What are the skywatching highlights of January 2020? The peak of the Quadrantid meteor shower, Mars rises with its “rival” — the red giant star Antares — and the Moon and Venus pair up. The visibility of meteor showers from year to year has a lot to do with whether there’s a bright Moon in the sky at the time or not. This year, the Moon will set soon after midnight local time, meaning viewing conditions should be good, provided your local skies are not obscured by winter weather....

DTU and Graphene Flagship researchers have taken the art of patterning nanomaterials to the next level. Precise patterning of 2D materials is a route to computation and storage using 2D materials, which can deliver better performance and much lower power consumption than today’s technology. One of the most significant recent discoveries within physics and material technology is two-dimensional materials such as graphene. Graphene is stronger, smoother, lighter, and better at conducting heat and electricity than any other known material....

Scientists have explained light-induced phase transitions in quantum materials through nanoscale dynamics, but producing real space images has proved difficult, leading to no one having seen them yet. In the new study published in Nature Physics, ICFO researchers Allan S. Johnson and Daniel Pérez-Salinas, led by former ICFO Prof. Simon Wall, in collaboration with colleagues from Aarhus University, Sogang University, Vanderbilt University, the Max Born Institute, the Diamond Light Source, ALBA Synchrotron, Utrecht University, and the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory, have pioneered a new imaging method that allows the capture of the light-induced phase transition in vanadium oxide (VO2) with high spatial and temporal resolution....

The importance of chemistry in next-generation computing and communication has been documented for the first time by a team of Northwestern University academics. They found how to transport quantum information on the nanoscale using quantum teleportation by applying their expertise to the discipline of Quantum Information Science (QIS). Their findings were published in the journal, Nature Chemistry, on September 23, 2019, and have untold potential to influence future research and application....

For 100 years scientists have disagreed on how to interpret quantum mechanics. A recent study by Jussi Lindgren and Jukka Liukkonen supports an interpretation that is close to classical scientific principles. Quantum mechanics arose in the 1920s – and since then scientists have disagreed on how best to interpret it. Many interpretations, including the Copenhagen interpretation presented by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg and in particular von Neumann-Wigner interpretation, state that the consciousness of the person conducting the test affects its result....

“We call our hybrid material ‘infused CMF,’” says Afsaneh Rabiei, corresponding author of a paper on the work and a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State. “And while infused CMF is about the same weight as aluminum, it is tougher and has other characteristics that make it more appealing from a flight performance, safety, and fuel efficiency standpoint.” CMF is a foam that consists of hollow, metallic spheres – made of materials such as stainless steel or titanium – embedded in a metallic matrix made of steel, aluminum, or metallic alloys....

Repurposed drugs often have a speedier path to clinical use because they have already been shown to be safe in people. A research study that was published on May 19th in the open access journal PLOS Pathogens by Sandrine Belouzard and Jean Dubuisson at Pasteur Institute, Lille, France, and colleagues suggests clofoctol may be an effective treatment for SARS-CoV-2 infections in mice. While COVID-19 vaccines reduce hospitalizations and death, they do not control virus transmission, and affordable, effective therapies are needed....

Mankind has been storing information for thousands of years. From carvings on marble to today’s magnetic data storage. Although the amount of data that can be stored has increased immensely during the past few decades, it is still difficult to actually store data for a long period. The key to successful information storage is to ensure that the information does not get lost. If we want to store information that will exist longer than mankind itself, then different requirements apply than those for a medium for daily information storage....

Researchers identify clinically approved medications that can be re-purposed for COVID-19 treatment. In a multi-group collaborative involving the National Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratories (NEIDL), the Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM), and the Center for Network Systems Biology (CNSB), scientists have reported the first map of the molecular responses of human lung cells to infection by SARS-CoV-2. By combining bioengineered human alveolar cells with sophisticated, highly precise mass spectrometry technology, Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) researchers have identified host proteins and pathways in lung cells whose levels change upon infection by the SARS-CoV-2, providing insights into disease pathology and new therapeutic targets to block COVID-19....

The findings, published in the journal Science Immunology, identify a chemical that potently inhibits inflammatory cell death. Cells often perforate their own membranes in response to extreme inflammation—a type of cell suicide known as pyroptosis. In human cells and animal models, the chemical prevents these deadly holes from forming inside cell membranes. This is a new pharmacologic approach to stopping this destructive process. “To date, there has been no pharmacologic mechanism to directly inhibit pyroptotic pore formation,” said Derek Abbott, MD, Ph....

The city flourished and many people lived there until it was abandoned in the 17th century. But how did the people living there fulfill their needs? Particularly challenging was water – Great Zimbabwe is located in a climate-sensitive area so ensuring a stable supply of water for so many people and so many cattle must have been a problem. This mystery has been investigated by a group of researchers from South Africa, England, Zimbabwe, and Denmark in the article “Climate-smart harvesting and storing of water: The legacy of dhaka pits at Great Zimbabwe....

Researchers studied over 4,000 people in the U.S. and Europe and found those with higher blood erythritol levels were at elevated risk of experiencing a major adverse cardiac event such as heart attack, stroke, or death. They also examined the effects of adding erythritol to either whole blood or isolated platelets, which are cell fragments that clump together to stop bleeding and contribute to blood clots. Results revealed that erythritol made platelets easier to activate and form a clot....

The first nationally representative evidence regarding the diverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health in the UK was led by researchers at Lancaster University working with the University of British Columbia in Canada. Adolescents (aged 10 to 16) with better than average mental health before the pandemic experienced an increase in their emotional and conduct problems, hyperactivity, and problems interacting with their peers and friends, but a decrease in their prosocial tendencies such as being caring and willing to share and help others during the pandemic....

One such property, called the Pockels effect, is seen when an electric field is applied to the medium through which light travels. Normally, light “bends” when it hits any medium, but under the Pockels effect, the refractive index of the medium (a measure of how much the light bends) changes proportionally to the applied electric field. This effect has various applications in optical engineering, for example, in optical communication, displays, and electric sensors....

A large, international study of COVID-19 patients confirmed that cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, congestive heart failure, chronic kidney disease, stroke and cancer can increase a patient’s risk of dying from the virus. Penn State College of Medicine researchers say their findings may help public health officials improve patient care and develop interventions that can target these high-risk populations. The researchers found that cardiovascular disease may double a patient’s risk of dying from COVID-19....

Second study of its kind confirms extreme impacts from US vs. Russia nuclear war. If the United States and Russia waged an all-out nuclear war, much of the land in the Northern Hemisphere would be below freezing in the summertime, with the growing season slashed by nearly 90 percent in some areas, according to a Rutgers-led study. Indeed, death by famine would threaten nearly all of the Earth’s 7.7 billion people, said co-author Alan Robock, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University–New Brunswick....

While cuttlefish wearing glasses is an unexpected sight, a University of Minnesota-led research team built an underwater theater and equipped the cephalopods with specialized 3D glasses to investigate how cuttlefish determine the best distance to strike moving prey. Their research revealed cuttlefish use stereopsis to perceive depth when hunting a moving target. The findings are published in the journal Science Advances. Cuttlefish catch a meal by deploying their tentacles and, to be successful in their strike, cuttlefish must compute depth to position themselves at the correct distance from the prey....

Magnets are an integral part of our everyday lives and are found in many medical and electronic devices, including household appliances, electric motors, and computers. The demand for new magnetic materials has significantly increased in recent years. Many of such materials are composed of metallic elements or rare earth metals that can be used at room temperature. In 2019, the global market for these inorganic magnets was worth US$ 19....

Scientists have detected magmatic water — water that originates from deep within the Moon’s interior — on the surface of the Moon. These findings, published in the August 25 issue of Nature Geoscience, represent the first such remote detection of this type of lunar water, and were arrived at using data from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3). The discovery represents an exciting contribution to the rapidly changing understanding of lunar water, said Rachel Klima, a planetary geologist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, and lead author of the paper, “Remote detection of magmatic water in Bullialdus Crater on the Moon....

Much like detectives study fingerprints to identify the culprit, scientists used NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes to find the “fingerprints” of water in the atmosphere of a hot, bloated, Saturn-mass exoplanet some 700 light-years away. And, they found a lot of water. In fact, the planet, known as WASP-39b, has three times as much water as Saturn does. Though no planet like this resides in our solar system, WASP-39b can provide new insights into how and where planets form around a star, say researchers....