COVID-19 can lead to a broad range of neurologic complications including stroke, seizures, movement disorders, inflammatory diseases and more, even in moderate cases, according to a new study published in the December 9, 2020, online issue of Neurology® Clinical Practice, an official journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “We looked at people with neurologic symptoms and COVID at a racially and socioeconomically diverse hospital and found a wide range of neurologic complications — spanning inflammatory complications, stroke and other vascular conditions, metabolic problems, exacerbation of underlying neurologic conditions and more,” said study author Pria Anand, M....

They figured out a new process to emulsify a large amount of water with minuscule drops of vegetable oil and milk fat to mimic butter, at approximately one-fourth the calories of real butter and without artificial stabilizers. “Imagine 80% water in 20% oil and we create something with the consistency of butter, with the mouthfeel of butter and creaminess of butter,” said food science professor and senior author Alireza Abbaspourrad....

A team led by Caltech and Boston University observed the moons in Jupiter’s shadow so that their faint aurorae, which are caused by the gas giant’s strong magnetic field, could be spotted without competition from bright sunlight reflected off of their surfaces. They used Keck Observatory’s High-Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES), a grating cross-dispersed, echelle spectrograph, as well as high-resolution spectrographs at the Large Binocular Telescope and Apache Point Observatory to make the observations....

Discovery could lead to new treatment in kids with autism and epilepsy. Calming brain protein is low in autism, leading to epilepsyNo brakes on overactive brain because of mutation30-50% of children with autism also have epilepsy Why do so many children with autism often suffer from epilepsy? Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered an important brain protein that quiets overactive brain cells and is at abnormally low levels in children with autism....

Combatting the infections is no easy task, though. When antibiotics are carelessly and excessively prescribed, that leads to the rapid emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant genes in bacteria — creating an even larger problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections happen in the U.S. each year, and more than 35,000 people die from of them. One factor slowing down the fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria is the amount of time needed to test for it....

“If Venus is indeed active today, it would make a great place to visit to better understand the interiors of planets,” says Dr. Justin Filiberto, the study’s lead author and a Universities Space Research Association (USRA) staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI). “For example, we could study how planets cool and why the Earth and Venus have active volcanism, but Mars does not. Future missions should be able to see these flows and changes in the surface and provide concrete evidence of its activity....

Swanner, assistant professor of geological and atmospheric sciences, was part of an international collaborative research team including researchers from the University of Tuebingen, Germany, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China. The team modeled the prehistoric ocean, similar to that of the Archean Era 2.5 billion years ago within a graduated cylinder. “We really only wanted to simulate it in the vertical dimension, so we used a graduated cylinder and modified it,” Swanner said....

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is expected to claim 10 million lives a year by 2050, with researchers racing to understand and get ahead of the diminishing benefits of antibiotics. Now, scientists have unearthed a critical clue to the way some bacteria are managing to dodge antibiotics – a finding expected to be the tip of the iceberg. The research team was led by Dr. Timothy Barnett, Head of the Strep A Pathogenesis and Diagnostics team at the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases, based at Telethon Kids Institute in Perth, Western Australia....

A high-strength steel being developed at Missouri University of Science and Technology could help auto manufacturers in their quest to meet future fuel efficiency requirements. The development of this new steel, known as a “third-generation advanced high-strength steel,” is under way at Missouri S&T’s Kent D. Peaslee Steel Manufacturing Research Center. “We are currently refining the steel design to achieve ‘Gen 3′ mechanical property goals while also maintaining manufacturability,” says center director Dr....

Instead, past U.S.-Russia arms reduction treaties have called for the destruction of the delivery systems for nuclear warheads, such as missiles and planes, but not the warheads themselves. To comply with the START treaty, for example, the U.S. cut the wings off B-52 bombers and left them in the Arizona desert, where Russia could visually confirm the airplanes’ dismemberment. It’s a logical approach but not a perfect one. Stored nuclear warheads might not be deliverable in a war, but they could still be stolen, sold, or accidentally detonated, with disastrous consequences for human society....

This series of New Horizons images of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, was taken at 13 different times spanning 6.5 days, starting on April 12 and ending on April 18, 2015. During that time, the NASA spacecraft’s distance from Pluto decreased from about 69 million miles (93 million kilometers) to 64 million miles (104 million kilometers). The pictures were taken with the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager, or LORRI....

This device could replace a roomful of equipment to link photons in a bizarre quantum effect called entanglement, according to scientists at Sandia National Laboratories and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light. It is a kind of nano-engineered material called a metasurface and paves the way for entangling photons in complex ways that have not been possible with compact technologies. When photons are said to be entangled, it means they are linked in such a way that actions on one affect the other, no matter where or how far apart the photons are in the universe....

Nanoparticles are versatile harbingers of hope: They can serve as active medical agents or contrast media just as well as electronic storage media or reinforcement for structural materials. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam-Golm and from the Eindoven University of Technology in the Netherlands made a fundamental contribution to make such nanoparticles usable for these various applications. While studying magnetite nanoparticles, they developed a model of how crystalline particles of a material form depending on their physical properties....

The labs of Jan Schroers, professor of mechanical engineering & materials science at Yale, and professor Ze Liu of Wuhan University in China developed a method they call thermomechanical nanomolding that allows them to mold crystalline metals into shapes as small as a few nanometers in diameter. The breakthrough, said the researchers, could lead to new technologies in fields such as sensors, batteries, catalysis, biomaterials, and quantum materials. The results are published on Jan....

New findings by Boston University School of Public Health investigators indicate that COVID-19 vaccination does not impair fertility—but males who become infected by the coronavirus may experience short-term reduced fertility. COVID-19 vaccination in either partner does not appear to affect fertility, according to new research led by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) investigators. Published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, the prospective study of couples trying to conceive found no association between COVID-19 vaccination and fecundability—the probability of conception per menstrual cycle—in female or male partners who received the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson vaccines....

The drug aims to prevent the upper airways from narrowing or collapsing during sleep, a major cause of OSA. It could serve as an alternative option for individuals with OSA who cannot tolerate continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy, as only about half of OSA sufferers are able to use it. “While further rigorous clinical evaluation and testing is required, this is a great first step and should offer some hope to the many people worldwide who suffer from sleep apnoea,” says study senior author Professor Danny Eckeart, Director of Flinders’ sleep lab FHMRI: Sleep Health....

A newly published study from Yale University scientists could lead to the development of new therapies aimed at restoring the signaling balance in the pulmonary vessels in order to treat patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension. Impairment of a key signaling cascade in the pulmonary blood vessels plays an important role in pulmonary arterial hypertension, a Yale study has found. The study appears in the advance online publication of Nature Medicine....

Scientists at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine have used injections of antibodies to rapidly reverse the onset of Type I diabetes in mice genetically bred to develop the disease. Moreover, just two injections maintained disease remission indefinitely without harming the immune system. The findings, published online ahead of print (June 29, 2012) in the journal Diabetes, suggest for the first time that using a short course of immunotherapy may someday be of value for reversing the onset of Type I diabetes in recently diagnosed people....

How does COVID-19 affect sperm and thus the next generation’s immune system? Researchers from the University of Bergen are collecting sperm to find the answer. So far, 50 COVID-19 patients between 30 and 40 have delivered a sperm sample. Students are next in line. The plan is that participants will return after 12 months for more testing. The project aims to see how the infection affects the development of the immune system and, follow-up studies will reveal how COVID-19 will affect the immune system of their future children....

Dwarf bamboo flowering and seeding on a large scale is an uncommon occurrence. This plant phenomenon is known as masting, and the next one is not expected for more than 100 years. During such events, which happen during “mast years,” certain plants produce abundant seed yields. Plants that synchronize their flowering and fruiting in mast years do so simultaneously and over a wide area. Rodent outbreaks are thought to be linked to consuming bamboo seeds during these mast years....