrepancy between the relatively recent fossil record and a much older time of origin of flowering plants estimated using genome data. Now a team of scientists from Switzerland, Sweden, the UK, and China may have solved the puzzle....

Using the Hubble Space Telescope to survey a sample of huge clusters of galaxies, the team found a distant galaxy, eMACSJ1341-QG-1, that is magnified 30 times thanks to the distortion of space-time created by the massive galaxy cluster dubbed eMACSJ1341.9-2441. The underlying physical effect of gravitational lensing was first confirmed during the solar eclipse of 1919, and can dramatically magnify images of distant celestial sources if a sufficiently massive object lies between the background source and observers....

While it’s possible that we’ll never learn if there is life elsewhere in the universe or even if there is another advanced civilization, there is a possibility that it will be detected sooner rather than later. However, are we prepared? The University of St. Andrews’ Centre for Exoplanet Science and Centre for Global Law and Governance will serve as hosts for the new SETI Post-Detection Hub, which will serve as a coordinating hub for an international effort to establish impact assessments, protocols, procedures, and treaties that will enable a responsible response....

While the famous star in Orion’s shoulder will likely meet its demise within the next million years — practically couple days in cosmic time — scientists maintain that its dimming is due to the star pulsating. The phenomenon is relatively common among red supergiants, and Betelgeuse has been known for decades to be in this group. Coincidentally, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have already made predictions about the brightness of the supernova that would result when a pulsating star like Betelgeuse explodes....

This false-color image was processed in a way that included the near-infrared channel, which makes vegetation appear bright red. The snow over the surrounding mountains is visible in white, adding to the Christmasy feel of the image. Most of Tromsø lies on the island of Tromsøya, visible at the top of the image. Owing to its northerly location, the city is a popular area to experience the majestic phenomenon of the aurora borealis, or northern lights....

Rather, longer training distances, lower body mass, and avoidance of overhydration were shown to be more important factors in preventing illness caused by electrolyte imbalances, the researchers found. Their study also showed that hot weather increased the rates of these types of illnesses. “Electrolyte supplements are promoted as preventing nausea and cramping caused by low salt levels, but this is a false paradigm,” said Grant Lipman, MD, professor of emergency medicine at Stanford and director of Stanford Wilderness Medicine....

According to findings recently presented at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society, the identification of the faintest galaxies known to exist beyond the Milky Way’s vicinity could aid researchers in creating universal models for the formation of the universe’s earliest galaxies. A team of scientists, headed by Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil, who is now a professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College, have uncovered three ultra-faint dwarf galaxies (UFDs) that are considered among the faintest galaxies found outside of the Local Group....

The population’s immunity to SARS-CoV-2, achieved either through infection or vaccination, is crucial to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic. A team of researchers led by the University of Zurich (UZH) has now discovered another component that contributes to SARS-CoV-2 immunity – previous antibody responses to other, harmless coronaviruses. “People who have had strong immune responses to other human coronaviruses also have some protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection,” says Alexandra Trkola, head of the Institute of Medical Virology at UZH....

What if the switch to bombing London had not occurred? What if a more eager Hitler had pushed for an earlier beginning to the campaign? What if Goring had focused on targeting British airfields throughout the entire period of the Battle? These are just some of the alternative scenarios that have formed a long-running debate among Second World War historians and enthusiasts over what might have affected the outcome of the battle, which took place between May and October 1940....

Quantum mechanics has come a long way during the past 100 years but still has a long way to go. In AVS Quantum Science, from AIP Publishing, researchers from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa review the progress being made in using structured light in quantum protocols to create a larger encoding alphabet, stronger security and better resistance to noise. “What we really want is to do quantum mechanics with patterns of light,” said author Andrew Forbes....

The research team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, UW-Whitewater and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University measured the emission of light from hydrogen and nitrogen in the Fermi Bubbles at the same position as recent ultraviolet absorption measurements made by the Hubble Telescope. “We combined those two measurements of emission and absorption to estimate the density, pressure and temperature of the ionized gas, and that lets us better understand where this gas is coming from,” says Dhanesh Krishnarao, lead author of the new study and an astronomy graduate student at UW-Madison....

The Bay Area National Weather Service measured 5.5 inches (14 centimeters) of rain in downtown San Francisco on December 31, 2022, the second wettest day in more than 170 years of record-keeping. This daily total is about half of the city’s expected rainfall for the entire month of December. Toward the northeast in Sacramento County, some areas recorded up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain within 24 hours, according to the National Weather Service....

The particle, tiny spheres of copper dotted with single atoms of ruthenium, is the key component in a green process for making syngas, or synthesis gas, a valuable chemical feedstock that’s used to make fuels, fertilizer, and many other products. Researchers from Rice, UCLA, and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), describe the low-energy, low-temperature syngas production process this week in Nature Energy. “Syngas can be made in many ways, but one of those, methane dry reforming, is increasingly important because the chemical inputs are methane and carbon dioxide, two potent and problematic greenhouse gases,” said Rice chemist and engineer Naomi Halas, a co-corresponding author on the paper....

Univeristy of Arizona (UA) geneticists have discovered the oldest known genetic branch of the human Y chromosome – the hereditary factor determining male sex. The new divergent lineage, which was found in an individual who submitted his DNA to Family Tree DNA, a company specializing in DNA analysis to trace family roots, branched from the Y chromosome tree before the first appearance of anatomically modern humans in the fossil record....