Coatings are everywhere, from the paint on your house to a protective layer on the screen of your smartphone. They protect surfaces from scratches, influences of the weather, or everyday wear. Most coatings are made up of polymers based on acrylate monomers, with the global production of acrylate exceeding 3.5 million tonnes a year, all produced from fossil oil. Biomass To make these coatings more sustainable, scientists from the University of Groningen, led by Professor of Organic Chemistry Ben Feringa, teamed up with scientists from coating producer AkzoNobel....

And Marc Hamilton, professor of Health and Human Performance at the University of Houston (UH), has discovered such an approach for optimal activation. He is pioneering the “soleus pushup” (SPU) which effectively elevates muscle metabolism for hours, even while sitting. One of 600 muscles in the human body, the soleus is a posterior lower leg muscle that runs from just below the knee to the heel. Published recently in the journal iScience, Hamilton’s research indicates that the soleus pushup’s ability to sustain an elevated oxidative metabolism to improve the regulation of blood glucose is more effective than any popular methods currently touted as a solution....

A new study indicates that the top fifth of the high school popularity pyramid garnered 10% more in wages nearly 40 years after graduation, compared to the bottom fifth. This study was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Popularity wasn’t viewed by the researchers as an innate personality trait. Instead, popularity is lucrative because the children who learn to play the game in high school are figuring out what they need to know to succeed in the workplace....

When talking about quantum inertial sensors, words like “tough” or “rugged” are unlikely to be spoken. These remarkable scientific instruments can measure motion a thousand times more accurately than the devices that help navigate today’s missiles, drones, and aircraft. However, its delicate, table-sized array of components that includes a complex laser and vacuum system has essentially kept the technology grounded and confined to the controlled settings of a laboratory. Jongmin Lee wants to change that....

In a theoretical study, physicists propose that perturbations in the orbit of stars near supermassive black holes could be used to detect wormholes. A new study outlines a method for detecting a speculative phenomenon that has long captured the imagination of sci-fi fans: wormholes, which form a passage between two separate regions of spacetime. Such pathways could connect one area of our universe to a different time and/or place within our universe, or to a different universe altogether....

In a study published on September 23, 2019, in the journal Science, a team of researchers discovered a new way to tie microscopic knots within a solution of liquid crystals. This type of material is found in a wide range of electronics from high-definition TVs to cellphone screens. And while the tiny knots won’t help you to secure a rowboat or pitch a tent, they are a feat of control, said Jung-Shen (Benny) Tai, lead author of the new research....

Cosmologists nowadays assume that matter was not distributed entirely evenly after the Big Bang. The denser places attracted more and more matter from their surroundings due to their stronger gravitational forces. Over the course of several billion years, these accumulations of gas eventually formed the galaxies we see today. An important ingredient of this theory is the so-called dark matter. On the one hand, it is said to be responsible for the initial uneven distribution that led to the agglomeration of the gas clouds....

WFC3 takes images at optical and infrared wavelengths, which means that it observes objects at a wavelength range similar to the range that human eyes are sensitive to (optical) and a range of wavelengths that are slightly too long to be detected by human eyes (infrared). Herbig–Haro objects actually release a lot of light at optical wavelengths, but they are difficult to observe because their surrounding dust and gas absorb much of the visible light....

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observes some of the most beautiful galaxies in our skies — spirals sparkling with bright stellar nurseries, violent duos ripping gas and stars away from one another as they tangle together, and ethereal irregular galaxies that hang like flocks of birds suspended in the blackness of space. However, galaxies, like humans, are not all supermodels. This little spiral, known as NGC 4102, has a different kind of appeal, with its tightly-wound spiral arms and understated, but charming, appearance....

NGC 4858 is special. Rather than being a simple spiral, it is something called a “galaxy aggregate,” which is, just as the name suggests, a central galaxy surrounded by a handful of luminous knots of material that seem to stem from it, extending and tearing away and adding to or altering its overall structure. It is also experiencing an extremely high rate of star formation, possibly triggered by an earlier interaction with another galaxy....

The underlying cause appears to be a “synchronization error” which means the instruments could not sync up to collect data properly. An earlier update from NASA said the root cause appeared to be a timing problem in the command flow. But the Hubble team has remained confident throughout this latest glitch that the instruments are all still in good health, and the recovery of the ACS is bolstering for their continued work on the issue....

The spokes are enigmatic features that appear across Saturn’s rings. Their presence and appearance varies with the seasons — like Earth, Saturn is tilted on its axis and therefore has four seasons. With Saturn’s much larger orbit, each season lasts approximately seven Earth years. Equinox occurs when the rings are tilted edge-on to the Sun and marks the height of spokes’ visibility, while during a solstice when the Sun is at its highest or lowest latitude, the spokes disappear....

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have obtained a remarkable new view of a whopper of an elliptical galaxy that may have been puffed up by the actions of one or more black holes in its core. Spanning a little more than one million light-years, the galaxy is about 10 times the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy. The bloated galaxy is a member of an unusual class of galaxies with a diffuse core filled with a fog of starlight where there would normally be a concentrated peak of light around a central black hole....

Supermassive which can have a mass equivalent to billions of suns, are found in the center of most galaxies (including the Milky Way). These black holes are able to “feed” on their surroundings, causing them to shine brilliantly as Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). However, this feeding process is not continuous as it depends on how much matter is available for the black hole to consume; if the surrounding material is clumpy and irregular, an AGN can be seen turning “off” and “on,” and flickering over long cosmic timescales....

“Our work highlights the remarkable ability of brain organoids to generate primitive sensory structures that are light sensitive and harbor cell types similar to those found in the body,” says senior study author Jay Gopalakrishnan of University Hospital Düsseldorf. “These organoids can help to study brain-eye interactions during embryo development, model congenital retinal disorders, and generate patient-specific retinal cell types for personalized drug testing and transplantation therapies.” Many aspects of human brain development and diseases can be studied using 3D brain organoids derived from pluripotent stem cells, which can give rise to all cell types in the body....

The scientists published their findings in the Journal of Cultural Heritage. The shapes and bright colors of orchids have always made the flower popular among fanciers and botanists, but it’s their symbolic value, which many cultures associate with a resemblance to both male and female sexual organs, that is also part of their allure. Even its name, Orchis, is derived from the Greek word for testicles. While the flower’s biology and ecology has gotten plenty of attention, its phytoiconography, or how the flower has been used symbolically in art, has been less studied....

Two decades of a sedentary lifestyle is associated with a two times risk of premature death compared to being physically active, according to results from the HUNT study presented today at ESC Congress 2019 together with the World Congress of Cardiology. The aim of this study was to assess how changes in physical activity over 22 years were related to subsequent death from all causes and from cardiovascular disease. Most studies investigating the relationship between physical activity and longevity have asked participants about their level of physical activity only once, and then followed them for several years....

Saturn’s moon Tethys appears to float between two sets of rings in this view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, but it’s just a trick of geometry. The rings, which are seen nearly edge-on, are the dark bands above Tethys, while their curving shadows paint the planet at the bottom of the image. Tethys (660 miles or 1,062 kilometers across) has a surface composed mostly of water ice, much like Saturn’s rings....

Immunity from COVID-19 appears to gather strength with more time between vaccination and infection, a new laboratory study from researchers at Oregon Health & Science University suggests. The findings carry implications for vaccine recommendations as the pandemic transitions to an endemic state. Researchers measured the antibody response in blood samples for a group of people who gained so-called “hybrid immunity” through two means: either vaccination followed by a breakthrough infection, or by getting vaccinated after contracting COVID-19....

A new review discusses the findings from over 40 studies on coronavirus immunity and what they could mean for the Covid-19 pandemic. Written by top UK virologists, the article discusses the existing knowledge about immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses, and how this could be used to inform virus control strategies. The review, which is free to read in the Journal of General Virology (JGV), collates the available scientific evidence in a number of key areas, including how long immunity to coronaviruses lasts and the prospect of antibody testing....