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Sometimes astronomy is like real estate — what’s important is location, location, and location. Astronomers have resolved a major problem in their understanding of a class of stars that undergo regular outbursts by accurately measuring the distance to a famous example of the type. The researchers used the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) and the European VLBI Network (EVN) to precisely locate one of the most-observed variable-star systems in the sky — a double-star system called SS Cygni — at 370 light-years from Earth....

The team, co-led by Vivienne Sze, associate professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), and Sertac Karaman, the Class of 1948 Career Development Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, built a fully customized chip from the ground up, with a focus on reducing power consumption and size while also increasing processing speed. The new computer chip, named “Navion,” which they are presenting this week at the Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits, is just 20 square millimeters — about the size of a LEGO minifigure’s footprint — and consumes just 24 milliwatts of power, or about 1 one-thousandth the energy required to power a lightbulb....

High-frequency magnetic waves, by contrast, can propagate in even the smallest nanostructures and thus transmit and process information. The physical basis for this is the so-called spin of electrons in the magnetic material, which can be simplified as a rotation of the electron around its own axis. However, spin waves in microelectronics have so far only been of limited use, due to the so-called damping, which acts on the spin waves and weakens them....

NASA | MMS Mission OverviewSenior Project Scientist Tom Moore outlines the three instrument suites onboard the four MMS spacecraft. On March 12, 2015, NASA plans to launch the Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, mission. MMS consists of four identical spacecraft that will orbit around Earth through the dynamic magnetic system surrounding our planet to study a little-understood phenomenon called magnetic reconnection. Watch NASA’s new movie to learn more about MMS and the phenomenon of magnetic reconnection, which occurs near Earth, on the sun, in other stars and in the vicinity of black holes and neutron stars....

Now, researchers at Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is managed by Caltech for NASA, have come up with a new design for an optical atomic clock that holds promise to be the most accurate and precise yet (accuracy refers to the ability of the clock to correctly pin down the time, and precision refers to its ability to tell time in fine detail). Nicknamed the “tweezer clock,” it employs technology in which so-called laser tweezers are used to manipulate individual atoms....

COVID-19 patients suffer from cognitive and behavioral problems two months after being discharged from hospital, a new study presented at the 7th Congress of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) has found. COVID-19 patients suffer from cognitive and behavioral problems two months after being discharged from hospital, a new study presented at the 7th Congress of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) has found. Issues with memory, spatial awareness, and information processing problems were identified as possible overhangs from the virus in post-COVID-19 patients who were followed up within eight weeks....

Liquid crystals are remarkable materials that combine the optical properties of crystalline solids with the flow properties of liquids, characteristics that come together to enable the displays found in most computer monitors, televisions and smartphones. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Swarthmore College describe new research into a type of liquid crystal that dissolves in water rather than avoids it as do the oily liquid crystals found in displays....

Geneva, 14 March 2013. At the Moriond Conference today, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) presented preliminary new results that further elucidate the particle discovered last year. Having analyzed two and a half times more data than was available for the discovery announcement in July, they find that the new particle is looking more and more like a Higgs boson, the particle linked to the mechanism that gives mass to elementary particles....

This new infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the Two Micron All Sky Survey shows IC 417, which is about 10,000 light-years away. A nebula known as “the Spider” glows fluorescent green in an infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). The Spider, officially named IC 417, lies near a much smaller object called NGC 1931, not pictured in the image....

Breakthrough infections greatly enhance immune response to variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a newly published study from Oregon Health & Science University. The laboratory results, published online ahead of print in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), reveals that a breakthrough infection generates a robust immune response against the delta variant. Authors say the findings suggest the immune response is likely to be highly effective against other variants as the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to mutate....

A buildup of coronavirus in the lungs is likely behind the steep mortality rates seen in the pandemic, a new study finds. The results contrast with previous suspicions that simultaneous infections, such as bacterial pneumonia or overreaction of the body’s immune defense system, played major roles in heightened risk of death, the investigators say. Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the new study showed that people who died of COVID-19 had on average 10 times the amount of virus, or viral load, in their lower airways as did severely ill patients who survived their illness....

Findings have implications in understanding, preventing and treating multiple lung diseases. Lung immunity is essential to combat all pulmonary diseases, including COVID-19, pneumonia, lung cancer, asthma and COPD. Lung immunity differs from the systemic immunity which is the normal focus of biomedical investigations and interventions, but factors influencing the establishment and regulation of lung immunity are mostly still unknown. Now a new study reveals lung cell roles in guiding the immune system....

In 1933, Swiss physicist and astronomer Fritz Zwicky suggested the existence of dark matter, a type of matter that is not directly visible but can be detected through its gravitational effects. It is believed to make up about 85% of the mass in the universe and consists of approximately five times more mass than the visible matter we are familiar with. Recently, following a precision experiment developed at the Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics (AEC) at the University of Bern, an international research team succeeded in significantly narrowing the scope for the existence of dark matter....

Astronomers from Swinburne University of Technology have discovered how supermassive black holes grow — and it’s not what was expected. For years, scientists had believed that supermassive black holes, located at the centers of galaxies, increased their mass in step with the growth of their host galaxy. However, new observations have revealed a dramatically different behavior. “Black holes have been growing much faster than we thought,” Professor Alister Graham from Swinburne’s Center for Astrophysics and Supercomputing said....

NAFLD encompasses a range of liver conditions caused by the accumulation of fat in the liver. This can result in liver fibrosis, which can advance to cirrhosis (liver scarring) and even liver cancer. Unlike other liver disorders, NAFLD is frequently caused by a sedentary lifestyle and a diet high in calories, rather than alcohol consumption. Study participants with higher coffee intake had healthier livers. Subjects with higher caffeine levels were less likely to have liver fibrosis, while higher levels of non-caffeine coffee components were significantly associated with reduced fatty liver index scores....

The increasing amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere due to climate change has also led to a higher concentration of CO2 in the oceans. The CO2 dissolves in the seawater to create carbonic acid that acidifies the oceans. This higher acidity has already been found to damage the calcium carbonate in corals and other animals with calcium-based structures. The research team from three South African research institutions, from the University of Duisburg-Essen and Heinrich-Heine University (HHU) has now examined whether the more acidic seawater is also affecting sharks....

Years ago, scientists discovered that piranhas lose all of the teeth on one side of their mouth at once and regrow them, presumably to replace dulled teeth with brand new sharp spears for gnawing on prey. But no museum specimens have ever shown this theory to be true, and there’s no documentation of piranhas missing an entire block of teeth. With the help of new technologies, a team led by the University of Washington has confirmed that piranhas — and their plant-eating cousins, pacus — do in fact lose and regrow all the teeth on one side of their face multiple times throughout their lives....

Declines in physical activity linked to poorer mental health, higher stress. For the new year, parents might want to resolve to get more exercise – and bring their teenage children along. A new national study finds that only 9% of teens met the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity per day during the COVID-19 pandemic – a decline from 16% pre-pandemic. “The pandemic led to the cancellation of in-person physical education classes and organized sports, gym, and recreational facility closures, and rises in screen use, which all contributed to lower physical activity for teens,” said lead author Jason Nagata, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco....

Researchers studying how we make moral judgments found that people more concerned about catching COVID-19 were more disapproving of the wrong-doings of others, whatever they were doing wrong. The researchers say their findings are evidence that our morality is shaped by various emotions and intuitions, of which concerns about health and safety are prominent. This means that our judgments of wrongdoing are not completely rational. The study, published today (June 8, 2021) in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, did not focus on behaviors relating to the pandemic itself — such as social distancing — but considered a wide range of moral transgressions....

Plant-based and/or fish (pescatarian) diets may help lower the odds of developing moderate to severe COVID-19 infection, suggest the findings of a six-country study, published in the online journal BMJ Nutrition Prevention & Health. They were associated with 73% and 59% lower odds, respectively, of severe disease, the findings indicate. Several studies have suggested that diet might have an important role in symptom severity and illness duration of COVID-19 infection....