“The Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes are optimized for studying astronomical objects in-depth and up close, so they’re like looking at the universe through pinholes,” said Aaron Yung, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who led the study. “To solve cosmic mysteries on the biggest scales, we need a space telescope that can provide a far larger view. That’s exactly what Roman is designed to do....

We are, in many ways, our cerebral cortex. Its circuits serve to shape our perception of the world, store our memories and plan our behavior. A cerebral cortex, with its typical layered organization, is found only among mammals, including humans, and non-avian reptiles such as lizards and turtles. Mammals, reptiles and birds originate from a common ancestor that lived some 320 million years ago. Neuroscientists believe that this ancestor had a small cortex with three layers, because a similar structure is found today in the hippocampus of mammals and in all cortices of modern reptiles: these three-layered cortices likely correspond to their common ancestral cortex....

Above the ozone layer, the ionosphere is a part of Earth’s atmosphere where particles have been cooked into a sea of electrically-charged electrons and ions by the Sun’s radiation. The ionosphere is commingled with the very highest — and quite thin — layers of Earth’s neutral upper atmosphere, making this region an area that is constantly in flux undergoing the push-and-pull between Earth’s conditions and those in space. Increasingly, these layers of near-Earth space are part of the human domain, as it’s home not only to astronauts, but to radio signals used to guide airplanes and ships, and satellites that provide our communications and GPS systems....

Two University of Cincinnati students have developed an interactive dashboard that shows COVID-19 cases and deaths in Greater Cincinnati and other major U.S. cities. Known as the COVID-19 Watcher, it joins a list of options available to the public to track the novel coronavirus. Benjamin Wissel, a student in the UC College of Medicine’s Medical Scientist Training Program, and Pieter-Jan Van Camp, MD, a doctoral student in the Biomedical Informatics Graduate program, developed their app during the spring when there were no options for tracking city data....

Acetaminophen is a popular drug used to treat a wide range of conditions, including fever, infection, muscular discomfort, headache, migraine, colds, and allergies. It is also sold under the brand names Tylenol, Ofirmev, and Mapap. Medical experts have always believed that the drug is safe to use while pregnant. However, new research reinforces the notion that this medication may influence child development and may be linked to attention problems, according to Kristin Sznajder, assistant professor of public health sciences and the lead author of the study....

The scientists published their findings in the journal Science. The device contains yarns similar in diameter to human hair, spun from carbon nanotubes and soaked in paraffin wax. When a current is passed through the yarn, the wax heats up and expands. As the yarn swells, its particular helical weave causes it to shorten, and the muscle contracts. As it cools, the yarn relaxes and returns to its original length....

Much of the damage that ultraviolet radiation (UV) does to skin occurs hours after sun exposure, a team of Yale-led researchers concluded in a study that was published online February 19 by the journal Science. Exposure to UV light from the sun or from tanning beds can damage the DNA in melanocytes, the cells that make the melanin that gives skin its color. This damage is a major cause of skin cancer, the most common form of cancer in the United States....

Scientists one step closer to understanding the mystery of matter in the universe. Neutron’s ‘electric dipole moment’ smaller than ever predictedNew international standard for detail and sensitivity has been setScientists one step closer to understanding the mystery of matter in the Universe Scientists at the University of Sussex have measured a property of the neutron – a fundamental particle in the universe — more precisely than ever before. Their research is part of an investigation into why there is matter left over in the universe, that is, why all the antimatter created in the Big Bang didn’t just cancel out the matter....

The threatened O. kisutch reside in the Klamath River Basin in Oregon. The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed a complaint of scientific misconduct on January 7th to the Department of Interior on behalf of the scientists. Federal research on the Klamath Basin fish and wildlife has been caught in a debate on whether to tear down a series of hydroelectric dams on the river. Many environmentalists blame the dams for salmon die-offs and ecological decline, but not everyone agrees....

In Jessica Barnes’ palm is an ancient, coin-sized mosaic of glass, minerals, and rocks as thick as a strand of wool fiber. It is a slice of Martian meteorite, known as Northwest Africa 7034 or Black Beauty, that was formed when a huge impact cemented together various pieces of Martian crust. Barnes is an assistant professor of planetary sciences in the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. She and her team chemically analyzed the Black Beauty meteorite and the infamous Allan Hills 84001 meteorite — controversial in the 1990s for allegedly containing Martian microbes — to reconstruct Mars’ water history and planetary origins....

Vegetarians appear to have a healthier biomarker profile than meat-eaters, and this applies to adults of any age and weight, and is also unaffected by smoking and alcohol consumption, according to a new study in over 166,000 UK adults, presented at last month’s European Congress on Obesity (ECO). Biomarkers can have bad and good health effects, promoting or preventing cancer, cardiovascular and age-related diseases, and other chronic conditions, and have been widely used to assess the effect of diets on health....

Tesserae are tectonically deformed regions on the surface of Venus that are often more elevated than the surrounding landscape. They comprise about 7% of the planet’s surface, and are always the oldest feature in their immediate surroundings, dating to about 750 million years old. In a new study appearing in Geology, the researchers show that a significant portion of the tesserae have striations consistent with layering. “There are generally two explanations for tesserae – either they are made of volcanic rocks, or they are counterparts of Earth’s continental crust,” says Paul Byrne, associate professor of planetary science at North Carolina State University and lead author of the study....

Citizens and voters can now track their congressional districts alongside the coronavirus pandemic, thanks to a new tool from the University of Chicago’s Center for Spatial Data Science. Launched earlier this year, the COVID Atlas interactive visualization compiles county-level case numbers, generates daily hotspot statistics, and displays them on an easy-to-read map. Now, the online resource also includes a congressional district overlay—a new feature that allows users to see how the impacts of COVID-19 might differ according to local government responses....

Tidal disruption events In the center of every big galaxy, there is a supermassive black hole, millions to billions times heavier than the Sun. However, it is difficult to observe the majority of them, as they don’t emit any light or radiation. This only happens, when some form of material is pulled into the extremely strong gravitational field of the black hole. On rare occasions, actually as rare as once in every 10....

Mars is one of our closest terrestrial neighbors, yet it’s still very far away — between about 55 million and 400 million kilometers depending on where Earth and Mars are relative to the sun. At the time of writing, Mars is around 200 million kilometers away, and in any case, it is extremely difficult, expensive and dangerous to get to. For these reasons, it is sometimes more sensible to investigate the red planet through simulations here on Earth than it is to send an expensive space probe or, perhaps one day, people....

Scientists can make some pretty accurate forecasts about the future. But predicting what the Earth will be like 500 years from now is a difficult task because there are many factors at play. Imagine Christopher Columbus in 1492 trying to predict the Americas of today! We do know that two main types of processes change our planet: One involves natural cycles, like the way the planet rotates and moves around the Sun, and the other is caused by life forms, especially humans....

Geochemist Lex van Geen works at the intersection of public health and environmental risks. His research on natural arsenic contamination in groundwater has alerted the world community to this insidious danger over two decades. Van Geen, based at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, was continuing this work in Bangladesh in early 2020 in collaboration with economist Prabhat Barnwal of Michigan State University. The research was aimed at comparing the effectiveness of various ways of telling residents about the outcomes of well tests for arsenic, in order to reduce their exposure....

In a time of a global crisis such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it is easy to note how people move through different phases to buckle up for such unprecedented and arduous times. At the very beginning of the pandemic last year, we observed “an epidemic of fear,” where it was all about the calamitous nature of a totally unknown virus and its worrying contagiousness and mortality rate. A few months later, with lockdown and restrictions already in place across the world, the fear was replaced by “an epidemic of explanations,” where people even in their naivety, started to seek a sense of comfort by placing the blame on someone or something out of their control....

The scientists published their findings in the journal Social Psychological & Personality Science. The researchers were looking at the relationship between physical attractiveness and the tendency towards narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. The goal was to see whether these traits are associated with a greater ability to enhance one’s physical appearance. 111 college students, of which 64% were women, took part in the experiment. They were photographed when they first arrived and were then asked to put on some gray sweatpants and a t-shirt....

Within the next decade, the novel coronavirus responsible for COVID-19 could become little more than a nuisance, causing no more than common cold-like coughs and sniffles. That possible future is predicted by mathematical models that incorporate lessons learned from the current pandemic on how our body’s immunity changes over time. Scientists at the University of Utah carried out the research, now published in the journal Viruses. “This shows a possible future that has not yet been fully addressed,” says Fred Adler, PhD, professor of mathematics and biological sciences at the University of Utah....