The researchers at the Cosmic Dawn Center found that the measurements of velocity used for determining the expansion rate of the Universe may not be reliable. As stated in the publication, this doesn’t resolve the discrepancies, but rather hints at an additional inconsistency in the composition of the Universe. Measuring the expansion rate of the Universe Currently, astronomers measure the expansion of the Universe using two very different techniques. One is based on measuring the relationship between distance and velocity of nearby galaxies, while the other stems from studying the background radiation from the very early universe....

This data set (BIO-ML), which is available to other researchers who want to use it, should help to shed light on the dynamics of microbial populations in the human gut and may help scientists develop new treatments for a variety of diseases, says Eric Alm, director of MIT’s Center for Microbiome Informatics and Therapeutics and a professor of biological engineering and of civil and environmental engineering at MIT. “There’s a lot of excitement in the microbiome field because there are associations between these bacteria and health and disease....

MIT physicists have revealed a new and exotic property in “magic-angle” graphene: superconductivity that can be turned on and off with an electric pulse, much like a light switch. To accomplish this, they used some meticulous twisting and stacking of layers of graphene and boron nitride. The discovery could lead to ultrafast, energy-efficient superconducting transistors for neuromorphic devices — electronics designed to operate in a way similar to the rapid on/off firing of neurons in the human brain....

The lack of snow cover in December left Japan’s iconic mountain looking a little different than usual. Even as record snowfall has clobbered Japan’s western coast, much of the country’s eastern half has avoided major snow accumulation this winter. Notably, Mount Fuji’s iconic snow cap—which is normally visible throughout December—has been small or absent this year. The mountain peak, the tallest in Japan, did get a dusting on September 28, 2020, its first snowfall of the year....

The results of the study, published in the journal Preventive Medicine, were based on data from a long-term study in the United States. The findings revealed that high levels of muscle mass did not counteract the detrimental effects of excessive adiposity (fat tissue) on a person’s cardiometabolic health. The researchers based their study on data from NHANES, a cross-sectional representative sample of the US population collected between 1999 and 2006....

Scientists in the Theoretical Nanophotonics Group at The University of New Mexico’s Department of Physics and Astronomy have made an exciting new advancement to this end, in a pioneering research effort titled “Analysis of the Limits of the Near-Field Produced by Nanoparticle Arrays,” published recently in the journal, ACS Nano, a top journal in the field of nanotechnology. The group, led by Assistant Professor Alejandro Manjavacas, studied how the optical response of periodic arrays of metallic nanostructures can be manipulated to produce strong electric fields in their vicinity....

As particles are injected into the space around Earth, shown in various colors here, spacecraft orbiting the planet observe their signatures. Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio To get a global picture, the scientists used data from four individual NASA missions — the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, Van Allen Probes mission, Geotail, and the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms mission — plus the LANL-GEO spacecraft. This research showcases how NASA heliophysics missions — heliophysics being the study of the nature of charged particles and energy in space, as well as how they are affected by the Sun — can work together....

NASA’s Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) team has not been able to make contact with FM06, one of the eight CYGNSS spacecraft, since November 26, 2022. The team is currently still working to acquire a signal and establish a connection. The other seven spacecraft continue to operate normally and have been collecting science measurements since the FM06 anomaly. Contact with NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) spacecraft was lost on November 25....

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has been investigating the Martian weather around it and the soil beneath it, as its controllers prepare for the car-size vehicle’s first drive on Mars. The rover’s weather station, provided by Spain, checks air temperature, ground temperature, air pressure, wind, and other variables every hour at the landing site in Gale Crater. On a typical Martian day, or “sol,” based on measurements so far in the two-week-old mission, air temperatures swing from 28 degrees to minus 103 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 2 to minus 75 Celsius)....

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has been traveling through a transition zone from a clay-rich region to one filled with a salty mineral called sulfate for the past year. While the science team targeted the clay-rich region and the sulfate-laden one for evidence each can offer about Mars’ watery past, the transition zone is proving to be scientifically enlightening as well. In fact, this transition may provide the record of a major shift in Mars’ climate billions of years ago that scientists are only now beginning to grasp....

After the violent vibrations of launch and the extreme temperature shift to minus 80 degrees C in space, scientists and engineers at the mission operations center at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, held their breath in anticipation. Because components of the spacecraft’s telescopic instrument are sensitive to movements as small as 5 millionths of a meter, even a tiny shift of something in the instrument could be very serious....

The Red Planet rotorcraft headed south in support of furthering research into the potential use of aerial scouts on Mars in the future. NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter completed its fifth flight on the Red Planet today with its first one-way journey from Wright Brothers Field to an airfield 423 feet (129 meters) to the south. After arrival above its new airfield, Ingenuity climbed to an altitude record of 33 feet (10 meters) and captured high-resolution color images of its new neighborhood before touching down....

Set to launch in 2014, NASA is planning the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission to study X-points or electron diffusion regions, places where the magnetic field of Earth connects to the magnetic field of the Sun, creating an uninterrupted path leading from our own planet to the sun’s atmosphere 93 million miles away. A NASA-sponsored researcher at the University of Iowa has developed a way for spacecraft to hunt down hidden magnetic portals in the vicinity of Earth....

NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft has successfully adjusted its orbital location to be in a better position to provide prompt confirmation of the August landing of the Curiosity rover. NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft carrying Curiosity can send limited information directly to Earth as it enters Mars’ atmosphere. Before the landing, Earth will set below the Martian horizon from the descending spacecraft’s perspective, ending that direct route of communication. Odyssey will help to speed up the indirect communication process....

Webb is unveiling a very rich universe where the first forming galaxies look remarkably different from the mature galaxies seen around us today. Two exceptionally bright galaxies that existed approximately 350 and 450 million years after the big bang were found by researchers. Astronomers are puzzled by the extreme brightness of these young galaxies. They are transforming gas into stars extremely rapidly and appear compacted in spherical or disk shapes that are much smaller than our Milky Way galaxy....

Two days before Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, the NASA/JAXA Global Precipitation Measurement Core Observatory satellite captured a 3D view of the 2017 storm. At the time Maria was a category 1 hurricane. The 3-D view reveals the processes inside the hurricane that would fuel the storm’s intensification to a category 5 storm within 24 hours. For the first time in 360 degrees, this data visualization takes you inside the hurricane....

This visualization shows carbon emissions from fires from Jan. 1, 2003, through December 31, 2018. The color bar reflects the quantity of carbon emitted. Credit: NASA Since 1880, the world has warmed by 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit (1.06 Celsius), with the five warmest years on record occurring in the last five years. Since the 1980s, the wildfire season has lengthened across a quarter of the world’s vegetated surface, and in some places like California, fire has become nearly a year-round risk....

NASA will accept applications for new flight directors Thursday, September 3, through Thursday, September 10. U.S. citizens can apply at: http://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/577699400 Those chosen as NASA flight directors will lead human spaceflight missions to the International Space Station, as American astronauts once again are launching on American rockets and spacecraft from American soil to the orbiting laboratory. For almost 20 years, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard the station, advancing scientific knowledge and demonstrating new technologies, making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth that will enable long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep space....

Over the next several days, teams will establish access to the area of the leak at Launch Pad 39B. In parallel, teams will also conduct a schedule assessment to provide additional data that will inform a decision on whether to perform work to replace a seal either at the pad, where it can be tested under cryogenic conditions, or inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). NASA will need to roll the rocket and spacecraft back to the VAB before the next launch attempt to reset the system’s batteries in order to meet the requirement by the Eastern Range for the certification on the flight termination system, which is currently set at 25 days....

Report by the George Washington University offers a snapshot of health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and recommendations to prepare for the future. A new report summarizes the findings from a national survey of frontline health care workers during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, finding that many reported unsafe working conditions and retaliation for voicing their concerns to employers. The survey, launched in May 2020 by staff and student researchers at the George Washington University, provides a snapshot of the experiences of frontline health care workers providing care for millions of Americans during the pandemic....