The newly identified species belongs to the genus Phallocryptus of which only four species were previously known from different arid and semiarid regions. Dr. Hossein Rajaei from the Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History and Dr. Alexander V Rudov from Tehran University made the discovery during an expedition of Lut to better understand the desert’s ecology, biodiversity, geomorphology, and paleontology. Further scientific examinations of the specimens by co-author Dr. Martin Schwentner, Crustacea specialist from the Natural History Museum of Vienna, stated that they belong to a new species of freshwater Crustacea....

Researchers at the University of Calgary’s Hotchkiss Brain Institute in Canada and the University of Exeter in the UK explored the relationship between vitamin D supplementation and dementia in more than 12,388 participants of the US National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center, who had a mean age of 71 and were dementia-free when they signed up. Of the group, 37 percent (4,637) took vitamin D supplements. In the study, published on March 1 in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, the team found that taking vitamin D was associated with living dementia-free for longer, and they also found 40 percent fewer dementia diagnoses in the group who took supplements....

Although the OMPS suite was designed to measure ozone it also has the capability of measuring other atmospheric particles like sulfur dioxide and ash. The aerosol index (AI) value is related to both the thickness and height of the atmospheric aerosol layer. For most atmospheric events involving aerosols, the AI ranges from 0.0 to 5.0, with 5.0 indicating heavy concentrations of aerosols that could reduce visibilities or impact health. Color codes range from colorless (0....

The threat posed by the Noble False Widow spider has been debated among spider and healthcare specialists for many years. This new study, published in the international medical journal Clinical Toxicology, confirms that some bite victims experience symptoms very similar to the true black widow spiders and some severe cases require hospitalization. Originating from Madeira and the Canary Islands, the Noble False Widow spider Steatoda nobilis, now has the potential to become one of the world’s most invasive species of spider....

He sees endless possibilities. Steckl’s lab is coming up with new applications for a fabrication process called coaxial electrospinning, which combines two or more materials into a fine fiber for use in industry, textiles, or even medicine. The machine pumps two or more liquid polymers into a nozzle that drips like a leaky faucet. Once the electric voltage is applied, the drip turns into a spiderweb-fine jet composed of a core of one material surrounded by a sheath of another....

Most efforts to remove oil from water focus on removing large oil slicks from industrial spills but these aren’t suitable for removing tiny droplets. Instead, scientists are looking for new ways to clean the water. Now, researchers at the University of Toronto (U of T) and Imperial College London have developed a sponge that removes over 90 percent of oil microdroplets from wastewater within ten minutes. After capturing oil from wastewater, the sponge can be treated with a solvent, which releases the oil from the sponge....

Most Americans want the U.S. to place more emphasis on developing solar power, recent polls suggest. A major impediment, however, is the cost to manufacture, install and maintain solar panels. Simply put, most people and businesses cannot afford to place them on their rooftops. Fortunately, that is changing because researchers such as Qiaoqiang Gan, University at Buffalo assistant professor of electrical engineering, are helping develop a new generation of photovoltaic cells that produce more power and cost less to manufacture than what’s available today....

In research presented in a recent issue of Applications in Plant Sciences, Natalie Love, M.S., and colleagues developed a new quantitative measure of phenological status, called the “phenological index,” to improve the scoring of developmental stage in herbarium specimens. In their paper, the team presents a protocol for deriving the phenological index of herbarium specimens in an automated way, using the free software package ImageJ. “Herbarium specimens can be collected at a wide range of phenological stages from all buds to all fruits, so the assumption that specimens are collected on their day of the year of first flower or peak flower is inaccurate,” said Love, corresponding author on the manuscript and Ph....

Mission controllers at ESA’s mission operations center in Darmstadt, Germany, received a signal confirming that the Philae lander had touched down on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Wednesday, November 12, just after 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST. The following statement is from John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, about the successful comet landing by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft: “We congratulate ESA on their successful landing on a comet today....

Physicists in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences have helped confirm the existence of exotic hadrons — a type of matter that cannot be classified within the traditional quark model. Their finding is the subject of a forthcoming article, prepared by the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) Collaboration at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. (LHCb is a multinational experiment, designed to identify new forces and particles in the universe.) Tomasz Skwarnicki, professor of physics, is one of the paper’s lead authors....

“Nonlinear effects are what happens when waves on the beach crest and crash” says Keefe Mitman, a Caltech graduate student who works with Saul Teukolsky (PhD ’74), the Robinson Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics at Caltech with a joint appointment at Cornell University. “The waves interact and influence each other rather than ride along by themselves. With something as violent as a black hole merger, we expected these effects but had not seen them in our models until now....

“The applications for this research are considerably broad,” said Dr. Alexander J. Giles, research physicist, NRL Electronics Science and Technology Division. “By confining light to very small dimensions, nanophotonic devices have direct applications for use in ultra-high resolution microscopes, solar energy harvesting, optical computing and targeted medical therapies.” Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) forms an atomically thin lattice consisting of boron and nitrogen atoms. This material has recently been demonstrated as an exciting optical material for infrared nanophotonics and is considered an ‘ideal substrate’ for two-dimensional materials....

Acoustic technologies that harness the power of sound are ubiquitous in the modern world. They are crucial elements in everyday technologies ranging from cell phones to global positioning systems. As society transitions to sophisticated quantum technologies that utilize the properties of quantum mechanics, scientists are looking to develop acoustic technologies for applications in quantum computing and sensitive metrology. At room temperature, sound waves usually die out rapidly, making them less appealing for information storage....

We know that asteroids have struck the Earth in the past with devastating consequences, such as the asteroid 66 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaur. In fact, new research found that early Earth may have had 10 times as many huge impactors as previously thought. Recently, the asteroid Apophis quickly gained notoriety as an asteroid that could pose a serious threat to Earth in 2029. Fortunately, new data ruled out an impact at that time, and further data has shown that Earth is safe from Apophis for at least the next 100 years....

Getting eyeglasses prescriptions is especially difficult in developing countries. Optometrists are generally located in urban centers and rarely see patients from rural areas, so many people suffer from uncorrected impairments. According to the World Health Organization, this can lead to impaired quality of life, learning difficulties, and lost employment opportunities and finances. Now MIT spinout PlenOptika aims to correct this issue with a highly accurate, portable autorefractor that measures refractive errors of the eye and produces estimated prescriptions in 10 seconds....

The end of 2019 brings with it holiday gatherings, school vacations, and the annual tradition of New Year’s resolutions – with some of the most common resolutions being to exercise more and lose weight. Popular gym chains across the country capitalize on the broad desire to get healthy in the New Year with persuasive post-holiday marketing campaigns, but they’re also undermining public health warnings about the dangers of indoor tanning, according to a new study from UConn researchers published today by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open....

Wouter Schievink, MD, director of the Cerebrospinal Fluid Leak and Microvascular Neurosurgery Program, said many patients with brain sagging—which can be detected through MRI—go undiagnosed, and he advises clinicians to take a second look at patients with telltale symptoms. A new Cedars-Sinai study suggests that some patients diagnosed with behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD)—an incurable condition that robs patients of the ability to control their behavior and cope with daily living—may instead have a cerebrospinal fluid leak, which is often treatable....

Nacre — the iridescent part of mollusk shells — is a poster child for biologically inspired design. Despite being made of brittle chalk, the intricately layered microstructure of nacre gives it a remarkable ability to resist the spread of cracks, a material property known as toughness. Engineers looking to design tougher materials have long sought to mimic this kind of natural layering, which is also found in conch shells, deer antlers, and elsewhere....

An economic model estimates the impact of general probiotic use on acute respiratory tract infections in the US. A study published on August 27, 2019, in Frontiers in Pharmacology found that general probiotic use in the U.S. could save the healthcare payer and the economy around $1.4 billion in medical bills and lost productivity due to acute respiratory tract infections (RTIs). RTIs include influenza-like illnesses (ILIs) with symptoms ranging from mild cold to the more serious flu....

A new study from the the University of Washington details how Earth-like planets orbiting close to small stars may have magnetic fields that protect them from stellar radiation and help maintain surface conditions that could be conducive to life. A planet’s magnetic field emanates from its core and is thought to deflect the charged particles of the stellar wind, protecting the atmosphere from being lost to space. Magnetic fields, born from the cooling of a planet’s interior, could also protect life on the surface from harmful radiation, as the Earth’s magnetic field protects us....