Potential new class of black holes that are smaller than researchers believed possible. Black holes are an important part of how astrophysicists make sense of the universe — so important that scientists have been trying to build a census of all the black holes in the Milky Way galaxy. But new research shows that their search might have been missing an entire class of black holes that they didn’t know existed....

The COVID-19 messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines[2] use lipid nanoparticles (tiny fat droplets) to deliver mRNA to the body’s cells. This mRNA tells cells to produce a dummy spike protein on their surface in order to imitate the protein on the virus that causes COVID-19. After that, the body creates an immune response by producing antibodies that may be employed if the individual becomes infected with the virus. The current research study employed a similar strategy for mRNA delivery....

Initial epidemiological studies demonstrate that the Omicron variant is more transmissible than the Delta variant. The Omicron variant’s biological characteristics are still relatively unknown. It has more than 32 mutations in the spike protein compared with the first SARS-CoV-2 and was designated as a variant of concern by WHO on November 26, 2021. In South Africa, the Omicron variant replaced the other viruses within a few weeks and led to a sharp increase in the number of cases diagnosed....

Research to be presented at the 2021 American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference & Exhibition finds that stay-at-home orders and pandemic stress during the COVID outbreak brought an increase in non-accidental child injuries, the result of child abuse The stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, including financial strain and physical distancing, presented challenges for families that may have led to an increase in physical abuse injuries of school-aged children, according to new research....

President Gabriel Boric issued emergency declarations for the regions of Biobío and neighboring Ñuble on February 3, the same day that the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this image (above) of the fires. Smoke from the fires can be seen billowing from Santa Juana, south of Concepción, out to the Pacific Ocean. A more detailed view of the fires near Santa Juana can be seen in this false-color image acquired on the same day by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8....

The COVID pandemic has led to a significant increase in mental health problems. Now, in some good news, a pilot study has shown that depressed patients who have suffered from COVID respond better to standard antidepressants than do people who have not had COVID. Around 40% of COVID-19 sufferers report the development of depression within 6 months of infection. The inflammation caused by COVID is believed to be the main reason for the development of depression....

Italian study of long-COVID patients suggests those infected with the Alpha variant experienced different neurological and emotional symptoms compared to those who contracted the original form of SARS-CoV-2. New research to be presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal (April 23-26, 2022), suggests that the symptoms connected to long COVID could be different in people who are infected with different variants....

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention almost immediately corrected the announcement, noting SARS-CoV-2 was not known to be an airborne virus. The center confirmed the virus appears to spread via droplets, direct contact, and by coming into contact with contaminated surfaces and objects. The World Health Organization agrees. So far no infectious virus has been recovered from captured air samples. This would need to occur to demonstrate the virus was airborne....

The next full Moon will be on Monday evening, September 20, 2021, at 7:55 p.m. EDT. The Moon will appear full for about three days around this time, from Sunday evening through Wednesday morning. While the full Moon will be on Monday from Iceland, Liberia, and Senegal westward across the Americas to the International Date Line, it will be on Tuesday for the rest of Africa and Europe eastward across Asia and Australia to the International Date Line....

The researchers published their findings in the journal Current Biology. This trick allows fairy-wren parents to distinguish between their own offspring and those of cuckoo species that invade their nests. The females also teach the pass-note to their mates. It has been shown that fairy-wrens discriminate against cuckoo nestlings on the basis of their foreign begging calls, but it wasn’t known that wren nestlings learned these pass-notes before they actually hatched, states Sonia Kleindorfer, an animal behaviorist, at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia....

George Wittemyer, a wildlife biologist at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, and lead author of the study, published the findings in the journal PLOS ONE. The Scientists began the study in 1997 to better understand elephant behavior in two national reserves, Samburu and Buffalo Springs, and focused on 934 elephants. But after seeing a major shift in poaching, they shifted their study in 2009 to look at the effects the poaching was having on the elephants they knew....

Bacteriophages kill bacteria through different mechanisms than antibiotics, and they can target specific strains, making them an appealing option for potentially overcoming multidrug resistance. However, quickly finding and optimizing well-defined bacteriophages to use against a bacterial target is challenging. In a new study, MIT biological engineers showed that they could rapidly program bacteriophages to kill different strains of E. coli by making mutations in a viral protein that binds to host cells....

Europe has had trouble launching large carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects. An EU fund that was set up two years ago to support CCS couldn’t find a single scheme to finance, and instead gave €1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) to renewable energy projects instead. Adding to the embarrassment, the International Energy Agency (IEA) noted that the switch from coal to shale gas in the USA lowered the price of coal, resulting in the EU to burning more coal because gas is more expensive....

The service module is integral to human missions to the Moon and Mars. After Orion launches on top of the agency’s Space Launch System rocket, the service module will be responsible for in-space maneuvering throughout the mission, including course corrections. The service module will also provide the powerful burns to insert Orion into lunar orbit and again to get out of lunar orbit and return to Earth. It is provided by ESA (European Space Agency) and built by ESA’s prime contractor Airbus of Bremen, Germany....

By creating protocells in hot, alkaline seawater, a University College London-led research team has added to evidence that the origin of life could have been in deep-sea hydrothermal vents rather than shallow pools. Previous experiments had failed to foster the formation of protocells — seen as a key stepping stone to the development of cell-based life — in such environments, but the new study, published today (November 4, 2019) in Nature Ecology & Evolution, finds that heat and alkalinity might not just be acceptable, but necessary to get life started....

Rules which stipulate a single specific physical distance (1 or 2 meters) between individuals to reduce the spread of COVID-19 are based on outdated science and experiences of past viruses, argue researchers in The BMJ on August 25, 2020. Such rules are based on an over-simplistic dichotomy describing viral transfer by either large droplets or small airborne droplets emitted in isolation without accounting for the exhaled air, say Nicholas Jones at the University of Oxford and colleagues....

The tiny Valentine Island, visible in the top-left of the image, measures around 1.6 km in length and around 250 m wide. The island is located in the King Sound, a large gulf and inlet of the Indian Ocean in Australia’s Kimberley Region. The gulf is around 120 km long and averages about 50 km in width. The King Sound has one of the highest tides in Australia, and amongst the highest in the world, reaching a maximum tidal round of around 11 to 12 m....

The embryo, dubbed ‘Baby Yingliang’, was discovered in the Late Cretaceous rocks of Ganzhou, southern China, and belongs to a toothless theropod dinosaur, or oviraptorosaur. Among the most complete dinosaur embryos ever found, the fossil suggests that these dinosaurs developed bird-like postures close to hatching. Scientists found the posture of ‘Baby Yingliang’ unique among known dinosaur embryos — its head lies below the body, with the feet on either side and the back curled along the blunt end of the egg....

The drug was administered to 11 patients on supplemental oxygen and 8 patients on mechanical ventilation over a 10-to-14-day course of treatment. At the end of treatment, 8 of 11 patients on supplemental oxygen were breathing room air, and 4 of 8 patients on ventilation were extubated, with 2 of the 8 breathing room air. Measurements of two proteins related to inflammation decreased in the majority of patients, with no signs of toxicity from the drug....

The ETH Zurich researchers, led by Simone Schürle, Professor of Responsive Biomedical Systems, opted to experiment with bacteria that are inherently magnetic owing to the iron oxide particles they contain. These Magnetospirillum bacteria react to magnetic fields and can be manipulated by external magnets. Exploiting temporary gaps Schürle and her colleagues have now shown in cell cultures and mice that applying a rotating magnetic field to the tumor boosts the bacteria’s ability to cross the vascular wall around the cancerous growth....