The researchers, led by Research Associate Nikolaos Georgakarakos of the department of physics at NYU Abu Dhabi, report in Giant Planets: Good Neighbors for Habitable Worlds that even after planets have formed with enough water on their surface to potentially support life, “giant” planets can continue to change their orbits and impact their continued habitability in positive or negative ways. The habitable zone is the region around a star where a planet with an Earth-like atmosphere on a circular orbit can support liquid water on its surface....

The results are based on evaluating changes in birdsong in white-crowned sparrows in the San Francisco Bay area, both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, and in urban and rural environments. The study provides strong evidence that previously reported regional changes in birdsong — changes that lowered song quality, which impacts male birds’ ability to defend their territories — did result from increased anthropogenic noise. Elizabeth Derryberry and colleagues have been monitoring urban and rural populations of white-crowned sparrows in the San Francisco Bay area for years....

Black holes have such powerful gravity that not even light can escape their clutches. Since they’re invisible, we can only find black holes indirectly, by seeing how they affect their surroundings. The supermassive black holes found at the centers of galaxies, which contain millions of times the mass of the Sun, disrupt the orbits of nearby stars and occasionally tear them apart with visible consequences. But astronomers think the vast majority of stellar-mass black holes, which are much lighter, have nothing around them that can tip us off to their presence....

Citizens and scientists have two very different ways of reasoning. While citizens find comfort in certainty, scientists need to continually challenge the facts. Is it possible for these two groups to find common ground? Research is by nature a dynamic process. Scientists start with an observation, make a hypothesis, test the hypothesis through experiments, analyze the results, and form a conclusion. But more often than not, that conclusion raises new questions, which lead to more observations, new hypotheses, more experiments, and so on....

Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes have probed the stormy atmosphere of a brown dwarf, creating the most detailed “weather map” yet for this class of cool, star-like orbs. The forecast shows wind-driven, planet-sized clouds enshrouding these strange worlds. Brown dwarfs form out of condensing gas, as stars do, but lack the mass to fuse hydrogen atoms and produce energy. Instead, these objects, which some call failed stars, are more similar to gas planets with their complex, varied atmospheres....

A team of astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has taken an important step closer to finding the birth certificate of a star that’s been around for a very long time. “We have found that this is the oldest known star with a well-determined age,” said Howard Bond of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pennsylvania, and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. The star could be as old as 14....

Recent observations have shown that the material surrounding R Sculptoris actually forms a spiral structure — a phenomenon probably caused by a hidden companion star orbiting the star. Systems with multiple stars often lead to unusual or unexpected morphologies, as seen, for example, in the wide range of striking planetary nebulae that Hubble has imaged. R Sculptoris is an example of an asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star. All stars with initial masses up to about eight times that of the Sun will eventually become red giants in the later stages of their lives....

Although often overshadowed by its more famous cousins – including the Fornax Cluster and Pandora’s Cluster – Abell 1758 contains more than its fair share of intrigue. The cluster was first identified in 1958, and initially logged as a single massive object. However, some 40 years later the cluster was observed again by the ROSAT satellite X-ray telescope, and astronomers spotted something peculiar: the cluster was not a single concentration of galaxies, but two!...

The celestial outburst takes the shape of a pair of ballooning lobes of dust and gas and other filaments that were blown out from the petulant star. The star may have initially weighed more than 150 Suns. For decades, astronomers have speculated about whether it is on the brink of total destruction. The fireworks started in the 1840s when Eta Carinae went through a titanic outburst, called the Great Eruption, making it the second-brightest star visible in the sky for over a decade....

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has broken the record in the quest to find the farthest supernova of the type used to measure cosmic distances. Supernova UDS10Wil, nicknamed SN Wilson, after the 28th U.S. President, Woodrow Wilson, exploded more than 10 billion years ago (redshift 1.914). At that time, the universe was in its early formative years where stars were being born at a rapid rate. SN Wilson belongs to a special class called Type Ia supernovae....

The wrinkles on a raisin result from a simple effect: As the pulp inside dries, the skin grows stiff and buckles to accommodate its shrinking size. Now, a team of researchers at MIT has discovered a way to harness that same principle in a controlled and orderly way, creating wrinkled surfaces with precise sizes and patterns. This basic method, they say, could be harnessed for a wide variety of useful structures: microfluidic systems for biological research, sensing and diagnostics; new photonic devices that can control light waves; controllable adhesive surfaces; antireflective coatings; and antifouling surfaces that prevent microbial buildup....

Hyperthyroidism is a condition in which the thyroid gland produces excess amounts of thyroid hormones. Affecting more than 1.5 million people in the UK, it can lead to a range of symptoms including weight loss, nervousness, irritability, heat intolerance, heart racing, tremor and muscular weakness. The most common type of hyperthyroidism is Graves’ disease, a condition where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the thyroid gland, triggering over-production of thyroid hormones....

A cytokine “hurricane” centered in the lungs drives respiratory symptoms in patients with severe COVID-19, a new study by immunologists at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons suggests. Two cytokines, CCL2 and CCL3, appear critical in luring immune cells, called monocytes, from the bloodstream into the lungs, where the cells launch an overaggressive attempt to clear the virus. Targeting these specific cytokines with inhibitors may calm the immune reaction and prevent lung tissue damage....

Thirty-two teams and more than 1 million football (soccer) fans headed to Qatar in November 2022 for the World Cup. The destination is Doha, Qatar’s fast-growing capital city, located on the coast of the Persian Gulf in the east of the country. This natural-color image of Doha, Qatar was captured on November 13, 2022, by the Operational Land Imager-2 (OLI-2) on Landsat 9. With a population of 2.3 million people, the city sits on the eastern shore of a small peninsula on the Persian Gulf....

The treatment uses a type of CRISPR to target viral RNA and appears to stop replication of both viruses in the lungs. With a relatively minor genetic change, a new treatment developed by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University appears to stop replication of both flu viruses and the virus that causes COVID-19. Best of all, the treatment could be delivered to the lungs via a nebulizer, making it easy for patients to administer themselves at home....

The innovative material that creates green energy through mechanical force. A new nanotechnology development by an international research team led by Tel Aviv University researchers will make it possible to generate electric currents and voltage within the human body through the activation of various organs (mechanical force). The researchers explain that the development involves a new and very strong biological material, similar to collagen, which is non-toxic and causes no harm to the body’s tissues....

The research, published in the journal SLEEP, is based on data from over 26,000 Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging individuals aged 45 to 85. The researchers compared completed self-reported assessments of sleep and memory alongside neuropsychological testing in different cognitive domains from 2019 and a follow-up in 2022. Subjective memory deterioration was more likely to be reported by those who said their sleep had been worse throughout that three-year period....

Not familiar with pink noise? It’s a random noise in which every octave contains the same amount of energy. Pink noise is found in systems ranging from earthquakes and electronics to biology and stellar luminosity. Compared to the more familiar white noise, pink noise has more low-frequency components. Writing in the journal Physical Review Letters, Yale researcher John Wettlaufer, graduate student Sahil Agarwal, and first author and Yale graduate Woosok Moon of Stockholm University found that pink noise energy signatures on decadal time scales appear in historical climate proxy data both before and after the Industrial Revolution....

“The galaxy clusters we examined are so massive that they bend light rays passing through their center, as predicted by Einstein in 1915. And this in turn produces a kind of magnifying glass effect: the images of background galaxies are magnified,” explains Adélaïde Claeyssens, Department of Astronomy, Stockholm University, one of the lead authors of the study. The magnifying glass effect together with the resolution of the James Webb Space Telescope made it possible for the researchers to detect stellar clumps, very compact galaxy structures....

The specimen – featuring a large portion of backbone – represents a missing link in the family tree of crocodiles, and was one of the largest coastal predators of the Jurassic Period, researchers say. Ancient predator The newly discovered species was nearly five meters long and had large, pointed teeth for grasping prey. It also shared key body features seen in two distinct families of prehistoric crocodiles, the team says....