The BMJ (a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal, published by the British Medical Association) has locked horns with Facebook and the gatekeepers of international fact-checking after one of its investigations was wrongly labeled with “missing context” and censored on the world’s largest social network. Published on November 2, 2021, the investigation reported poor clinical trial research practices at Ventavia, a contract research company helping carry out the main Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine trial....

“Almost every property of the iconic C60 molecule – also called a molecular soccer ball, Buckminsterfullerene or buckyball – that can be measured, has been measured,” says Jos Oomens, professor of Molecular Structure and Dynamics. Even so, he and his colleagues have managed to measure something new: the absorption spectrum of the molecule in its protonated form, C60H+. “In doing so, we show that it is probably abundant in interstellar clouds, while we also demonstrate a textbook example of the role of symmetry in molecular physics,” explains Oomens....

In a paper published in Cell Reports, a team of researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University discovered unique characteristics of a protein called VISTA that protects cancer cells against immune system strikes. A better understanding of how this protein works could guide the design of treatments that target these proteins, infiltrating cancer’s first line of defense. Picking the weeds The human body is made up of trillions of cells that are constantly created, destroyed, and replaced with new ones, like blades of grass on a lawn....

Researchers at the University of Michigan and Indiana University have discovered a cancer weakness. They found that the way that tumor cells enable their uncontrolled growth is also a weakness that can be harnessed to treat cancer. Their machine-learning algorithm can identify backup genes that only tumor cells use, allowing drugs to precisely target cancer. The researchers used mice to demonstrate their innovative precision medicine approach to treating ovarian cancer....

Some Illinois researchers working on artificial muscles are seeing results even the fittest individuals would envy, designing muscles capable of lifting up to 12,600 times their own weight. MechSE assistant professor Sameh Tawfick, Beckman postdoctoral fellow Caterina Lamuta, and Simon Messelot recently published a study on how to design super strong artificial muscles in the journal Smart Material and Structures. The new muscles are made from carbon fiber-reinforced siloxane rubber and have a coiled geometry....

Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are among the most dramatic and interesting phenomena in extragalactic astronomy. All of the standard AGN models predict the presence of a torus and accretion disk but the details of the region have been difficult to study directly because the torus is thought to be relatively small, only hundreds of light-years in size. The ALMA millimeter array, however, has recently enabled detection of nearby AGN structures in both continuum and molecular line emissions....

A systematic review by King’s College London has found some evidence that chewing sugar-free gum could help to reduce the further development of dental caries (cavities) in adults and children. Published today (November 19, 2019) in the Journal of Dental Research: Clinical & Translational Research, the review found some evidence that chewing sugar-free gum can reduce the advancement of dental cavities, and could be used as a viable preventative agent, in comparison to non-chewing control methods such as oral health education and supervising toothbrushing programs alone....

All five exoplanets are likely scorchingly hot: Each planet comes incredibly close to its star, streaking around in just 13 days at most — a whirlwind of an orbit compared with Earth’s 365-day year. The planets also appear to orbit their star in concentric circles, forming a tightly packed planetary system, unlike our own elliptical, far-flung solar system. In fact, the size of each planet’s orbit appears to be a ratio of the other orbits — a configuration astronomers call “resonance” — suggesting that all five planets originally formed together in a smooth, rotating disc, and over eons migrated closer in toward their star....

Rainbows form when water droplets refract sunlight. Sunlight and rainfall are therefore essential ingredients for rainbows. Human activities such as the use of fossil fuels warm the atmosphere, altering the patterns and amounts of rainfall and cloud cover. “Living in Hawai‘i, I felt grateful that stunning, ephemeral rainbows were a part of my daily life,” said the lead author of the study, Kimberly Carlson, who is now at New York University’s Department of Environmental Studies....

For nearly three decades, Hubble has studied the Universe using its 2.4-meter (7.9-foot) primary mirror and its five science instruments. They observe primarily in the ultraviolet and visible parts of the spectrum, but also have some infrared capabilities. The electromagnetic waves in each of these bands have different characteristics such as how they are produced, and how they interact with matter and astronomical objects. Hubble observes in different wavelength bands, one band at a time, each providing different information on the object under study....

“Our research indicates that autophagy may be dampened in pregnant women who go on to develop PPD, so their cells are collecting an increasing amount of junk or unhealthy byproducts from metabolic processes in the body,” said the paper’s first author Dr. Lauren M. Osborne, vice chair for clinical research for the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Weill Cornell Medicine. Dr. Osborne conducted the research while on the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s faculty....

A new study presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) and published in The Lancet Microbe, shows that antibodies generated by CoronaVac, an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine, work less well against the P.1 Brazil (Gamma) variant. It also suggests that the P.1 variant may be able to reinfect individuals who previously had COVID-19. The SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein is the primary target of neutralizing antibodies — antibodies that block the entry of the virus into cells — including those induced by vaccines....

Beacons of the universe Quasars are among the brightest objects in the universe, despite being billions of light-years away from the Earth. They are sometimes called beacons, and what they help us navigate is not only the remote cosmic past and intricate structure of the universe, but our own planet, too. Because they are so remote, quasars can be used as stable reference points in the sky for measuring the Earth’s rotation and the coordinates of objects on the planet’s surface....

Einstein’s general relativity (GR) is a beautiful theory that explains how mass and energy interact with space-time, creating a phenomenon commonly known as gravity. GR has been tested and retested in various physical situations and over many different scales, and, postulating that the speed of light is constant, it always turned out to outstandingly predict the experimental results. Nevertheless, physicists suspect that GR is not the most fundamental theory, and that there might exist an underlying quantum mechanical description of gravity, referred to as quantum gravity (QG)....

When COVID-19 emerged and doctors raced to define and treat the new disease, they soon discovered it was not the only novel illness caused by SARS-CoV-2. A subset of children infected by the virus also experienced abdominal pain, headaches, rashes, and vomiting. This new set of symptoms was labeled multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) and had many of its pediatric patients requiring intensive care. As the prevalence of MIS-C increased, physicians began to note its similarities to a pre-pandemic illness, Kawasaki disease (KD), which has baffled pediatricians for more than 50 years....

When someone struggles to open a lock with a key that doesn’t quite seem to work, sometimes jiggling the key a bit will help. Now, new research from MIT suggests that coronaviruses, including the one that causes COVID-19, may use a similar method to trick cells into letting the viruses inside. The findings could be useful for determining how dangerous different strains or mutations of coronaviruses may be, and might point to a new approach for developing treatments....

COVID-19 Research: Anti-viral Strategy With Double Effect In the case of an infection, the SARS-CoV-2 virus must overcome various defense mechanisms of the human body, including its non-specific or innate immune defense. During this process, infected body cells release messenger substances known as type 1 interferons. These attract natural killer cells, which kill the infected cells. One of the reasons the SARS-CoV-2 virus is so successful — and thus dangerous — is that it can suppress the non-specific immune response....

The research, to be published Friday February 5, 2021, in the journal Science Advances, found “staggering” income losses after the pandemic emerged last year, with a median 70% of households across nine countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America reporting financial losses. By April last year, roughly 50% or more of those surveyed in several countries were forced to eat smaller meals or skip meals altogether, a number that reached 87% for rural households in the West African country of Sierra Leone....

In one of the latest COVID-19 response projects at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the Advanced Digital Design and Fabrication (ADDFab) laboratory is collaborating with a global network of design, engineering and manufacturing experts to help develop an open-source N95 face mask. ADDFab, one of the core facilities at UMass’s Institute for Applied Life Sciences, has been rapidly preparing 3D prints of prototype parts and molds for Cofab Design in Holyoke....

“These real-world data show that vaccines remain highly effective at reducing COVID-19 related hospitalizations and emergency department visits, even in the presence of the new COVID-19 variant,” said study author Shaun Grannis, M.D., M.S., Regenstrief Institute vice president for data and analytics and professor of medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine. “We strongly recommend vaccinations for all who are eligible to reduce serious illness and ease the burden on our healthcare system....