The prototype, worked on and tested by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the Boies Group, in the Department of Engineering, and with colleagues from the Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy and Department of Pathology, is equipped with ultra-thin carbon nanotube electrically conductive membranes. This new conductive filtration membrane enables simultaneous virus filtration and sanitization by thermal flashes via resistive heating to temperatures above 100°C, deactivating viruses, including betacoronavirus, in seconds....

The magic and the routine The magic has had different forms: his first ride on a SpaceX Dragon capsule, more than 20 hours in outer space over three spacewalks, the ever-changing sight of Earth and the camaraderie with his crewmates – including the very first Olympic Games in space. Just over three months into his Alpha mission, Thomas has seen seven spacecraft come and go, the 20-year old Pirs module leaving for good and the arrival of Nauka with a very special passenger, the European Robotic Arm....

Data were collected before booster vaccine recommendation. The first study to evaluate the clinical characteristics and outcomes of fully vaccinated patients with cancer who had breakthrough COVID-19 infections indicates they remained at high risk for hospitalization and death. The study, published today (December 24, 2021) in Annals of Oncology showed that fully vaccinated patients who experienced breakthrough infections had a hospitalization rate of 65%, an ICU or mechanical ventilation rate of 19%, and a 13% death rate....

Visual representation of normal-mode analysis of striations in Musca: The first part of the movie gives an overview of the problem of viewing star-forming clouds in 2D projection. The second part of the video shows the striations in Musca, and the process through which the normal mode spatial frequencies are recovered. The third part of the movie demonstrates how the apparently complex profiles of the intensity cuts through striations are reproduced by progressively summing the theoretically predicted normal modes....

Life can move fast. It can be overwhelming, with stressors, distractions, and deadlines. There is one thing everyone can agree on: managing your sleep schedule is fundamental when it comes to physical and mental health alike. Check out seven tips to create a bedtime routine below. Creating a Bedtime Routine We’ve all been there. Tossing and turning, the crinkle of sheets deafeningly loud — sleep being the elusive creature it is....

A University of Washington team inspired by the clingfish’s suction power set out to develop an artificial suction cup that borrows from nature’s design. Their prototype, described in a paper published on September 9, 2019, in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, actually performed better than the clingfish. “I like to say, nature is always best,” said lead author Petra Ditsche, who started this work as a postdoctoral researcher at UW Friday Harbor Laboratories on San Juan Island....

After a group of tornadoes emerged from a squall line on June 20, 2021, and one touched down in the Chicago suburb of Naperville, the effects on the ground were obvious. The EF-3 tornado had 140-mile-per-hour (225 kph) winds that toppled thousands of trees, injured 11 people, and cut electricity to tens of thousands. The tornado damaged at least 230 houses, including one that collapsed. From a satellite perspective, the dynamics of the storm system were more subtle, but they offered at least one early clue that the squall line had a good chance of unloading destructive weather....

Thousands of planets have been discovered by exoplanet hunters, the majority of which circle close to their host stars, but only a small number of alien worlds have been found to drift aimlessly across the galaxy as so-called rogue planets, unattached to any star. Many astronomers think that these planets are more prevalent than we realize, but that current methods for detecting planets haven’t been effective enough to locate them....

According to a team of University of Auckland scientists, the use of old drugs in new combinations is showing potential in the treatment of bowel cancer. “While there have been advances in treatments for this disease in recent years, the development of new medicines is expensive and time-consuming,” lead researcher Professor Peter Shepherd says. “As a possible solution to this problem, our group has been investigating whether using old drugs in new ways could provide a faster and cheaper way of treating this disease....

Cities from Philadelphia to Portland, have seen a spike in gun violence on warm days. While some researchers have started to explore the correlation between heat and firearm violence, the current studies on this subject are limited and concentrated on a small number of cities. A new study conducted by the Boston University School of Public Health and the University of Washington School of Social Work offers the first-ever analysis of heat-related shootings as a national issue....

Antibiotic resistance, or the ability of bacteria to develop resistance to treatment with antibiotics, has become a major concern for global health. The World Health Organization (WHO) considers it one of the greatest threats to health. The overuse of antibiotics has contributed to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which can cause serious illness and death. One example of an antibiotic-resistant pathogen is Klebsiella pneumoniae, a bacterium commonly found in hospitals and known for its virulence....

Since the 1960s, Cytisine, a plant-based alkaloid derived from Cytisus laburnum, has been approved for use in Europe as a smoking cessation aid. It is a selective partial agonist of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. The current FDA-approved smoking cessation drugs in the United States are varenicline and bupropion. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of cytisine, a study was authorized in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2018....

According to the survey, just 6% of adult children indicated they had ever been estranged from their mothers, compared to 26% of those who said they were from their fathers. However, for the majority of adult children, the estrangement is just momentary: 81% of estrangements from mothers and 69% of those from fathers end. This study, one of the few that has examined national trends over time, suggests that adult children’s relationships with their parents may be more complicated – and less permanent – than often assumed, said Rin Reczek, lead author of the study and professor of sociology at The Ohio State University....

As a result, they may move closer to humans in urban and agricultural areas. By analyzing data on bat behavior, distribution, reproduction, and food availability, as well as records of climate, habitat loss, and other environmental conditions, the study was able to predict when the Hendra virus, a potentially deadly illness for humans, would spill over from fruit bats to horses and then to people. The researchers found that in years when food was abundant in their natural habitats during winter months, bats emptied out of agricultural areas to feed in native forests, and away from human communities....

The finding is expected to improve our understanding of art masterpieces and provide new opportunities for art investigation, conservation, and presentation. Researchers from the National Gallery, Duke University, and UCL worked with technical images acquired from the brothers Van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece, a large and complex 15th-century altarpiece in St Bavo’s Cathedral, Belgium. The paper, ‘Artificial Intelligence for Art Investigation: Meeting the Challenge of Separating X-ray Images of the Ghent Altarpiece’, demonstrates how academics used a newly developed algorithm to study mixed x-ray images containing features from the front and back of the painting’s double-sided panels, which scientists have deconstructed into two clear images....

The total harm caused by excessive alcohol consumption is a staggering $2.05 per drink in the United States, and, of this, the government ends up paying about 80 cents per drink. However, the federal government and states only bring in about 21 cents per drink on average in alcohol taxes, according to new research in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. This leaves the majority of the cost of alcohol’s harms borne by those who don’t drink excessively or who don’t drink at all....

University of Melbourne-led research has shown the flavonoid pinocembrin, derived from Australian eucalyptus trees, has strong anti-inflammatory properties and could be safe and effective at treating lung fibrosis in sheep, a large animal model for human lung disease. Pinocembrin, a flavonoid found in several different type of trees including pine trees and eucalyptus, has been reported to have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, and anti-cancer properties. Researchers from the University of Melbourne, Monash University, Swinburne University of Technology, and industry partner Gretals Australia, set out to test the anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrosis properties of pinocembrin in 10 sheep, to see whether the compound could be effective at treating lung fibrosis....

AI has already been successful at playing competitive games like chess and Go which can be learned using only self-play training. However, games like Diplomacy, which require natural language negotiation, cooperation, and competition between multiple players, have been challenging. The new agent developed by FAIR is not only capable of imitating natural language, but more importantly, it also analyzes some of the goals, beliefs, and intentions of its human partners in the game....

A study, which is part of the COVID-Net open-source initiative launched more than a year ago, involved researchers from Waterloo and spin-off start-up company DarwinAI, as well as radiologists at the Stony Brook School of Medicine and the Montefiore Medical Center in New York. Deep-learning AI was trained to analyze the extent and opacity of infection in the lungs of COVID-19 patients based on chest x-rays. Its scores were then compared to assessments of the same x-rays by expert radiologists....

Astronomers questioned how anything could survive the heat of the energetic outflows, but a new theory from researchers in Northwestern University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Exploration in Astrophysics (CIERA) predicts that these molecules are not survivors at all, but brand-new molecules, born in the winds with unique properties that enable them to adapt to and thrive in the hostile environment. The theory, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, is the work of Lindheimer post-doctoral fellow Alexander Richings, who developed the computer code that, for the first time, modeled the detailed chemical processes that occur in interstellar gas accelerated by radiation emitted during the growth of supermassive black holes....