Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed, in a new study, a method of making gecko-inspired adhesive materials that is much more cost-effective than current methods. It could enable mass production and the spread of the versatile gripping strips to manufacturing and homes. Polymers with “gecko adhesion” surfaces could be used to make extremely versatile grippers to pick up very different objects even on the same assembly line....

New binding solution targets construction uses. Revolutionary ‘green’ types of bricks and construction materials could be made from recycled PVC, waste plant fibers or sand with the help of a remarkable new kind of rubber polymer discovered by Australian scientists. The rubber polymer, itself made from sulfur and canola oil, can be compressed and heated with fillers to create construction materials of the future, say researchers in the Young Chemist issue of Chemistry – A European Journal....

The development of an AI-assisted coding platform capable of creating coding programs in response to a high-level description of the problem the code needs to solve could significantly impact programmers’ productivity; it could even change the culture of programming by shifting human work to formulating problems for the AI to solve. To date, humans have been required to code solutions to novel programming problems. Although some recent neural network models have shown impressive code-generation abilities, they still perform poorly on more complex programming tasks that require critical thinking and problem-solving skills, such as the competitive programming challenges human programmers often take part in....

Saturn’s upcoming autumnal equinox of the northern hemisphere on May 6, 2025, means that spoke season has come again. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope will be on the job studying the spokes, thanks to time dedicated to Saturn in the mission’s ongoing Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program. Are the smudgy features related to Saturn’s magnetic field and its interaction with the solar wind, as prevailing theory suggests? Confirmation could come in this spoke season, as scientists combine archival data from NASA’s Cassini mission with new Hubble observations....

Amir Sheikhi, an assistant professor of chemical engineering and biomedical engineering at Penn State, aims to combat this issue with his innovative microneedle patch, which has the capability to immediately stop bleeding following an injury. He laid out his prototype in a new paper that will be published in the May issue of Bioactive Materials. The work will be featured on the journal’s cover. “Excessive bleeding is a serious challenge for human health,” Sheikhi said....

When a comet traveling along its highly elliptical orbit approaches the Sun, it becomes active: frozen gases evaporate, dragging tiny dust grains into space. Capturing and examining these grains provides the opportunity to trace the “building materials” of the comet itself. So far, only a few space missions have succeeded in this endeavor. These include ESA’s Rosetta mission. Unlike their predecessors, for their current study the Rosetta researchers were able to collect and analyze dust particles of various sizes over a period of approximately two years....

The strength of alpha brain waves reveals if you are about to make a biased decision, according to research recently published in JNeurosci. Everyone has bias, and neuroscientists can see what happens inside your brain as you succumb to it. The clue comes from alpha brain waves — a pattern of activity when the neurons in the front of your brain fire in rhythm together. Alpha brain waves pop up when people make decisions, but it remains unclear what their role is....

This map covers a portion of Pluto’s surface that measures 1,290 miles (2,070 kilometers) from top to bottom, and includes the vast nitrogen-ice plain informally named Sputnik Planum and surrounding terrain. As the key in the figure below indicates, the map is overlaid with colors that represent different geological terrains. Each terrain, or unit, is defined by its texture and morphology – smooth, pitted, craggy, hummocky or ridged, for example....

Magnetic reconnection is one of the most important processes in the space — filled with charged particles known as plasma — around Earth. This fundamental process dissipates magnetic energy and propels charged particles, both of which contribute to a dynamic space weather system that scientists want to better understand, and even someday predict, as we do terrestrial weather. Reconnection occurs when crossed magnetic field lines snap, explosively flinging away nearby particles at high speeds....

In the new work, scientists from the University of Surrey, Carnegie Mellon University, and ETH Zürich set out to hunt for evidence of dark matter at the centers of nearby dwarf galaxies. Dwarf galaxies are small, faint galaxies that are typically found orbiting larger galaxies like our own Milky Way. They may hold clues that could help us to better understand the nature of dark matter. Dark matter is thought to make up most of the mass of the universe....

The researchers believe that this discovery could lead to strategies for mothers, such as promoting breastfeeding or dietary and exercise interventions, to lower the likelihood of their babies developing allergies. Atopic conditions, including food allergies, asthma, and atopic dermatitis, affect approximately one-third of children due to inappropriate activation of the immune system to environmental exposures. “Infants who breastfeed beyond three months may have a lower risk for these conditions, but we don’t fully understand the biology behind this,” said Dr....

Mathematical modeling shows that release from lockdown in two steps is optimal for society as a whole, while suddenly releasing everyone is a high-risk strategy. As the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic wanes in Europe, many countries are relaxing their lockdown rules, but the advice for non-essential workers is to continue working from home if possible. The important question when lockdown should be lifted for non-essential workers in the UK and elsewhere is answered in a new study in Frontiers in Public Health....

The planets and moons of our solar system are continuously being bombarded by particles hurled away from the sun. On Earth this has hardly any effect, apart from the fascinating northern lights, because the dense atmosphere and the magnetic field of the Earth protect us from these solar wind particles. But on the Moon or on Mercury things are different: There, the uppermost layer of rock is gradually eroded by the impact of sun particles....

The provisional action plan[1], unveiled in January, will form the basis of a 10-year plan to protect nature. But in a letter published today in the journal Science[2], experts — including scientists from Cardiff University’s School of Biosciences and Sustainable Places Research Institute — warn the suggested targets are not broad enough. They say the plan neglects genetic diversity despite a wealth of scientific evidence to back up the crucial role it plays within species for ecosystem resilience, species survival, and adaptation, particularly in the face of threats imposed by global change....

For people with heart failure, restricting dietary sodium intake to levels below the standard recommended maximum of about 2.3 grams per day does not bring additional benefits and may increase the risk of death, according to findings from nine randomized controlled trials in a new meta-analysis presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session Together With the World Congress of Cardiology. Heart failure, in which the heart muscle becomes too weak or stiff to pump blood effectively, is a chronic condition affecting over 6 million adults in the U....

People with severe COVID-19 who had secondary bloodstream infections were sicker, had longer hospital stays and worse health outcomes, Rutgers study finds. People with severe COVID-19 and a secondary blood infection were significantly sicker upon hospital admission, had longer hospital stays, and poorer outcomes, according to a Rutgers study. The study, published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, is the first to assess the microbiology, risk factors, and outcomes in hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19 and secondary bloodstream infections....

A secret behind the workings of sunquakes – seismic activity on the Sun during solar flares – might be hidden beneath the solar surface. These earthquake-like events release acoustic energy in the form of waves that ripple along the Sun’s surface, like waves on a lake, in the minutes following a solar flare – an outburst of light, energy, and material seen in the Sun’s outer atmosphere. Scientists have long suspected that sunquakes are driven by magnetic forces or heating of the outer atmosphere, where the flare occurs....

While using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to study the masers around oddball star MWC 349A scientists discovered something unexpected: a previously unseen jet of material launching from the star’s gas disk at impossibly high speeds. What’s more, they believe the jet is caused by strong magnetic forces surrounding the star. The discovery could help researchers to understand the nature and evolution of massive stars and how hydrogen masers are formed in space....

Landmark study presented at American Heart Association Scientific Sessions suggests the unknown products used to create vapors cause heart dysfunction. A new study from researchers at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai shows that electronic nicotine delivery systems, including devices such as e-cigarettes, maybe just as harmful to the heart, if not more, than traditional cigarettes. The findings were presented today at the annual American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2019. “What makes e-cigarettes so harmful to the heart and lungs is not just nicotine,” said senior author Florian Rader, MD, MSc, medical director of the Human Physiology Laboratory and assistant director of the Non-Invasive Laboratory at the Smidt Heart Institute....

Today’s 10,000 species of birds live in virtually every habitat on Earth, but only a handful have adaptations enabling them to hunt active prey in the dark of night. Scientists have long wondered whether theropod dinosaurs – the group that gave rise to modern birds – had similar sensory adaptations. A new study led by University of the Witwatersrand scientist, Professor Jonah Choiniere, sought to investigate how vision and hearing abilities of dinosaurs and birds compared....