For years NASA has tracked changes in the massive Greenland Ice Sheet. This week scientists using NASA data released the most detailed picture ever of how the ice sheet moves toward the sea and new insights into the hidden plumbing of meltwater flowing under the snowy surface. The results of these studies are expected to improve predictions of the future of the entire Greenland ice sheet and its contribution to sea level rise as researchers revamp their computer models of how the ice sheet reacts to a warming climate....

The cold waters of Earth’s deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005, according to a new NASA study, leaving unsolved the mystery of why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years. Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, analyzed satellite and direct ocean temperature data from 2005 to 2013 and found the ocean abyss below 1.24 miles (1,995 meters) has not warmed measurably. Study coauthor Josh Willis of JPL said these findings do not throw suspicion on climate change itself....

NASA and SpaceX are currently targeting no earlier than noon EDT Wednesday, October 5, for the launch of the agency’s Crew-5 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) with a U.S. Eastern Range backup date on October 7. Mission management teams also are investigating potential range opportunities on October 6 pending review of the phasing timeline, October 8, and October 9. Mission teams continue to monitor the impacts of Hurricane Ian on the Space Coast and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida....

On April 14, the mission will pursue its first practice run – officially known as “Checkpoint” rehearsal – which will also place the spacecraft the closest it’s ever been to Bennu. This rehearsal is a chance for the OSIRIS-REx team and spacecraft to test the first steps of the robotic sample collection event. During the full touchdown sequence, the spacecraft uses three separate thruster firings to make its way to the asteroid’s surface....

Fermi detects gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light. An international team of scientists examined over a decade of Fermi data collected from pulsars, rapidly rotating cores of stars that exploded as supernovae. They looked for slight variations in the arrival time of gamma rays from these pulsars, changes which could have been caused by the light passing through gravitational waves on the way to Earth. But they didn’t find any....

Webb is NASA’s largest and most complex space science telescope ever built. Too big for any rocket available in its fully expanded form, the entire observatory was designed to fold in on itself to achieve a much smaller configuration. Once in space, the observatory will unfold and stretch itself out in a carefully practiced series of steps before beginning to make groundbreaking observations of the cosmos. “The James Webb Space Telescope achieved another significant milestone with the entire observatory in its launch configuration for the first time, in preparation for environmental testing,” said Bill Ochs, Webb project manager for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland....

On its way inbound for a December 26, 2019, flyby of Jupiter, NASA’s Juno spacecraft flew in the proximity of the north pole of the ninth-largest object in the solar system, the moon Ganymede. The infrared imagery collected by the spacecraft’s Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument provides the first infrared mapping of the massive moon’s northern frontier. Larger than the planet Mercury, Ganymede consists primarily of water ice. Its composition contains fundamental clues for understanding the evolution of the 79 Jovian moons from the time of their formation to today....

A new paper from the science team of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover details how the hydrological cycle of the now-dry lake at Jezero Crater is more complicated and intriguing than originally thought. The findings are based on detailed imaging the rover provided of long, steep slopes called escarpments, or scarps in the delta, which formed from sediment accumulating at the mouth of an ancient river that long ago fed the crater’s lake....

Opportunity reached a multi-year driving destination, Endeavour Crater, in August 2011. At Endeavour’s rim, it has gained access to geological deposits from an earlier period of Martian history than anything it examined during its first seven years. It also has begun an investigation of the planet’s deep interior that takes advantage of staying in one place for the Martian winter. Opportunity landed in Eagle Crater on Mars on January 25, 2004, Universal Time and EST (January 24, PST), three weeks after its rover twin, Spirit, landed halfway around the planet....

“Learning about the interior structure of Mars has been a high priority objective for planetary scientists since the Viking era,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “We push the boundaries of space technology with our missions to enable science, but space exploration is unforgiving, and the bottom line is that we’re not ready to launch in the 2016 window. A decision on a path forward will be made in the coming months, but one thing is clear: NASA remains fully committed to the scientific discovery and exploration of Mars....

For some families, one of the most difficult steps in reducing COVID-19 risks has been keeping children apart from grandparents and other extended family members. And that may be especially true during the holiday season, as novel coronavirus cases rapidly accelerate across the nation and public health officials discourage gatherings to help slow the spread of the deadly virus. Still, some parents may prioritize continuing Thanksgiving Day traditions with their children over reducing transmission risks, a new national poll suggests....

According to new research from the nonprofit energy science and policy research institute PSE Healthy Energy, the natural gas piped into millions of California homes for heating and cooking contains elevated levels of carcinogens and hazardous air pollutants. Published in Environmental Science & Technology on October 20, the study found that even low-level gas leaks from kitchen stoves when they are off can generate benzene concentrations in homes up to seven times California’s recommended exposure limit....

Deep learning identifies synergistic drug blends for treating viruses like SARS-CoV-2. The existential threat of COVID-19 has highlighted an acute need to develop working therapeutics against emerging health concerns. One of the luxuries deep learning has afforded us is the ability to modify the landscape as it unfolds — so long as we can keep up with the viral threat, and access the right data. As with all new medical maladies, oftentimes the data need time to catch up, and the virus takes no time to slow down, posing a difficult challenge as it can quickly mutate and become resistant to existing drugs....

MIT neuroscientists working with researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the Shanghai Mental Health Center have now identified a pattern of brain activity correlated with the development of schizophrenia, which they say could be used as a marker to diagnose the disease earlier. “You can consider this pattern to be a risk factor. If we use these types of brain measurements, then maybe we can predict a little bit better who will end up developing psychosis, and that may also help tailor interventions,” says Guusje Collin, a visiting scientist at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research and the lead author of the paper....

MIT neuroscientists have now discovered how this occurs. A small region of the brainstem, known as the locus coeruleus, is activated in response to novel sensory stimuli, and this activity triggers the release of a flood of dopamine into a certain region of the hippocampus to store a memory of the new location. “We have the remarkable ability to memorize some specific features of an experience in an entirely new environment, and such ability is crucial for our adaptation to the constantly changing world,” says Susumu Tonegawa, the Picower Professor of Biology and Neuroscience and director of the RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory....

For a long time, prognoses forecasting the evolutionary future of organisms were considered mere speculation. Together with researchers from Cambridge and Santa Barbara, USA, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen have developed an algorithm that can predict the evolution of asexual organisms such as viruses or cancer cells. The researchers tested the program for the first time on the historical development of the A/H3N2 influenza virus: retrospectively, the algorithm was able to determine the upcoming season’s virus type with good or very good accuracy in most cases....

“Styrene is a synthetic chemical that is used to make a variety of plastics, resins and other materials,” says Fanxing Li, corresponding author of the work and Alcoa Professor of Chemical Engineering at North Carolina State University. “Because it is in such widespread use, we are pleased that we could develop a technology that is cost effective and will reduce the environmental impact of styrene manufacturing.” Industry estimates predict that manufacturers will be producing more than 33 million tons of styrene each year by 2023....

Single-cell analysis of autopsy samples from COVID-19 patients shows how the lungs repeatedly tried, and failed, to repair themselves. Scientists from several hospitals and research centers have shown what happens in individual cells of patients who died of COVID-19. In a study published in Nature, the researchers describe how infected cells from multiple organs exhibited a range of molecular and genomic changes. They also saw signs of multiple, unsuccessful attempts by the lungs to repair themselves in response to respiratory failure, which is the leading cause of death in COVID-19 patients....

Plastic from used personal protective equipment (PPE) can, and should, be transformed into renewable liquid fuels — according to a new study, published in the peer-reviewed Taylor & Francis journal Biofuels. Experts from The University of Petroleum and Energy Studies have suggested a strategy that could help to mitigate the problem of dumped PPE — currently being disposed of at unprecedented levels due to the current COVID-19 pandemic — becoming a significant threat to the environment....

Inside a bony structure that spirals like a snail shell in a human’s inner ear, roughly 15,000 “hair” cells receive, translate, and then ship sound signals to the brain. Damage to these cells from excessive noise, chronic infections, antibiotics, certain drugs, or the simple passing of time can lead to irreparable hearing loss. Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and colleagues from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed an approach to replace damaged sound-sensing hair cells, which eventually may lead to therapies for people who live with disabling hearing loss....