San Francisco Bay, almost 100 km in length, is a shallow estuary surrounded by the San Francisco Bay Area – an extensive metropolitan region that is dominated by large cities such as San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. The densely populated urban areas around the bay contrast strongly with the surrounding green forest and park areas. In the upper right of the image, the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers is visible – with the brown, sediment-filled water flowing down into San Pablo Bay....

On the night of December 10, 2021, a potent storm front brought tornadoes, intense thunderstorms, and bursts of straight-line wind to the Midwestern United States. Though tornadoes can occur in any time of year—with roughly a dozen every December—the event was rare for how long it lasted and how far north it occurred in meteorological winter. With unseasonably warm and humid weather in place in the mid-section of the U....

The Dark Matter of the genome They searched for novel targets in the poorly understood class of genes known as “long noncoding RNAs (Ribonucleic acids)” (lncRNAs). LncRNAs are abundant in the “Dark Matter,” or non-protein-coding DNA, which makes up the overwhelming bulk of the human genome. The human genome comprises around 20’000 “classical” protein-coding genes, but they are dwarfed by 100’000 lncRNAs. The biological functions of 99% of lncRNAs remain unknown....

The model resembles some key elements of an embryo at around 18-21 days old and allows the researchers to observe the processes underlying the formation of the human body plan never directly observed before. Understanding these processes holds potential to reveal the causes of human birth defects and diseases, and to develop tests for these in pregnant women. The body plan, or blueprint of an organism, arises through a process called ‘gastrulation’....

A team of scientists, led by Shuai Li of the University of Hawaii and Brown University and including Richard Elphic from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, used data from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument to identify three specific signatures that definitively prove there is water ice at the surface of the Moon. M3, aboard the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, launched in 2008 by the Indian Space Research Organization, was uniquely equipped to confirm the presence of solid ice on the Moon....

2D materials have been popular among materials scientists owing to their lucrative electronic properties, allowing their applications in photovoltaics, semiconductors, and water purification. In particular, the relative physical and chemical stability of 2D materials allow them to be “stacked” and “integrated” with each other. In theory, this stability of 2D materials enables the fabrication of 2D material-based structures like coupled “quantum wells” (CQWs), a system of interacting potential “wells,” or regions holding very little energy, which allow only specific energies for the particles trapped within them....

A team of astronomers including Harvard’s Robert Kirshner and Peter Challis has detected a flash of light from the companion to an exploding star. This is the first time astronomers have witnessed the impact of an exploding star on its neighbor. It provides the best evidence on the type of binary star system that leads to Type Ia supernovae. This study reveals the circumstances for the violent death of some white dwarf stars and provides deeper understanding for their use as tools to trace the history of the expansion of the universe....

The discovery, published today in Science, was led by Imperial College London, supported by the BBSRC, and involved groups from the ANU in Canberra, the CNRS in Paris and Saclay, and the CNR in Milan. The vast majority of life on Earth uses visible red light in the process of photosynthesis, but the new type uses near-infrared light instead. It was detected in a wide range of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) when they grow in near-infrared light, found in shaded conditions like bacterial mats in Yellowstone and in beach rock in Australia....

These worms correspond to the new genus and species Anguiscolex africanus, and the new species Wronascolex superstes. Palaeoscolecid worms are not rare in the Paleozoic; the problem is that 99.99% of the fossil record comprises their sclerites (hard plates embedded in the cuticle) in isolation, which typically build up in certain limestone rocks. In other words, this type of worm lived in all the seas of the globe, but there is no evidence of their fossils other than at a tiny fraction of sites....

Within the Mathematics, Mechanics, and Materials Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Vikash Chaurasia, and Professor Eliot Fried have been using energy minimization techniques to look at charged proteins on biological particles. Previously they researched cholesterol molecules but when the pandemic hit, they realized that with the methods they had developed could be applied to the new virus. They collaborated with researchers Mona Kanso and Professor Jeffrey Giacomin, from Queen’s University in Canada, to take a close look at SARS-CoV-2 and see how the shape of the virus’ ‘spikes’ (which are officially called peplomers) aid its success at spreading so prolifically....

A team of scientists at the University of Cambridge has discovered that specific genes are linked to individual differences in brain anatomy in autistic children. Previous studies have reported differences in the brain structure of autistic individuals. However, until now, scientists have not known which genes are linked to these differences. The Cambridge team analyzed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans from more than 150 autistic children and compared them with MRI scans from similarly aged children who did not have autism....

Chronic rhinosinusitis is distinct from your average case of seasonal allergies. It causes the sinuses to become inflamed and swollen for months to years at a time, leading to difficulty breathing and other symptoms that make patients feel miserable. In some people, this condition also produces tissue outgrowths known as nasal polyps, which, when severe enough, have to be removed surgically. By performing a genome-wide analysis of thousands of single cells from human patients, MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital researchers have created the first global cellular map of a human barrier tissue during inflammation....

From this solitary cell emerges the galaxy of others needed to build an organism, with each new cell developing in the right place at the right time to carry out a precise function in coordination with its neighbors. This feat is one of the most remarkable in the natural world, and despite decades of study, a complete understanding of the process has eluded biologists. Now, in three landmark studies published online today in Science, Harvard Medical School and Harvard University researchers report how they have systematically profiled every cell in developing zebrafish and frog embryos to establish a roadmap revealing how one cell builds an entire organism....

Salamanders have long served as valuable biological models for developmental, regeneration, and evolutionary studies. In particular, the Mexican axolotl Ambystoma mexicanum has received special attention due to its astounding ability to regenerate body parts. If the cannibalistically inclined animal loses a limb, it will regrow a perfect substitute within weeks, complete with bones, muscles, and nerves in the right places. Even more fascinating, the axolotl can repair severed spinal cord and retinal tissue....

The simulation, named SIBELIUS-DARK, is part of the “Simulations Beyond the Local Universe” (SIBELIUS) project, and is the largest and most comprehensive ‘constrained realization’ simulation to date. The team meticulously compared the virtual Universe to a series of observational surveys to find the correct locations and properties for the virtual analogies of the familiar structures. Our particular region of the Universe was determined to be rather unique, since the simulation anticipated a smaller number of galaxies on average owing to a local large-scale ‘underdensity’ of matter....

As part of the study, the researchers built a large seaweed farm model for growing the ulva sp. green macroalgae in the Alexander River estuary, hundreds of meters from the open sea. The Alexander River was chosen because the river discharges polluting nitrogen from nearby upstream fields and towns into the Mediterranean Sea. Data for the model were collected over two years from controlled cultivation studies. Researchers explain that nitrogen is a necessary fertilizer for agriculture, but it comes with an environmental price tag....

Whales, dolphins, and porpoises (known as cetaceans) evolved from small, land-based ancestors around 50 million years ago, but some species are now among the largest animals to have lived. However, gigantism can bring biological disadvantages, such as lower reproductive output and increased chances of diseases such as cancer, and it has not been clear what role different genes have played in driving gigantism in whales. Mariana Nery and colleagues performed molecular evolutionary analysis on nine candidate genes: five genes (GHSR, IGF2, IGFBP2, IGFBP7, and EGF) from the growth hormone / insulin-like growth factor axis, and four genes (NCAPG, LCORL, PLAG1, and ZFAT) that are associated with increased body size in hoofed animals such as cows and sheep, which are distantly related to whales....

Smart contact lenses are wearable devices that could accelerate vision beyond natural human capabilities. They are being developed for a wide range of applications from non-invasive monitoring to vision correction to augmented reality display. “Although there have been many recent advancements in new functions for smart contact lenses, there has been little progress in solving the drawbacks associated with wearing contact lenses day to day,” says Professor Matsuhiko Nishizawa, an engineer at Tohoku University....

After adapting an idea developed to prove the existence of quantum gravity to explore the human brain and its workings, researchers from Trinity College Dublin think that human brains could use quantum computation. The brain functions measured in the experiment were also correlated to short-term memory performance and conscious awareness. This suggests that quantum processes are also part of cognitive and conscious brain functions. If the team’s results can be corroborated, which would likely require advanced multidisciplinary approaches, they would improve our general understanding of how the brain works....

In the early stage of embryonic development, stem cells with defined tasks, including blood-forming stem cells, gradually emerge. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim have now discovered how blood stem cells in the embryo arise: interferon gamma, a molecule that is normally involved in inflammatory processes, also plays a key role in the development of this cell type during the early phase of embryonic development....