Earlier today, flight controllers operating from NASA’s Mission Control Center at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston used the space station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to detach the cargo spacecraft from the station’s Harmony module, then moved the spacecraft into its release position. Expedition 63 Commander Chris Cassidy of NASA used the Canadarm2 robotic arm to release the spacecraft from the station at 1:35 p.m., ending its three-month stay. This was the final station departure of JAXA’s first-generation Kounotori, or “white stork,” cargo craft, nine of which have delivered more than 40 tons of supplies to space station crews....

The Juno spacecraft captured this image with its JunoCam citizen science instrument when the spacecraft was a mere 5,400 miles (8,700 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloudtops on December 11, 2016 at 9:14 a.m. PT (12:14 p.m. ET). Citizen scientist Sergey Dushkin produced the sublime color processing and cropped the image to draw viewers’ eyes to the dynamic clouds.

Lactation temporarily changes how a mother’s neurons behave, according to new research in mice published in JNeurosci. Mothers experience profound changes in their bodies after giving birth, many of which are controlled by the hormone prolactin. Neurons in the hypothalamus called TIDA neurons regulate prolactin secretion as it fluctuates during the estrous cycle. However, during lactation, the TIDA neurons stop keeping prolactin levels in check, teasing the possibility that they may be altering their properties in response to motherhood....

Findings highlight the fragilities of the manufacturing process, but companies aren’t willing to release information. Documents leaked from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) following a cyber attack in December show that some early commercial batches of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine had lower than expected levels of intact mRNA molecules. These molecules instruct our cells to make a harmless piece of coronavirus protein, triggering an immune response and protecting us from infection if the real virus enters our bodies....

In an article published in the journal Leonardo, the researchers draw upon a fresh look at one of da Vinci’s notebooks to show that the famed polymath had devised experiments to demonstrate that gravity is a form of acceleration—and that he further modeled the gravitational constant to around 97 percent accuracy. Da Vinci, who lived from 1452 to 1519, was well ahead of the curve in exploring these concepts. It wasn’t until 1604 that Galileo Galilei would theorize that the distance covered by a falling object was proportional to the square of time elapsed and not until the late 17th century that Sir Isaac Newton would expand on that to develop a law of universal gravitation, describing how objects are attracted to one another....

Although no more images will be coming from the DART spacecraft, its CubeSat companion Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube), deployed from the spacecraft fifteen days before impact. Provided by the Italian Space Agency, LICIACube’s mission is to capture images of DART’s impact and of the asteroid’s resulting cloud of ejected matter. In tandem with the images returned by DRACO, LICIACube’s images will help provide a view of the collision’s effects to help scientists better characterize the effectiveness of kinetic impact in deflecting an asteroid....

Participating in online communities, especially ones that are broad in nature and unrelated to drug and addiction subjects, can help patients build priceless “social capital” that significantly lowers the likelihood that they would have a use episode while in remission. Contrarily, a person’s likelihood of reporting a use episode while in remission may increase if they spend an excessive amount of time on forums for therapy and support. These new findings from a new University of Exeter study could have a significant impact on public health, especially for people who are less able or willing to participate in conventional in-person recovery and rehabilitation programs....

The work is far from jumpstarting life in the lab. Yet, it shows that simple laboratory techniques can spur the kinds of reactions that are likely necessary to explain how life got started on Earth some four billion years ago. The researchers subjected a rich soup of organic chemicals to repeated selection by constantly paring down the chemical population and letting it build back up again with the addition of new resources....

Every year an average pet cat kills 110 native animals. Roaming pet cats kill 390 million animals per year in Australia, including reptiles, birds and mammals. That’s an average of 186 animals, mostly native species, per roaming domestic cat each year. Pet cats can be killers We know feral cats are an enormous problem for wildlife – across Australia, feral cats collectively kill more than three billion animals per year. Cats have played a leading role in most of Australia’s 34 mammal extinctions since 1788, and are a big reason populations of at least 123 other threatened native species are dropping....

In a study published today (June 15, 2020) in Addiction, University of Bristol researchers have found evidence for a causal link between prolonged experience of loneliness and smoking. Although numerous studies have shown there is an association, it has been difficult to disentangle whether being lonely leads to substance abuse, or if substance abuse leads to loneliness. By applying a novel research method to the question — Mendelian randomization — which uses genetic and survey data from hundreds of thousands of people, the team found that loneliness appears to lead to an increased likelihood of smoking behavior....

With their long necks and formidable bodies, sauropod dinosaurs have captured people’s imagination since the first relatively complete fossils were discovered in the United States in the late 1800s. The original specimen that the Natural History Museum’s Dippy was cast from was among these discoveries. Now an international team led by Stony Brook University paleontologist Dr. Andrew J. Moore, and including Prof. Paul Barret, Merit Researcher, from the London’s Natural History Museum, has reported that a Late Jurassic Chinese sauropod known as Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum sported a 50-foot (15-meter) long neck....

In a new study, however, a team of researchers at McGill University led by Dr. Claudio Cuello of the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, has shown that, when given in a formulation that facilitates passage to the brain, lithium in doses up to 400 times lower than what is currently being prescribed for mood disorders is capable of both halting signs of advanced Alzheimer’s pathology such as amyloid plaques and of recovering lost cognitive abilities....

Previous research has shown that intermittent fasting, an eating pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating, may improve health markers not related to weight. Now, the new Intermountain research shows that intermittent fasting raises the levels of galectin-3, a protein tied to inflammatory response. “Inflammation is associated with higher risk of developing multiple chronic diseases, including diabetes and heart disease. We’re encouraged to see evidence that intermittent fasting is prompting the body to fight inflammation and lowering those risks,” said Benjamin Horne, PhD, principal investigator of the study and director of cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology at the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute....

Without any rainfall, the water levels on the Mississippi are projected to reach historic lows this month, states the NOAA. The drought has created a low-water choke point south of St. Louis, near Thebes, where pinnacles of rock extend upwards from the rover’s bottom, making any passage dangerous. This has caused shipping companies to haul 15 barges at a time instead of the typical 25. Bigger runs are too big for the current operating conditions....

Matcha, a traditional Japanese tea, has been touted for its health benefits—it can boost mood and mental performance in humans and mice alike—but more mechanistic research is required. Hence, researchers from Japan evaluated the anti-depressive effects of Matcha tea powder in mice. The powder activates dopaminergic neural circuits and improves depression in certain mice, depending on the animal’s prior mental state. More studies like this could help develop better antidepressants....

After years of work, University of Copenhagen mathematics researchers have answered a mysterious half-century-old riddle. The mystery was all but forgotten until a Danish researcher heard about it and then decided to tackle it. Is there a lottery ticket that always wins? So goes the popular version of a theoretical conundrum posed in 1969 by English mathematician Adrian R.D. Mathias within the field of set theory, an area dealing with infinity in mathematics....

Collisions between galaxies are common. Indeed, most galaxies have probably been involved in one or more encounters during their lifetimes, making these interactions an important phase in galaxy evolution and the formation of stars in the universe. The Milky Way, for example, is bound by gravity to the Andromeda galaxy and is approaching it at a speed of about 50 kilometers per second; we are expected to meet in another billion years or so....

Clownfish species develop their characteristic white stripes, or bars, during the process of metamorphosisResearchers have now discovered that the white bars form at different speeds depending on the sea anemone the clownfish live inThyroid hormones, which are important for metamorphosis, control the speed the white bars formLevels of thyroid hormones are higher in clownfish that live in the giant carpet anemone compared to clownfish living in the magnificent sea anemoneClownfish living in the giant carpet anemone also show increased activity of duox, a gene involved in forming thyroid hormones...

Hubble has found circumstantial evidence that the black hole is still smoldering long after the earlier outburst. Hubble astronomers’ evidence is like doing an archeological dig to try and peer through the interstellar pollution of dense sheets of dust and gas between Earth and the galactic center, 27,000 light-years away. Hubble photographed a bright knot of gas that has been impacted by an invisible jet from the black hole, that is merely 15 light-years from it....

“Fingerprinting” Minerals To Better Understand How They Are Affected by Meteorite Collisions Researchers mimicked these extreme impacts in the lab and discovered new details about how they transform minerals in Earth’s crust. When a space rock survives the turbulent passage through Earth’s atmosphere and strikes the surface, it generates shockwaves that can compress and transform minerals in the planet’s crust. Since these changes depend on the pressure produced upon impact, experts can use features in Earth’s minerals to learn about the meteorite’s life story, from the moment of collision all the way back to the conditions from which the celestial bodies originate....