These “large igneous provinces” in Earth’s history, which caused several mass extinctions on our own planet millions of years ago, are also discussed in the paper. “By understanding the record of large igneous provinces on Earth and Venus, we can determine if these events may have caused Venus’ present condition,” said Dr. Michael J. Way, of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. Way is lead author on the Planetary Science Journal paper....

New research has found a fundamental flaw in the way devices ‘talk’ to apps that leaves Bluetooth-enabled devices vulnerable to hacking. Mobile apps that work with Bluetooth devices have an inherent design flaw that makes them vulnerable to hacking, new research has found. The problem lies in the way Bluetooth Low Energy devices – a type of Bluetooth used by most modern gadgets – communicate with the mobile apps that control them, said Zhiqiang Lin, associate professor of computer science and engineering at The Ohio State University....

Researchers at the Universidade de Lisboa and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign report their findings from new fluid radiative dynamics models using data transmitted from Galileo’s 30-second entry. The paper, published in Physics of Fluids, from AIP Publishing, employs new computational techniques developed in the nearly 25 years since the mission. “Early simulations for the probe design were conducted in the 1980s,” said Mario Lino da Silva, an author on the paper....

It marks a breakthrough in the field of ancient biomolecular studies by allowing scientists to accurately reconstruct evolution in mammals from further back in time than ever before – offering the potential to solve some of the biggest mysteries of animal and human development. Scientists identified an almost complete set of proteins in the dental enamel of the rhino, the largest genetic data-set older than one million years to ever be recorded....

Bottle emptying is a phenomenon most of us have observed while pouring a beverage. Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee discovered how to make bottles empty faster, which has wide-ranging implications for many areas beyond the beverage industry. Bubbles have been studied extensively for centuries, including early efforts by Leonardo da Vinci who famously noted the sinusoidal rise of bubbles within a pool. The growth dynamics of bubbles at the mouth of a bottle depend on the thermophysical properties of the fluid, the bottle geometry, and its angle of inclination....

Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have found that gold nanoparticles supported on a zirconium oxide surface help turn waste materials like biomass and polyester into organosilane compounds, valuable chemicals used in a wide range of applications. The new protocol leverages the cooperation between gold nanoparticles and the amphoteric (both acid and base) nature of the zirconium oxide support. The result is a reaction that requires less demanding conditions and a greener method for upcycling waste....

Graphene’s excellent tuneable electronic properties make it an ideal material for spintronics applications. Leading the way in three recent papers, Flagship researchers have shown that GRMs can be combined to produce an unprecedented spin lifetime anisotropy, essential for furthering spintronics – electronic circuits and devices based on the manipulation of electron spins. The papers were published almost simultaneously in Physical Review Letters, Nano Letters and Nature Physics. “These results represent a first step to achieving direct electric-field tuning of the propagation of spins in graphene,” said ICREA Prof....

The global threat of ongoing climate change has one principal cause: carbon that was buried underground in the form of fossil fuels is being removed and released into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2). One promising approach to addressing this problem is carbon capture and storage: using technology to take CO2 out of the atmosphere to return it underground. In a new study published in Greenhouse Gases Science and Technology, researchers from Kyushu University and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan, investigated geological storage of low-purity CO2 mixed with nitrogen (N2) and oxygen (O2), produced by direct air capture (DAC) using membrane-based technology....

What do frog eggs have in common with anti-aging creams? Their success depends on a group of chemical compounds called retinoids, which are capable of generating and re-generating tissues. A new study in plants shows that retinoids’ tissue-generating capacities are also responsible for the appropriate development of roots. If you’ve ever planted a radish seed, you know that the first thing it does is develop a long vertical root. Give it a bit more time, and it will get smaller roots that run perpendicular to the plant’s stem....

A new study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine reveals that former professional football players, particularly linemen, have a higher likelihood of developing age-related diseases at a younger age in comparison to non-players with similar demographic characteristics. These diseases include hypertension, diabetes, among others. The research also showed that the health span of these athletes was reduced by almost a decade when compared to the general population. Notably, the effects persisted even after the researchers accounted for body mass index and race, two powerful risk factors for the diseases studied....

Lower levels of HDL cholesterol were associated with increased risks for heart attacks in white but not black adults, and higher levels were not protective for either group. A study found that high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, often called the “good cholesterol,” may not be as effective as scientists once believed in uniformly predicting cardiovascular disease risk among adults of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)....

Engineers at Stanford have demonstrated a high-resolution endoscope that is as thin as a human hair with a resolution four times better than previous devices of similar design. The so-called micro-endoscope is a significant step forward in high-resolution, minimally invasive bio-imaging, with potential applications in research and clinical practice. Micro-endoscopy could enable new methods in diverse fields ranging from study of the brain to early cancer detection. The new endoscope was developed by a team under the direction of Joseph Kahn, professor of electrical engineering at the Stanford School of Engineering....

Co-occurring health disorders appear to contribute to increased risk, NIH study suggests. An analysis of electronic health records of nearly 580,000 fully vaccinated people in the United States found that the risk of SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infection among vaccinated patients with substance use disorders was low overall, but higher than the risk among vaccinated people without substance use disorders. The study was published today in World Psychiatry and led by researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio....

The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter recorded a scene on January 29, 2012, that includes the first color image from orbit showing the three-petal lander of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit mission. Spirit drove off that lander platform in January 2004 and spent most of its six-year working life in a range of hills about two miles to the east. Another recent image from HiRISE, taken on Jan....

Public health crises of the past decade — such as the 2003 SARS outbreak, which spread to 37 countries and caused about 1,000 deaths, and the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic that killed about 300,000 people worldwide — have heightened awareness that new viruses or bacteria could spread quickly across the globe, aided by air travel. While epidemiologists and scientists who study complex network systems — such as contagion patterns and information spread in social networks — are working to create mathematical models that describe the worldwide spread of disease, to date these models have focused on the final stages of epidemics, examining the locations that ultimately develop the highest infection rates....

Deep in the ocean, where sunlight barely reaches, Smithsonian scientists and a team of collaborators have discovered one of the blackest materials known: the skin of certain fish. These ultra-black fish absorb light so efficiently that even in bright light they appear to be silhouettes with no discernible features. In the darkness of the ocean, even surrounded by bioluminescent light, they literally disappear. In the July 16 issue of the journal Current Biology, a team of scientists led by Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History research zoologist Karen Osborn and Duke University biologist Sönke Johnsen report on how a unique arrangement of pigment-packed granules enables some fish to absorb nearly all of the light that hits their skin, so that as little as 0....

Its opulence means that the mammoth star is living life in the fast lane. Pouring out so much energy takes a toll on the stellar behemoth. It is prone to convulsive fits, expanding in size like a hot air balloon and shedding its outer layers of material into space. One or more giant eruptions 10,000 years ago created the beautiful, expanding shell of dust and gas seen here. Stars like this one are rare: less than 50 reside in our local group of neighboring galaxies....

This newly released Hubble image of the weeks shows galaxy cluster WHL J24.3324-8.477 surrounded by many other galaxies. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is chock-full of galaxies — each glowing speck is a different galaxy, bar the bright flash in the middle of the image which is actually a star lying within our own galaxy that just happened to be in the way. At the center of the image lies something especially interesting, the center of the massive galaxy cluster called WHL J24....

They say the flap of a butterfly’s wings can set off a tornado on the other side of the world. But what happens when a butterfly flaps its wings in the depths of space? This cosmic butterfly is a nebula known as AFGL 4104, or Roberts 22. Caused by a star that is nearing the end of its life and has shrugged off its outer layers, the nebula emerges as a cosmic chrysalis to produce this striking sight....

This new Hubble image shows IRAS 14568-6304, a young star that is cloaked in a haze of golden gas and dust. It appears to be embedded within an intriguing swoosh of dark sky, which curves through the image and obscures the sky behind. This dark region is known as the Circinus molecular cloud. This cloud has a mass around 250,000 times that of the Sun, and it is filled with gas, dust and young stars....