But very rarely, a piece large enough to survive the intense heat of entry manages to fall all the way down to the Earth’s surface, where its galactic journey ends with a bump. Most extraterrestrial rocks that hit the Earth’s surface – meteorites – are so small that they don’t make a dent in the ground. Larger rocks, however, leave their mark in the form of bowl-shaped impact craters. One famous example is the 50,000-year-old Barringer Crater in Arizona, which is 1....

Just like an enormous dynamo, the sun’s magnetic field is generated by electric currents. In order to better understand this self-reinforcing mechanism, researchers must elucidate the processes and flows in the solar plasma. Differing rotation speeds in different regions and complex flows in the sun’s interior combine to generate the magnetic field. In the process, unusual magnetic effects can occur – like this newly discovered magnetic instability. Researchers have coined the term “Super HMRI” for this recently observed special case of magnetorotational instability (MRI)....

A new process introduced by the Rice University lab of chemist James Tour can turn bulk quantities of just about any carbon source into valuable graphene flakes. The process is quick and cheap; Tour said the “flash graphene” technique can convert a ton of coal, waste food or plastic into graphene for a fraction of the cost used by other bulk graphene-producing methods. “This is a big deal,” Tour said....

In a recent study published in Frontiers in Medicine, researchers examined three pre-Columbian South American mummies that have been preserved in European museums since the late 19th century using 3D computed tomography (3D CT). “Here we show lethal trauma in two out of three South American mummies that we investigated with 3D CT. The types of trauma we found would not have been detectable if these human remains had been mere skeletons,” said Dr....

As of midnight Fiji standard time on December 17, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center reported sustained winds of 140 knots (260 kilometers/160 miles per hour). The center of the category 5 storm was about 400 kilometers (240 miles) northwest of Suva, Fiji. The storm’s eye appeared to be headed between the islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. Forecasters noted that wave heights around the eye of the storm could approach 14 meters (45 feet)....

It’s true that COVID-19 is primarily a respiratory disease. However, neurological symptoms have been described in many COVID-19 patients, including in recovered individuals. In fact, a range of symptoms has been reported by patients including brain fog or lack of focused thinking, memory loss, and depression. Additionally, scientists have demonstrated that patients with severe COVID-19 exhibit a drop in cognitive performance that mimics accelerated aging. But, what has been lacking is molecular evidence for COVID-19’s aging effects on the brain....

Fewer headaches reported when school starts later, UCSF-led study shows. Research indicates that starting school later in the morning yields health and academic benefits for high schoolers, whose natural body clock tends toward late-to-bed, late-to-rise habits. While parents raise concerns about drowsy driving, irritation and impaired school performance, a new study led by researchers at UC San Francisco suggests another reason to push back the start time. The researchers found that teens with migraines whose high schools started before 8:30 a....

Astronomers have used computer simulations of galaxy formation to help understand the interplay of these processes and address questions that cannot yet be answered through observations, like how the first galaxies in the universe formed. Simulations of galaxy formation require the self-consistent modeling of all these various mechanisms at once, but a key difficulty is that each of them operates at a different spatial scale making it nearly impossible to properly simulate them all at the same time....

Scientists from NUST MISIS (Russia) and the University of Rome Tor Vergata found out that a microscopic quantity of two-dimensional titanium carbide called MXene significantly improves the collection of electrical charges in a perovskite solar cell, increasing the final efficiency above 20%. The results of the research were published in Nature Materials on September 9, 2019. Perovskite thin film solar cell is a new promising technology of alternative energy sources that is being actively developed worldwide....

In the event that a giant asteroid is headed toward Earth, you’d better hope that it’s blindingly white. A pale asteroid would reflect sunlight — and over time, this bouncing of photons off its surface could create enough of a force to push the asteroid off its course. How might one encourage such a deflection? The answer, according to an MIT graduate student: with a volley or two of space-launched paintballs....

NASA coverage of Crew-5’s return will continue with audio only, and full coverage will resume at the start of the splashdown broadcast. Real-time audio between Crew-5 and flight controllers at NASA’s Mission Audio stream will remain available and includes conversations with astronauts aboard the space station and a live video feed from the orbiting laboratory. NASA TV coverage will resume at 8 p.m. Saturday until Endurance splashes down at approximately 9:02 p....

A study conducted by the Women’s Health Research Program at Monash University has reported, for the first time, an overall picture of the sexual wellbeing of Australian women between the ages of 18 and 39. The findings will be published tomorrow (February 24, 2020) in the international journal, Fertility and Sterility. Results showed 50.2 percent of young Australian women experienced some form of sexually-related personal distress. This relates to the degree of feeling guilty, embarrassed, stressed or unhappy about their sex lives....

New research linking major depression to a reduced number of cells in the brain that support neuron function, brings hope for targeted treatment options. A new study further highlighting a potential physiological cause of clinical depression could guide future treatment options for this serious mental health disorder. Published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, researchers show differences between the cellular composition of the brain in depressed adults who died by suicide and non-psychiatric individuals who died suddenly by other means....

Smokers trying to quit often light up a cigarette to deal with stress. Now an interdisciplinary team of Yale researchers has shown that guanfacine, a medication approved for treating hypertension that reduces stress and enhances cognition, shows promise as a smoking cessation aid. The study was published online on December 17 in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. “The fact that this drug can target different stress-related effects made us believe this would be a good medication to study for smoking cessation, given the strong relationship between stress and smoking,” said the study’s lead investigator, Sherry A....

Like the wind adjusting course in the middle of a storm, scientists have discovered that the particles streaming into the solar system from interstellar space have most likely changed direction over the last 40 years. Such information can help us map out our place within the galaxy surrounding us, and help us understand our place in space. The results, based on data spanning four decades from 11 different spacecraft, were published in Science on September 5, 2013....

JunoCam captured this image from very close to Jupiter, making Ganymede’s shadow appear especially large. The Juno spacecraft was about 44,000 miles (71,000 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops and 15 times closer to the planet than Ganymede at the time the raw image was taken. An observer at Jupiter’s cloud tops within the oval shadow would experience a total eclipse of the Sun. Total eclipses are more common on Jupiter than on Earth for a number of reasons: Jupiter has four major moons (Ganymede, Io, Callisto, and Europa) that often pass between Jupiter and the Sun, and since Jupiter’s moons orbit in a plane close to Jupiter’s orbital plane, the moon shadows are often cast upon the planet....

At this site, temperature increases steeply with depth to reach 120 °C, a temperature suggested close to the limit for life, at 1200 meters beneath the seafloor. To their surprise, the scientists found a very small, but very active microbial community thriving under these deep and hot conditions. The scientists determined the number of cells in the sediment and measured their metabolic rates by highly sensitive radiotracer measurements of methane production and sulfate reduction....

It was previously believed that silent synapses only existed during early development, playing a role in helping the brain learn new information encountered in early life. However, the new MIT study discovered that in adult mice, approximately 30% of all synapses in the brain’s cortex are silent. The existence of these silent synapses may help to explain how the adult brain is able to continually form new memories and learn new things without having to modify existing conventional synapses, the researchers say....

There’s new hope in the fight against Huntington’s disease. A group of researchers that includes scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have designed a compound that suppresses symptoms of the devastating disease in mice. The compound is a synthetic antioxidant that targets mitochondria, an organelle within cells that serves as a cell’s power plant. Oxidative damage to mitochondria is implicated in many neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s....

If anything, young vapers are less likely to go on to smoke regular cigarettes than their peers who try out other tobacco products first, the findings indicate. The potential ‘gateway’ impact of e-cigarettes on teen smoking uptake has been hotly contested. And several studies have linked teen vaping to a heightened risk of smoking. But, importantly, most of these studies have looked only at initial uptake, and not continued use, say the researchers....