The term bar as a pressure unit comes from the Greek word meaning weight (baros). One bar equals 100,000 Pascals (100 kPa), close to the standard atmospheric pressure at sea level (101,325 Pa). The study’s findings are a crucial step toward making natural gas accessible as a source of energy for the production of alternative fuels to gasoline and diesel. Despite the fact that natural gas is a fossil fuel, its conversion into methanol produces less carbon dioxide (CO2) than other liquid fuels in the same category....

During this deep-space photo shoot – part of the farthest planetary flyby in history – New Horizons’ range to Ultima Thule decreased from 310,000 miles (500,000 kilometers, farther than the distance from the Earth to the Moon) to just 17,100 miles (28,000 kilometers), during which the images became steadily larger and more detailed. The team processed two different image sequences; the bottom sequence shows the images at their original relative sizes, while the top corrects for the changing distance, so that Ultima Thule (officially named 2014 MU69) appears at constant size but becomes more detailed as the approach progresses....

The stability of an ice sheet is closely related to how much water lubricates it from below, allowing glaciers to slide more easily. Understanding the sources and future of the meltwater under West Antarctica is important for estimating the rate at which ice may be lost to the ocean in the future. Antarctica’s bedrock is laced with rivers and lakes, the largest of which is the size of Lake Erie....

Fewer New Yorkers are dying from the coronavirus than health experts had anticipated, a new study shows. Regional death rates have dropped from the highs seen at the start of the outbreak, partially due to a shift in the population contracting the disease toward those who are more resilient. After New York became the epicenter for the pandemic in early March, with tens of thousands dying from COVID-19, experts had expected that the infection would remain as deadly in the following months....

Now, scientists reveal that Fe-rich Fe-O alloys are stable at extreme pressures of nearly 300 GPa and high temperatures of more than 3,000 K (~5,000 degrees F). The results prove that oxygen can exist in the solid inner core, which provides key constraints for further understanding of the formation process and evolution history of the Earth’s core. The study, which was co-led by Dr. Jin Liu from HPSTAR (the Center for High Pressure Science &Technology Advanced Research) and Dr....

In findings published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on October 7, 2019, the researchers report on this intelligent new material that can adapt its shape in response to its environment. The paper is titled “A multifunctional shape-morphing elastomer with liquid metal inclusions.” “It is not only thermally and electrically conductive, it is also intelligent,” said Carmel Majidi, an associate professor of mechanical engineering who directs the Soft Machines Lab at Carnegie Mellon....

Reporting in today’s issue of Cell, researchers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Stanford University, and Stony Brook University report that while skin pigmentation is nearly 100 percent heritable, it is hardly a straightforward, Mendelian trait. By working closely with the KhoeSan, a group of populations indigenous to southern Africa, the researchers have found that the genetics of skin pigmentation become progressively complex the closer populations reside to the equator, with an increasing number of genes — known and unknown — involved, each making a smaller overall contribution....

As of April 2021, more than 3 million people worldwide have died of COVID-19. Early in the pandemic, researchers developed accurate diagnostic tests and identified health conditions that correlated with worse outcomes. However, a clinical predictor of who faces the highest risk of being hospitalized, put on a ventilator, or dying from the disease has remained largely out of reach. This week in mSphere, an open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, researchers describe a two-step prognostic test that can help predict a patient’s response to infection with SARS-CoV-2....

In a new study, Gary Moore and his research group explore different approaches to catalysis, a chemical process that plays an essential role in biological reactions, as well as many industrial applications. Catalysts are substances that speed up the rates of chemical reactions, without being consumed during the reaction process. Enzyme catalysts are so important in nature that life would be impossible without them, as conditions within living cells are not conducive to many vital chemical processes....

Numerous eruptions over the past 400,000 years have produced a large range of ash and rock deposits, pyroclastic flows, lava flows, and small vents within and surrounding Newberry’s large caldera. (The approximate extent, as determined from geologic evidence, is indicated by the dashed line.) The caldera is topped by twin crater lakes: Paulina and East Lake. Though it initially developed as one large lake, subsequent volcanism formed a ridge that separated it into two....

An SUV-size Earth satellite that will be equipped with the largest reflector antenna ever launched by NASA is taking shape in the clean room at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Called NISAR, the joint mission between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has big goals: By tracking subtle changes in Earth’s surface, it will spot warning signs of imminent volcanic eruptions, help to monitor groundwater supplies, track the melt rate of ice sheets tied to sea level rise, and observe shifts in the distribution of vegetation around the world....

Two recent studies were unable to rule out that H1N1 (“swine flu”) vaccination (“Pandemrix”) and seasonal influenza vaccination given to pregnant women might be associated with autism-spectrum disorder in the offspring. Now, a large study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, refutes any such association. Autism spectrum disorder is a severe neurodevelopmental childhood disorder characterized by impaired communication, lack of social skills and repetitive behavior....

Laser light therapy, which is non-invasive, could improve short-term, or working memory in people by up to 25 percent. This is according to new research demonstrated by scientists at the University of Birmingham in the UK and Beijing Normal University in China. Called transcranial photobiomodulation (tPBM), the treatment is applied to an area of the brain known as the right prefrontal cortex. This area is widely recognized as important for working memory....

TESS began hunting for exoplanets (or worlds orbiting distant stars) in the southern sky in July of 2018, while also collecting data on supernovae, black holes, and other phenomena in its line of sight. Along with the planets TESS has discovered, the mission has identified over 850 candidate exoplanets that are waiting for confirmation by ground-based telescopes. “The pace and productivity of TESS in its first year of operations has far exceeded our most optimistic hopes for the mission,” said George Ricker, TESS’s principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge....

Human travel to Mars has long been the unachievable dangling carrot for space programs. Now, astronauts could be a step closer to our nearest planetary neighbor through a unique manipulation of nuclear fusion, the same energy that powers the sun and stars. University of Washington researchers and scientists at a Redmond-based space-propulsion company are building components of a fusion-powered rocket aimed to clear many of the hurdles that block deep space travel, including long times in transit, exorbitant costs and health risks....

Our Milky Way galaxy is littered with the still-sizzling remains of exploded stars. When the most massive stars explode as supernovas, they don’t fade into the night, but sometimes glow ferociously with high-energy gamma rays. What powers these energetic stellar remains? NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, is helping to untangle the mystery. The observatory’s high-energy X-ray eyes were able to peer into a particular site of powerful gamma rays and confirm the source: A spinning, dead star called a pulsar....

Cygnus lifted off on an Antares 230 rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Orbital ATK’s ninth cargo mission under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services contract. The spacecraft is carrying about 7,400 pounds of research equipment, cargo and supplies that will support dozens of the more than 250 investigations underway on the space station. NASA astronauts Scott Tingle and Ricky Arnold will use the space station’s robotic arm to capture Cygnus when it arrives at the station Thursday, May 24....

As the most common form of arthritis, osteoarthritis (OA) affects more than 32 million adults in the U.S. and more than 500 million people worldwide. It occurs most frequently in the hands, hips, and knees. In people with osteoarthritis, the cartilage that cushions the joint gradually wears away. This is why it is sometimes called degenerative joint disease or “wear and tear” arthritis. Arthritis is often accompanied by inflammation, or swelling, of the joint, which can be painful....

Scientific studies done with the “PAPER” array, one of the world-class scientific instruments in South Africa’s Karoo Radio Astronomy Reserve, is producing ground-breaking science and spectacular cosmic images, resulting in several important articles in top astronomy journals. The primary goal of PAPER (Precision Array to Probe the Epoch of Reionization) is to detect emission from the neutral gas that pervaded the universe before the first galaxies and black holes were formed....

The scientists published their findings in the journal Nature. Something in the redhead genetic background is behaving in a carcinogenic fashion, independent of UV light, states David Fisher, a cancer biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and lead author. Shielding from UV light wouldn’t be enough to stop it. People with red hair produce a different form of melanin than people with darker skin. It’s called pheomelanin and it’s less effective at protecting the skin from UV damage than eumelanin....