This newly released Hubble image shows star cluster Westerlund 1, which is located 15,000 light-years away. Light travels through space at just under 300,000 kilometers per second! This staggering speed is used to calculate astronomical distances; although often misinterpreted as a unit of time (due to its misleading name), a light-year is actually a unit of astronomical distance, and is defined as the distance that light travels in a year....

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows NGC 7026, a planetary nebula. Located just beyond the tip of the tail of the constellation of Cygnus (The Swan), this butterfly-shaped cloud of glowing gas and dust is the wreckage of a star similar to the Sun. Planetary nebulae, despite their name, have nothing to do with planets. They are in fact a relatively short-lived phenomenon that occurs at the end of the life of mid-sized stars....

The researchers linked two copies of a special kind of antibody produced by llamas to create a new antibody that binds tightly to a key protein on the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. This protein, called the spike protein, allows the virus to break into host cells. Initial tests indicate that the antibody blocks viruses that display this spike protein from infecting cells in culture. “This is one of the first antibodies known to neutralize SARS-CoV-2,” said Jason McLellan, associate professor of molecular biosciences at UT Austin and co-senior author, referring to the virus that causes COVID-19....

A new study led by the University of Washington finds dramatic increases in the abundance of a worm that can be transmitted to humans who eat raw or undercooked seafood. Its 283-fold increase in abundance since the 1970s could have implications for the health of humans and marine mammals, which both can inadvertently eat the worm. Thousands of papers have looked at the abundance of this parasitic worm, known as Anisakis or “herring worm,” in particular places and at particular times....

Thermal insulation and thermal conduction play a crucial role in our everyday lives – from computer processors, where it is important to dissipate heat as quickly as possible, to houses, where good insulation is essential for energy costs. Often extremely light, porous materials such as polystyrene are used for insulation, while heavy materials such as metals are used for heat dissipation. A newly developed material, which scientists at the MPI-P have jointly developed and characterized with the University of Bayreuth, can now combine both properties....

The National Institutes of Health is investing $248.7 million in new technologies to address challenges associated with COVID-19 testing (which detects SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus). NIH’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative has awarded contracts to seven biomedical diagnostic companies to support a range of new lab-based and point-of-care tests that could significantly increase the number, type and availability of tests by millions per week as early as September 2020. With national demand estimated to be millions more tests per day above current levels, these technologies are expected to make a significant contribution to expanding the nation’s testing capacity....

An animation showing the spread of smoke in Earth’s atmosphere following a nuclear war between India and Pakistan in 2025. Credit: Charles Bardeen The picture is grim. That level of warfare wouldn’t just kill millions of people locally, said CU Boulder’s Brian Toon, who led the research published yesterday (October 2, 2019) in the journal Science Advances. It might also plunge the entire planet into a severe cold spell, possibly with temperatures not seen since the last Ice Age....

Increasing state and local funding for environmental, educational, and social services may lower infant mortality among those at highest risk, particularly among infants born to teenage mothers, according to findings published this week in the journal Pediatrics from researchers at Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health. After looking at a variety of education services, social services, and environmental and housing factors, the team found that increasing funding in public health, housing, parks and recreation, and solid waste management were associated with the greatest reduction in infant deaths....

“The system we’ve developed is based on the chiton, which has a unique biological armor system,” Li said. “Most mollusks have a single rigid shell, such as the abalone, or two shells, such as clams. But the chiton has eight mineralized plates covering the top of the creature and around its base it has a girdle of very small scales assembled like fish scales, that provide flexibility as well as protection....

While the MIRI instrument and some instrument components were powered on in the weeks after Webb’s December 25 launch, the team didn’t finish turning on the remaining three instruments – NIRCam, NIRSpec, and FGS/NIRISS – until the past few days. The mission operations team’s next major step is to turn off instrument heaters. The heaters were necessary to keep critical optics warm to prevent the risk of water and ice condensation....

Acaba takes the place of NASA astronaut Drew Feustel, who spent two years as deputy chief and has been acting chief of the office since NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman left the post late last year. “Congratulations to Joe Acaba on being named the new chief of the astronaut office! Joe is an experienced space flyer and a proven leader, and he will undoubtedly inspire the next generation of NASA astronauts....

Researchers from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of published data on the effect of electrical stimulation therapies on spinal fusion. They found significant improvement overall in the rates of bone fusion following a course of electrical stimulation in both preclinical (animal) and clinical (human) studies. Detailed findings of this study can be found in a new article, “The effect of electrical stimulation therapies on spinal fusion: a cross-disciplinary systematic review and meta-analysis of the preclinical and clinical data,” by Ethan Cottrill and colleagues, published today (October 8, 2019) in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine....

The image was taken on September 1, 2017 at 2:58 p.m. PDT (5:58 p.m. EDT). At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was 4,707 miles (7,576 kilometers) from the tops of the clouds of the planet at a latitude of about -17.4 degrees. Citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt processed this image using data from the JunoCam imager. Points of interest are “Whale’s Tail” and “Dan’s Spot.” JunoCam’s raw images are available for the public to peruse and process into image products at: www....

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft was racing away from Jupiter following its seventh close pass of the planet when JunoCam snapped this image from about 29,100 miles (46,900 kilometers) above the cloud tops. The spacecraft was over 65.9 degrees south latitude, with a lovely view of the south polar region of the planet. This image was processed to enhance color differences, showing the amazing variety in Jupiter’s stormy atmosphere. The result is a surreal world of vibrant color, clarity and contrast....

Planet hunters received some good news recently. A new study concluded that, on average, sun-like stars aren’t all that dusty. Less dust means better odds of snapping clear pictures of the stars’ planets in the future. These results come from surveying nearly 50 stars from 2008 to 2011 using the Keck Interferometer, a former NASA key science project that combined the power of the twin W. M. Keck Observatory telescopes atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii....

Amid debate around the origins of SARS-CoV-2, leading global biologists have reviewed the scientific evidence to help clarify the origin of the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans. Pre-print paper highlights links supporting zoonotic origin for the virusZero biological evidence exists for a laboratory leakFocus on lab-leak distracting from work to prevent next pandemic An international team of eminent biologists, led by Professor Edward Holmes from the University of Sydney and Professor Andrew Rambaut from the University of Edinburgh, has published a critical review paper on the origins of SARS-COV-2 as a pre-print on Zenodo....

For nearly half a century, lightning-sparked blazes in Yosemite’s Illilouette Creek Basin have rippled across the landscape — closely monitored, but largely unchecked. Their flames might explode into plumes of heat that burn whole hillsides at once, or sit smoldering in the underbrush for months. The result is approximately 60 square miles of forest that look remarkably different from other parts of the Sierra Nevada: Instead of dense, wall-to-wall tree cover — the outcome of more than a century of fire suppression — the landscape is broken up by patches of grassland, shrubland and wet meadows filled with wildflowers more abundant than in other parts of the forest....

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket propelled the Dragon spacecraft, named Endeavour, into orbit carrying NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, along with United Arab Emirates (UAE) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, for a science expedition aboard the space station. “Congratulations to the NASA and SpaceX teams for another history-making mission to the International Space Station! The Commercial Crew Program is proof American ingenuity and leadership in space benefits all of humanity – through groundbreaking science, innovative technology, and newfound partnership,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson....

JPSS-2 will circle the globe 14 times a day 512 miles above Earth, providing forecasters the benefit of three polar-orbiting satellites operating simultaneously, joining its predecessors Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) and NOAA-20. Following JPSS-2’s deployment, the LOFTID heat shield autonomously inflated and re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, splashing down about 500 miles off the coast of Hawaii just over two hours and ten minutes after launch. JPSS-2/LOFTID isolated views featuring launch, JPSS-2 spacecraft separation, LOFTID inflation, LOFTID spin up and spacecraft separation, and LOFTID splashdown....

There’s always a lot of dust from outer space floating down to Earth, little bits of asteroids and comets, but this dust is normally only a tiny fraction of the other dust in our atmospheres such as volcanic ash, dust from deserts and sea salt. But when a 93-mile-wide (150-kilometer-wide) asteroid between Mars and Jupiter broke apart 466 million years ago, it created way more dust than usual. “Normally, Earth gains about 40,000 tons of extraterrestrial material every year,” says Philipp Heck, a curator at the Field Museum, associate professor at the University of Chicago, and one of the paper’s authors....