The X-ray burst, the brightest seen by NICER so far, came from an object named SAX J1808.4-3658, or J1808 for short. The observations reveal many phenomena that have never been seen together in a single burst. In addition, the subsiding fireball briefly brightened again for reasons astronomers cannot yet explain. “This burst was outstanding,” said lead researcher Peter Bult, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the University of Maryland, College Park....

“There is a relationship between the types of emotions experienced in dreams and our emotional well-being,” says senior author Lampros Perogamvros, a psychiatrist at the Sleep Laboratory of the Geneva University Hospitals and the University of Geneva. “Based on this observation, we had the idea that we could help people by manipulating emotions in their dreams. In this study, we show that we can reduce the number of emotionally very strong and very negative dreams in patients suffering from nightmares....

Race, marital status, age, and other health issues play a major role. Black residents of Baton Rouge and New Orleans faced twice the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection as white residents, a study shows. Ochsner Health and Pennington Biomedical Research Center analyzed 4,752 records from two large prevalence studies in both cities. The New Orleans data were collected in May 2020, the Baton Rouge data in July 2020. “We found that communities that experience a lot of deprivation – high household crowding, lower income, disparities in education, etc....

Epilepsy that does not respond to drugs can be halted in adult mice by transplanting a specific type of cell into the brain, UC San Francisco researchers have discovered, raising hope that a similar treatment might work in severe forms of human epilepsy. UCSF scientists controlled seizures in epileptic mice with a one-time transplantation of medial ganglionic eminence (MGE) cells, which inhibit signaling in overactive nerve circuits, into the hippocampus, a brain region associated with seizures, as well as with learning and memory....

Researchers Andrea M. Armani, Xiaoqin Shen, Rigoberto Castro Beltran, Vinh M. Diep, and Soheil Soltani have invented a new method to create a frequency comb–a tool that increases the potential applications of lasers by converting a single wavelength into multiple wavelengths, effectively creating tens to hundreds of lasers from a single laser. The new frequency comb is the size of a human hair compared with traditional frequency combs that can be as large as an apartment refrigerator....

Neutralizing antibodies can target the vulnerability, potentially opening the door for treatments that would be universally effective across variants. The research, which was published in the journal Nature Communications, uses cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) to identify the atomic structure of the vulnerable region, or epitope, on the virus’ spike protein. The study also reports a VH Ab6 antibody fragment that can bind to this location and neutralize every major variant. “This is a highly adaptable virus that has evolved to evade most existing antibody treatments, as well as much of the immunity conferred by vaccines and natural infection,” says Dr....

The COVID-19 pandemic halted the in-person wintertime survey of wolves and moose on the island for the first time in 63 years. Consequently, there are no estimates of wolf or moose abundance for 2021, and the next estimates are scheduled in February 2022. But though the Isle Royale Winter Study didn’t happen quite as planned, researchers were still able to visit the remote national park in the spring. Now, fieldwork has resumed and Michigan Technological University researchers have already uncovered new information about these two iconic wildlife populations....

They found that a central property of atoms – their alignment – did not “freeze”, as usual, but remained in a “liquid” state. The new quantum material could serve as a model system to develop novel, highly sensitive quantum sensors. The team has recently published their findings in the journal Nature Physics. At first sight, quantum materials do not look different from normal substances – but they sure do their own thing: Inside, the electrons interact with unusual intensity, both with each other and with the atoms of the crystal lattice....

Researchers have found a way to convert heat energy into electricity with a nontoxic material. The material is mostly iron which is extremely cheap given its relative abundance. A generator based on this material could power small devices such as remote sensors or wearable devices. The material can be thin so it could be shaped into various forms. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, or free energy. But if your energy demands are low enough, say for example in the case of a small sensor of some kind, then there is a way to harness heat energy to supply your power without wires or batteries....

Squeeze a piece of silicone and it quickly returns to its original shape, as squishy as ever. But scientists at Rice University have discovered that the liquid crystal phase of silicone becomes 90 percent stiffer when silicone is gently and repeatedly compressed. Their research could lead to new strategies for self-healing materials or biocompatible materials that mimic human tissues. A paper on the research appeared this month in Nature’s online journal Nature Communications....

Here’s the recipe to decontaminate a disposable facemask: Heat it at 160 degrees Fahrenheit in an oven for five minutes. You can use your own oven. The science now bears that out, according to engineers at Rice University who, through extensive experimentation and modeling, determined that proper heating will eliminate the virus that causes COVID-19 from a standard disposable surgical mask without degrading the mask itself. The work by mechanical engineer Daniel Preston of Rice’s George R....

Long streams of virus-laden droplets can trail behind infected individuals walking through a narrow corridor, impacting safe social distancing guidelines. Computational simulations have been used to accurately predict airflow and droplet dispersal patterns in situations where COVID-19 might be spread. In the journal Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, results show the importance of the shape of the space in modeling how virus-laden droplets move through the air. The simulations are used to determine flow patterns behind a walking individual in spaces of different shape....

Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 fueled widespread concern about the effects on the country’s farming sector. In the early days of the crisis, food security specialists wondered if Ukrainian farmers would be able to harvest the wheat and barley they had planted the previous fall. They also worried that declining grain exports from Ukraine might throw global markets into turmoil and trigger food shortages continents away. “Now we are starting to get answers,” said Inbal Becker-Reshef, director of the NASA Harvest program....

When a drop of liquid evaporates, solids are left behind in a pattern that depends on what the liquid is, what solids are in it, and the environmental conditions. Stuart Williams and colleagues previously found that drops of diluted American whiskeys — but not their Scotch or Canadian counterparts — formed webbed patterns when dried on a glass surface, and there were hints that the pattern was distinctive for different brands of whiskey....

Professor of organic chemistry at UCLA Neil Garg and researchers from the UCLA start-up ElectraTect Inc. describe the method by which THC introduced, in a solution, into their laboratory-built device can be oxidized, producing an electric current whose strength indicates how much of the psychoactive compound is present. Their research was recently published in the journal Organic Letters. According to the researchers, the availability of a Breathalyzer-like device might contribute to making roads safer given the recent legalization or decriminalization of marijuana in many states, including California....

Like finally seeing all the gears of a watch and how they work together, researchers from UCLA and UC Berkeley have, for the first time ever, solved the puzzle of how the various components of an entire telomerase enzyme complex fit together and function in a three-dimensional structure. The creation of the first complete visual map of the telomerase enzyme, which is known to play a significant role in aging and most cancers, represents a breakthrough that could open up a host of new approaches to fighting disease, the researchers said....

Many systems have successfully reduced carbon dioxide to chemical and fuel precursors, such as carbon monoxide or a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen known as syngas. This new work, described in a study published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, is the first to successfully demonstrate the approach of going from carbon dioxide directly to target products, namely ethanol and ethylene, at energy conversion efficiencies rivaling natural counterparts....

The geographic distribution of coyotes has dramatically expanded since 1900, spreading across much of North America in a period when most other mammal species have been declining. Although this unprecedented expansion has been well documented at the state/provincial scale, the continent-wide picture of coyote spread was coarse and largely anecdotal. A more thorough compilation of available records was needed. “We began by mapping the original range of coyotes using archeological and fossil records,” says co-author Dr....

The compact kit is relatively inexpensive to make, costing $51 in total. It could offer an alternative testing solution for resource-poor countries or remote areas with little access to well-equipped testing labs or trained personnel to process samples. The testing kit is based on a simple, non-invasive COVID-19 LAMP test and uses low-cost hardware, including a centrifuge made from recycled computer hard drives to process samples. The LAMP test is a widely accepted alternative to the commonly used PCR test, has a similar sensitivity but unlike the PCR test does not require temperature cycling, only a single high temperature to amplify any potential virus RNA....

“It is remarkable that such massive dense objects were able to form so soon after the Big Bang,” said Michael Strauss, a professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University who is one of the co-authors of the study. “Understanding how black holes can form in the early universe, and just how common they are, is a challenge for our cosmological models.” This finding increases the number of black holes known at that epoch considerably, and reveals, for the first time, how common they are early in the universe’s history....