The engravings studied in 188 engravings in a remote South Australian rockshelter are a stark reminder of colonial invasion and the strife brewing in Europe ahead of World War Two, Flinders University archaeologists have revealed. The ‘graffiti’ has been etched over or adjacent to Aboriginal rock art at a culturally significant rockshelter in limestone cliffs of the Murray River near Waikerie in South Australia. The engravings reveal the deep Aboriginal significance of the rockshelter, the traumatic period of European invasion, and the frontier conflict and ongoing impacts of colonial settlement, says lead author Flinders Associate Professor Amy Roberts, who works with members of the local Aboriginal community....

Antibodies help our immune system to fend off pathogens. For example, the molecules attach to viruses and neutralize them so that they can no longer infect cells. Antibodies can also be produced industrially and administered to acutely ill patients. They then act like drugs, relieving symptoms and shortening recovery from the disease. This is established practice for treating hepatitis B and rabies. Antibodies are also used for treating COVID-19 patients....

Theoretically speaking, 80 percent of all permafrost soils around the globe could be preserved until the year 2100, as has now been demonstrated by Prof. Christian Beer from Universität Hamburg’s Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN), an expert on the permanently frozen soils found throughout the Northern Hemisphere. If no action is taken to prevent it, half of the world’s permafrost will thaw by 2100. The new study explores a somewhat unconventional countermeasure: resettling massive herds of large herbivores....

How matter settles and aggregates under gravitation in fluid systems, such as lakes and oceans, is a broad and important area of scientific study, one that greatly impacts humanity and the planet. Consider “marine snow,” the shower of organic matter constantly falling from upper waters to the deep ocean. Not only is nutrient-rich marine snow essential to the global food chain, but its accumulations in the briny deep represent the Earth’s largest carbon sink and one of the least-understood components of the planet’s carbon cycle....

Although neutron stars are generally studied in radio and high-energy emissions, such as X-rays, this study demonstrates that new and interesting information about neutron stars can also be gained by studying them in infrared light, say researchers. The observation, by a team of researchers at Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania; Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey; and the University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, could help astronomers better understand the evolution of neutron stars — the incredibly dense remnants after a massive star explodes as a supernova....

The Tarantula Nebula is a familiar site for Hubble. It is the brightest star-forming region in our galactic neighborhood and home to the hottest, most massive stars known. This makes it a perfect natural laboratory in which to test out theories of star formation and evolution, and a rich variety of Hubble images of this region have been released to the public in recent years. The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope also recently delved into this region, revealing thousands of never-before-seen young stars....

This image shows an object known as HH 151, a bright jet of glowing material trailed by an intricate, orange-hued plume of gas and dust. It is located some 460 light-years away in the constellation of Taurus (The Bull), near to the young, tumultuous star HL Tau. In the first few hundred thousand years of life, new stars like HL Tau pull in material that falls towards them from the surrounding space....

Either MACS0647-JD is a very red object, only shining at red wavelengths, or it is extremely distant and its light has been ‘redshifted’ to these wavelengths, or some combination of the two, states D. Coe, lead author of the study. “Over the next 13 billion years, it may have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of merging events with other galaxies and galaxy fragments.” The paper will appear in the December 20 issue of The Astrophysical Journal....

Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure the effect of weight loss on the upper airway in obese patients, researchers found that reducing tongue fat is a primary factor in lessening the severity of OSA. The findings were published today (January 10, 2020) in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. “Most clinicians, and even experts in the sleep apnea world, have not typically focused on fat in the tongue for treating sleep apnea,” said Richard Schwab, MD, chief of Sleep Medicine....

Researchers report the development of a sensitive and specific assay to detect different serotypes of Salmonella, paving the way for rapid serotyping directly from specimens. This improvement upon current testing methods can play a critical role in quickly tracing the origin of the infection. The report appears in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, published by Elsevier. Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate that food poisoning caused by Salmonella bacteria leads to 1....

Researchers at MIT and at Brookhaven National Laboratory have demonstrated that they can control the magnetic properties of a thin-film material simply by applying a small voltage. Changes in magnetic orientation made in this way remain in their new state without the need for any ongoing power, unlike today’s standard memory chips, the team has found. The new finding is being reported today in the journal Nature Materials, in a paper by Geoffrey Beach, a professor of materials science and engineering and co-director of the MIT Materials Research Laboratory; graduate student Aik Jun Tan; and eight others at MIT and Brookhaven....

Mount Aso in Kyushu, Japan, is one of the largest active volcanoes in the world and has experienced major earthquakes and eruptions as recently as 2016. Researchers at Kyushu University’s International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (I2CNER) have been investigating the relationships among these events to better understand what is happening under the surface and to help predict future disasters. In particular, for a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters, they investigated “very long period” (VLP) seismic waves, which can represent pressure changes in subsurface hydrothermal systems....

At age 40, Finns, Swedes, and Norwegians have reached the approximate mid-point of life. It is well known that, on average, whether an individual has more or fewer than 40 additional years to live after reaching age 40 depends on the person’s sex. But almost as important as sex in determining life expectancy is whether the person belongs to the so-called “vanguard”: If the individual is married and well educated, he or she will, on average, live five years longer than others of the same sex....

The historic chamber’s massive door opening brings to a close about 100 days of testing for Webb, a significant milestone in the telescope’s journey to the launch pad. The cryogenic vacuum test began when the chamber was sealed shut on July 10, 2017. Scientists and engineers at Johnson put Webb’s optical telescope and integrated science instrument module (OTIS) through a series of tests designed to ensure the telescope functioned as expected in an extremely cold, airless environment akin to that of space....

The protein, a cation channel known as TRPM7, is located in carotid bodies, minute sensory organs in the neck that sense changes in oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, as well as certain hormones such as leptin, in the bloodstream. TRPM7 proteins aid in the transport and regulation of positively charged molecules into and out of the cells of the carotid bodies. Lenise Kim, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins Medicine and the leader of the current study, expands on earlier results from the lab that indicated TRPM7 had a role in the development of high blood pressure in mice....

A new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory points to the origin of a famous supernova. This supernova, discovered in 1604 by Johannes Kepler, belongs to an important class of objects that are used to measure the rate of expansion of the universe. Astronomers have used a very long Chandra observation of the remnant of Kepler’s supernova to deduce that the supernova was triggered by an interaction between a white dwarf and a red giant star....

For some families, pandemic times have meant increased screen time, attending class from bedrooms, and maybe even more dinners from a drive through. While many parents say their family has eaten healthier since the start of the pandemic, one in five report their children ate fast food more often, according to the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health. “The pandemic disrupted many family routines, including where and what they eat,” said Gary L....

“This is a decisive step for a technology that was born at Linköping University just over 17 years ago. The result shows that we are again leading the field, thanks to the close collaboration between basic research at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, LOE, and applied research at RISE,” says Magnus Berggren, professor of organic electronics and director of LOE. “The advantage we have here is that we do not need to mix different manufacturing methods: everything is done by screen printing, and in relatively few processing steps....

According to a genome-wide association study involving more than 470,000 people, a person’s genetic variants do not meaningfully predict whether they will engage in same-sex sexual behavior. The findings suggest same-sex sexual behavior is influenced by a complex mix of genetic and environmental influences, similar to what’s seen for most other human traits. There is no single “gay gene,” the study’s authors say, and instead there are thousands of genetic variants linked to the trait, each with small effects....

Compared to orderly laminar flows, like the faucet’s steady stream at low velocities, scientists know little about turbulence. Even less is known about how laminar flows become turbulent. A mix of orderly and disorderly flows, transitional flows occur when fluids move at intermediate velocities. Now, Dr. Rory Cerbus, Dr. Chien-chia Liu, Dr. Gustavo Gioia, and Dr. Pinaki Chakraborty, researchers in the Fluid Mechanics Unit and the Continuum Physics Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), have drawn from a decades-old conceptual theory of turbulence to develop a new approach for studying transitional flows....