There’s more than one type of fat cell. Besides the white fat that stores triglycerides in lipid droplets in preparation for lean times later, mammals also have heat-generating brown fat, which acts more like a radiator than a storage closet. Brown fat cells are smaller, with more abundant mitochondria than white fat cells, and they hold a lot fewer lipids. In many models of obesity, brown adipose tissue converts to white tissue, with changes in the morphology and function of the cells....

NECC was responsible for the 52,848 vials of methylprednisolone acetate, a steroid that is injected to alleviate back pain, which caused the outbreak. A second steroid, triamcinolone acetonide, which is used to treat irritated skin, has also been linked to the infections. There are even concerns that a drug used to paralyze the heart is causing these infections. All of these drugs from NECC have been recalled since October 6th, but the existence of more tainted drugs could potentially expand the number of people at risk....

Gamma rays are the highest-energy form of light, produced by the universe’s most energetic phenomena. They’re common in galaxies like the Milky Way because cosmic rays, particles moving near the speed of light, produce gamma rays when they interact with interstellar gas clouds and starlight. Surprisingly, the latest Fermi data shows the gamma rays in Andromeda — also known as M31 — are confined to the galaxy’s center instead of spread throughout....

Titan is the only planetary body in our solar system other than Earth known to have stable liquid on its surface. But instead of water raining down from clouds and filling lakes and seas as on Earth, on Titan what rains down is methane and ethane – hydrocarbons that we think of as gases but that behave as liquids in Titan’s frigid climate. “Titan has an active methane-based hydrologic cycle that has shaped a complex geologic landscape, making its surface one of most geologically diverse in the solar system,” said Rosaly Lopes, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and lead author of new research used to develop the map....

Conventional ultrasound doesn’t expose patients to harmful radiation as X-ray and CT scanners do, and it’s generally noninvasive. But it does require contact with a patient’s body, and as such, may be limiting in situations where clinicians might want to image patients who don’t tolerate the probe well, such as babies, burn victims, or other patients with sensitive skin. Furthermore, ultrasound probe contact induces significant image variability, which is a major challenge in modern ultrasound imaging....

Women instructed to embrace their romantic partner prior to undergoing a stressful experience had a lower biological stress response—as indicated by levels of the stress hormone cortisol in saliva—compared to women who did not embrace their partner. This effect was not seen for men. Gesa Berretz of Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, and colleagues present these findings today (May 18, 2022) in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. In some situations, social touch may buffer against stress....

The observations were published Thursday in the Astrophysical Journal. Benjamin Shappee at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy (IfA) is part of the team of astronomers led by Carnegie Observatories’ Thomas Holoien. Both are founding members of the Ohio State University-based All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN). The ASAS-SN telescope network discovered the event, named ASASSN-19bt, on January 29, 2019, and quickly triggered follow-up observations from ground-based telescopes in Chile, as well as space-based X-ray and ultraviolet cameras on board NASA’s Swift satellite....

Mollisonia plenovenatrix would have been a fierce predator—for its size. As big as a thumb, the creature boasted a pair of large egg-shaped eyes and a “multi-tool head” with long walking legs, as well as numerous pairs of limbs that could all-together sense, grasp, crush and chew. But, most importantly, the new species also had a pair of tiny “pincers” in front of its mouth, called chelicerae. These types of appendages, which are mainly used to hold and kill preys, are found only in chelicerates, a large group of arthropods which include modern scorpions and spiders....

The Fukushima disaster seems to have caused three generations of butterflies near the nuclear plant to mutate. This has raised fears that it could affect other species as well. 12% of pale grass blue butterflies (Pseudozizeeria maha) were exposed to the nuclear fallout as larvae after the tsunami-sparked disaster. The mutations include abnormalities, including smaller wings and damaged eyes. The insects were mated inside a laboratory to see the impact on their offspring, and 18% of their offspring displayed similar problems....

To avoid collisions with other ships, many vessels are equipped with the Automatic Identification System (AIS). This technology was created as a collision avoidance tool and provides information such as position, course, and speed of nearby vessels to supplement marine radar. However, data from the shipboard AIS can also provide information about global fishing activity, including illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. Fishing vessels may disable their AIS devices. A new data analysis identifies intentional disabling events in commercial fisheries and shows that, while some disabling events may be for legitimate reasons, others appear to be attempts to conceal illegal activities....

Berkeley – Since 2006, when NASA’s Stardust spacecraft delivered its aerogel and aluminum foil dust collectors back to Earth, a team of scientists has combed through the collectors in search of rare, microscopic particles of interstellar dust. The team now reports that they have found seven dust motes that probably came from outside our solar system, perhaps created in a supernova explosion millions of years ago and altered by eons of exposure to the extremes of space....

The study, conducted by a team of researchers led by Robert Dickson, M.D., at the University of Michigan Medical School, utilized health records from patients admitted to the hospital with sepsis and conducted experiments on mice to investigate the relationship between the gut bacteria composition, temperature changes, and health outcomes. Sepsis, the body’s response to a life-threatening infection, can cause drastic changes in body temperature, the trajectory of which is linked to mortality....

Study is most comprehensive of its kind and included more than 70,000 adults in the UK hospitalized with severe COVID-19 disease. Of these, half (36,367 of 73,197) developed one or more health complications during their hospitalization. Most common complications included renal, complex respiratory, and systemic complications, but cardiovascular, neurological, and gastrointestinal and liver complications were also reported. The study found high rates of complications across all age groups. Men and those aged older than 60 years were most likely affected, but complications and poor functional outcomes were common, even in younger, previously healthy adults....

Because most existing AI models need arduous human annotation of enormous amounts of data before the labeled data are given into the model to train it, the step is considered a big advancement in clinical AI design. The model, named CheXzero, performed on par with human radiologists in its ability to identify pathologies on chest X-rays, according to a paper describing their work that was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering....

Two weeks of 20 minutes less time per day on Facebook: a team of psychologists from Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) invited 140 test persons to participate in this experiment. Those who took part in it were lucky: afterward, they were more physically active, smoked less, and were more satisfied. Symptoms of addiction regarding Facebook usage decreased. These effects continued also three months after the end of the experiment. The group headed by Dr....

The scientists published their findings in the journal The Quarterly Review of Biology. Evolutionary geneticists propose that this is the reason why homosexuality didn’t fade away due to evolutionary pressure. Current research estimates that 8% of the population is gay, and it has been known that homosexuality can run in families. If one of a set of identical twins is gay, there’s a 20% chance that the other will be, too....

Working with light to activate processes within genetically modified fission yeast cells is among the research performed by the experimental biologists in the Martin Lab at the University of Lausanne, led by faculty member Sophie Martin. Team members there were conducting such experiments when they noticed that a certain protein, when introduced into the cell, would become displaced from the cell growth region. So, they reached out to Dimitrios Vavylonis, who leads the Vavylonis Group in the Department of Physics at Lehigh University, to find out why....

Imagine a massive mug of cold, dense cream with hot coffee poured on top. Now place it on a rotating table. Over time, the fluids will slowly mix into each other, and heat from the coffee will ultimately reach the bottom of the mug. However, as most of us eager coffee drinkers are aware, stirring the layers together is a more efficient way to spread the heat and enjoy a beverage that’s not blistering hot or freezing cold....

Researchers conducted a qualitative study with in-depth interviews of 20 parents to understand their views about SARS-CoV-2 vaccination, with a goal to support future vaccination initiatives. “Given the observed discrepancy between parental intention and decision to vaccinate their children against SARS-CoV-2, it is important to understand how and why parents make their decisions,” said Dr. Jonathon Maguire, a pediatrician at St. Michael’s Hospital, a site of Unity Health Toronto, and the University of Toronto....

White dwarfs are the burned-out relics of stars that rapidly lose mass, cool down and shut off their nuclear furnaces. As these glowing carcasses age and shed weight, their orbits begin to expand outward from the star cluster’s packed downtown. This migration is caused by a gravitational tussle among stars inside the cluster. Globular star clusters sort out stars according to their mass, governed by a gravitational billiard ball game where lower mass stars rob momentum from more massive stars....