Researchers at MIT have now embedded high-speed optoelectronic semiconductor devices, including light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and diode photodetectors, within fibers that were then woven at Inman Mills, in South Carolina, into soft, washable fabrics and made into communication systems. This marks the achievement of a long-sought goal of creating “smart” fabrics by incorporating semiconductor devices — the key ingredient of modern electronics — which until now was the missing piece for making fabrics with sophisticated functionality....

Given the importance of the magnetic field, scientists have been trying to figure out how the field has changed throughout Earth’s history. That knowledge can provide clues to understanding the future evolution of Earth, as well as the evolution of other planets in the solar system. New research from the University of Rochester provides evidence that the magnetic field that first formed around Earth was even stronger than scientists previously believed....

The Mississippi River is one of the world’s major river systems in size, habitat diversity, and biological productivity. The river flows 2,340 miles (3766 km) from its source at Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota through the center of the continental United States to the Gulf of Mexico. The area pictured here shows where the Mississippi straddles the states of Louisiana and Mississippi. The image combines three radar acquisitions from the Sentinel-1 mission taken 12 days apart to show changes in crop and land conditions over time....

The blank backdrop Located at the mountain plateau called Dome C in Antarctica, the French-Italian base is one of only three that is inhabited all year long. Between the extreme altitude – 3233 m above sea level means the crew experience chronic hypobaric hypoxia or lack of oxygen in the brain – four months of total darkness during the winter, and temperatures as low as –80°C, the base is fertile ground to research the effects of isolated, confined, and extreme environments on the human body and mind....

A widely available and inexpensive drug that is used to ease the symptoms of indigestion may prove a worthy contender for treating COVID-19 infection in those whose disease doesn’t require admission to hospital, suggest the findings of a small case series, published online in the journal Gut. The effects were felt within 24 to 48 hours of taking famotidine, and a rigorous clinical trial is now warranted to see if the drug could be an effective treatment for COVID-19, say the researchers....

Chemical Recycling Makes Useful Product From Waste Bioplastic A faster, more efficient way of recycling plant-based “bioplastics” has been developed by a team of scientists at the Universities of Birmingham and Bath. The team has shown how their chemical recycling method not only speeds up the process, it can also be converted into a new product — a biodegradable solvent — which can be sold for use in a wide variety of industries including cosmetics and pharmaceuticals....

When two betta fish are fighting for dominance, not only do their attacks mirror each other, but the gene expression in their brain cells also starts to align. The new findings, published June 17th in PLOS Genetics by Norihiro Okada of Kitasato University, Japan, may explain how the fish synchronize their fighting behavior. The fighting fish Betta splendens is famous for its aggression, but opponents typically stop fighting after assessing the other’s abilities to avoid any serious injuries....

There is a long history of ideological radicals who have moved abroad to spread their political views: From the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin over the revolutionary Che Guevara to Jihadist fighters returning to their home countries from the Islamic State. Governments fear that these immigrants bring political turmoil and often react with travel bans or harsh surveillance. Beyond anecdotal evidence, however, researchers have not yet identified the effects of migrating extremists on the spread of actual political beliefs....

In a series of papers published today in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, researchers found that despite low adherence, early introduction to allergenic foods (those that may cause an allergic reaction), including eggs and peanuts, was found to be effective in preventing the development of food allergies in specific groups of infants. The research additionally highlights barriers to following the early introduction process. The research is a continuation from The Enquiring About Tolerance (EAT) study where over 1300 three-month old infants were recruited in England and Wales and placed into one of two groups....

The genetic fingerprint of the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis reveals that members of this incredibly ancient animal phylum employ the same gene cascades for neural cell differentiation as more complex organisms. These genes are also in charge of maintaining the balance of all cells in the organism during the anemone’s lifetime. These findings were recently published in the journal Cell Reports by a group of developmental biologists headed by Ulrich Technau of the University of Vienna....

Super Heavyweight and Flyweight in a Cosmic Dance Volunteer distributed computing project [email protected] discovers neutron star in unusual binary system. After more than two decades, an international research team led by the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute; AEI) in Hannover has identified a Galactic “mystery source” of gamma rays: a heavy neutron star with a very low mass companion orbiting it. Using novel data analysis methods running on about 10,000 graphics cards in the distributed computing project [email protected], the team identified the neutron star by its regularly pulsating gamma rays in a deep search of data from NASA’s Fermi satellite....

Crystallization is the physical phenomenon of the transformation of disordered molecules in a liquid or gas phase into a highly ordered solid crystal through two stages: nucleation and growth. Crystallization is very important in materials and natural sciences because it occurs in a wide range of materials, including metals, organic compounds, and biological molecules, so it is desirable to comprehensively understand this process. Colloids consisting of hard spheres suspended in a liquid are often used as a model system to study crystallization....

Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) — inflammatory diseases of the gastrointestinal tract — have puzzled the scientific community for decades. Ten years ago, researchers recognized that both genes and environment contributed to these diseases but knew little about precisely how and why illness occurred. Today, researchers from across the CD and UC communities have come together to share raw data as well as newly collected genetic information to dissect the biology of a group of conditions that affect millions of people worldwide....

Set to launch on an Ariane 64 rocket later this decade and return to the Moon on a regular basis, the large lander will provide unprecedented opportunities for science and robotics on the lunar surface and your mission could be one of the first. The call for ideas comes hot on the heels of ESA signing an agreement to start building the third European Service Module for NASA’s Artemis program....

Graphene oxide has a remarkable ability to quickly remove radioactive material from contaminated water, researchers at Rice University and Lomonosov Moscow State University have found. A collaborative effort by the Rice lab of chemist James Tour and the Moscow lab of chemist Stepan Kalmykov determined that microscopic, atom-thick flakes of graphene oxide bind quickly to natural and human-made radionuclides and condense them into solids. The flakes are soluble in liquids and easily produced in bulk....

At a recent meeting ESO’s main governing body, the Council, gave the green light[1] for the construction of the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) in two phases. Spending of around one billion euros has been authorized for the first phase, which will cover the construction costs of a fully working telescope with a suite of powerful instruments and first light targeted in ten years time. It will enable tremendous scientific discoveries in the fields of exoplanets, the stellar composition of nearby galaxies and the deep Universe....

In Optica, The Optical Society’s (OSA) journal for high-impact research, the researchers describe how they used a standard semiconductor fabrication process to make a microwave imager chip containing more than 1,000 photonic components. The square chip measures just over 2 millimeters on each side, making it about half the width of a pencil eraser. “Today’s practical microwave imagers are bench-top systems that are bulky and expensive,” said research team leader Firooz Aflatouni from the University of Pennsylvania, USA....

As the 2021 Olympic Games opened in late July, Tokyo was in the midst of a humid heat wave that pushed temperatures above 34°C (93°F) several days in a row. For meteorologists and climatologists, the arrival of sweltering temperatures in Tokyo in August comes as no surprise. Tokyo has always had hot and humid temperatures, but after decades of global warming, increases in the frequency of heat waves, and extensive urbanization, summers in Tokyo are as uncomfortable as ever—and sometimes dangerous—for the city of 14 million....

Using ESA’s Herschel space observatory, astronomers have discovered vast belts of comets surrounding two nearby planetary systems known to host nothing larger than Earth-to-Neptune-mass worlds. The comet reservoirs could have delivered life-giving oceans to the innermost planets. The scientists publish their work in papers in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and Astronomy and Astrophysics. Last year, Herschel found that the dusty belt surrounding the nearby star Fomalhaut must be maintained by collisions between comets....

Published recently, AIMS’ Annual Summary Report on Coral Reef Condition for 2021/22 shows another year of increased coral cover across much of the Reef. In the 87 representative reefs surveyed between August 2021 and May 2022 under the AIMS Long-Term Monitoring Program (LTMP), average hard coral cover in the region north of Cooktown, Queensland, Australia increased to 36% (from 27% in 2021) and to 33% in the central Great Barrier Reef (from 26% in 2021)....