As computer chips continue to shrink, developers are reaching the limits on how small they can make patterns for wires. A team of researchers at MIT believe they have a solution to this problem. By using self-assembling polymer materials that form tiny wires and junctions, they found a new way of making complex three-dimensional structures. Researchers at MIT have found a new way of making complex three-dimensional structures using self-assembling polymer materials that form tiny wires and junctions....

Did the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 result from high-risk research gone wrong? Regardless of the answer, the risk of future pandemics originating from research with dangerous pathogens is real. The focal point of this lab-leak discussion is the Wuhan Institute of Virology, nestled in the hilly outskirts of Wuhan. It is just one of 59 maximum containment labs in operation, under construction or planned around the world. Known as biosafety level 4 (BSL4) labs, these are designed and built so that researchers can safely work with the most dangerous pathogens on the planet – ones that can cause serious disease and for which no treatment or vaccines exist....

Feces transplantation in the intestine is a very effective cure – far superior to today’s conventional treatment – for a potentially fatal infection that affects between 2,500 and 3,000 individuals in Denmark each year. That is the finding of a recent study that was carried out by scientists from Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital. Their findings were recently published in the journal The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology. In the study, the researchers explored the ground-breaking fecal transplantation treatment for patients infected with Clostridioides difficile (C....

A new study released by Houston Methodist takes researchers a significant step closer to developing a uniform, universal COVID-19 antibody test. The multicenter collaboration tested alternative ways to measure COVID-19 antibody levels that is faster and easier and can inexpensively be used on a larger scale to accurately identify potential donors with the best chance of helping patients infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus with convalescent plasma therapy. The findings will also have applications beyond determining who the best plasma donors are....

Almost thirty years ago the Infrared Astronomy Satellite, IRAS, discovered that the universe contained many fabulously luminous galaxies, some of them more than a thousand times brighter than our own galaxy, but which are practically invisible at optical wavelengths. The reason for their optical dimness is that their bright light comes not from stars, which can be seen in the visible, but from dust that is warmed by bursts of star formation to temperatures of about 70 kelvin (about 200 degrees below zero Celsius) where infrared radiation predominates....

Additionally, the researchers determined the relative contribution of different sources of antibiotic contamination in waterways, including hospitals, municipal areas, livestock farming, and pharmaceutical production. ”Our results can help decision-makers to target risk reduction measures against environmental residues of priority antibiotics and in high-risk sites, to protect human health and the environment,” says Nada Hanna, a researcher at the Department of Global Public Health at Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and the study’s first author....

Jennifer West, a research associate at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, is making a scientific case that two bright structures seen on opposite sides of the sky – previously considered to be separate – are actually connected and are made of rope-like filaments. The connection forms what looks like a tunnel around our solar system. The data results of West’s research have been published in the Astrophysical Journal....

A new image from the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope in Chile shows a beautiful view of clouds of cosmic dust in the region of Orion. While these dense interstellar clouds seem dark and obscured in visible-light observations, APEX’s LABOCA camera can detect the heat glow of the dust and reveal the hiding places where new stars are being formed. But one of these dark clouds is not what it seems....

A team of researchers led by Professor Robert Grosse and Dr. Carsten Schwan from the University of Freiburg discovered that the release of prometastatic factors, which drive the malignancy of tumors, is influenced by the cells’ skeleton. The findings were published in the journal Advanced Science. Actin has several functions in cancer propagation Actin filaments are part of the cell skeleton and essential for stability and motility. They form a network that dynamically builds up and gets broken down by the addition or detachment of building blocks at the filaments’ ends....

Scientists have waited months for access to highly accurate protein structure prediction since DeepMind presented remarkable progress in this area at the 2020 Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction, or CASP14, conference. The wait is now over. Researchers at the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle have largely recreated the performance achieved by DeepMind on this important task. These results were published online by the journal Science on July 15, 2021....

The detailed physical processes and pathways involved in the transmission of COVID-19 are still not well understood. Researchers decided to use advanced computational fluid dynamics tools on supercomputers to deepen understanding of transmission and provide a quantitative assessment of how different environmental factors influence transmission pathways and airborne infection risk. A restaurant outbreak in China was widely reported as strong evidence of airflow-induced transmission of COVID-19. But it lacked a detailed investigation about exactly how transmission occurred....

It might seem obvious that ectothermic animals are severely impacted by global warming. It is well known that their body temperature and, by extension, their biochemical processes rely on ambient temperature and on sunlight. However, the fact that heat injury doubles for every degree the ambient temperature exceeds animals’ tolerance limit surprised even the researchers who conducted the new study. The researchers are five Aarhus University zoophysiologists who have recently published their findings in the prominent scientific journal Nature, where the study is featured on the cover....

Previous studies have shown that keeping the mind active, exercising, and social interactions may help delay the onset of dementia in Alzheimer’s patients. Now, a new study led by Dennis Selkoe, co-director of the Center for Neurologic Diseases in the Department of Neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), provides specific, pre-clinical scientific evidence supporting the concept that prolonged and intensive stimulation by an enriched environment — especially regular exposure to new activities — may have beneficial effects in delaying one of the key negative factors in Alzheimer’s disease....

Perseus ClusterA gigantic and resilient “cold front” is hurtling through the Perseus galaxy cluster according to data from Chandra & other X-ray observatories. This cosmic weather system spans about two million light years and has been traveling for over 5 billion years, longer than the existence of our Solar System. The image on the left shows the cold front in the Perseus cluster where X-ray data from Chandra – for regions close to the center of the cluster – have been combined with data from the XMM-Newton and ROSAT satellites for regions farther out....

Facing a scarcity of pollen, bumblebees will nibble on the leaves of flowerless plants, causing intentional damage in such a way that accelerates the production of flowers, according to a new study, which reports on a previously unknown behavior of bumblebees. The leaf-damaging bumblebee bites have a drastic effect on plant flowering, compelling some to bloom two weeks to a full month earlier. Although the mechanisms by which deliberate bee damage accelerate flowering remain unclear, the results reveal bumblebees as powerful agents in influencing the local availability of floral resources....

A paper published today in the Journal of Geology makes the case: Supernovae bombarded Earth with cosmic energy starting as many as 8 million years ago, with a peak some 2.6 million years ago, initiating an avalanche of electrons in the lower atmosphere and setting off a chain of events that feasibly ended with bipedal hominins such as homo habilis, dubbed “handy man.” The authors believe atmospheric ionization probably triggered an enormous upsurge in cloud-to-ground lightning strikes that ignited forest fires around the globe....

Researchers at Yale University have taken another step toward the development of low-temperature, lower-cost alkaline fuel cells, which are battery-like devices that convert oxygen and hydrogen into electricity and heat. In research recently published in the journal Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, Yale engineers report synthesizing a platinum-free catalyst for use in alkaline fuel cells by substituting less-costly palladium for platinum and combining it with silver. The catalyst is the part of the fuel cell that breaks down the fuel (alcohol or hydrogen, for example), setting in motion other chemical reactions that ultimately produce electricity and heat....

Aging involves complicated plot twists and a large cast of characters, including inflammation, stress, metabolism changes, and many others. Now, a team of scientists reveal another factor implicated in the aging process—a class of lipids called SGDGs (3-sulfogalactosyl diacylglycerols) that may have anti-inflammatory effects and decline in the brain with age. The research helps unravel the molecular basis of brain aging, reveals new mechanisms underlying age-related neurological diseases, and offers future opportunities for therapeutic intervention....

The dancing lights of the auroras provide spectacular views on the ground and from space, but also capture the imagination of scientists who study incoming energy and particles from the Sun. Auroras are one effect of such energetic particles, which can speed out from the sun both in a steady stream called the solar wind and due to giant eruptions known as coronal mass ejections. After a trip toward Earth that can last 2 or 3 days, the solar particles and magnetic fields cause the release of particles already trapped near Earth, which in turn trigger reactions in the upper atmosphere in which oxygen and nitrogen molecules release photons of light....

The newly-found object, called 2015 TG387, was announced by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center on October 1. A paper with the full details of the discovery has also been submitted to The Astronomical Journal. The discovery was made by Carnegie Institution for Sciences’ Scott Sheppard, Northern Arizona University’s Chad Trujillo, and the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy’s David Tholen. All three researchers earned their PhDs from the University of Hawaiʻi....