Previous research has shown a relationship between the originality of texts, such as poetry and song lyrics, and their popularity. Less is known, however, about how originality affects readers’ perceptions of the writer and what aspects of a text make it seem original. Furthermore, no prior research has specifically looked at the relationship between perceived originality and attraction in the setting of online dating profiles. To shed new light, van der Zanden and colleagues polled 1,234 online dating site users on the originality of text in several real dating profiles, as well as the personality and attractiveness of the profile owners....

Researchers at UBC’s faculty of medicine have conducted the world’s first molecular-level structural analysis of the Omicron variant spike protein. The findings were published on January 20, 2022, in Science. The analysis—done at near atomic resolution using cryo-electron microscopy—reveals how the heavily mutated Omicron variant attaches to and infects human cells. “Understanding the molecular structure of the viral spike protein is important as it will allow us to develop more effective treatments against Omicron and related variants in the future,” said lead author Dr....

CfA astronomers develop and maintain the HITRAN (High Resolution Transmission) database, a compilation of diagnostic spectroscopic parameters that is the worldwide standard for calculating atmospheric molecular radiation from the microwave through the ultraviolet region of the spectrum. HITRAN has acquired particular new importance in recent years with the discovery of thousands of exoplanets and the steadily improving technology to detect their atmospheres and measure their compositions. HITRAN is commonly used to model these exotic atmospheres....

Eating wild-caught fish instead of using it as feed in salmon farming would allow nearly four million tonnes of fish to be left in the sea, while providing an extra six million tonnes of seafood for human consumption, a study finds. Scientists studying the Scottish salmon farming industry say that using only fish by-products — such as trimmings — for salmon feed, rather than whole wild-caught fish, would deliver significant nutritional and sustainability gains....

Over the past four decades, astronomers had found about 50 of these “quadruply imaged quasars,” or quads for short, which occur when the gravity of a massive galaxy that happens to sit in front of a quasar splits its single image into four. The latest study, which spanned only a year and a half, increases the number of known quads by about 25 percent and demonstrates the power of machine learning to assist astronomers in their search for these cosmic oddities....

The idea of interplanetary travel has tantalizingly emerged on the horizon and is no longer restricted to science fiction. We are having preliminary discussions about how life may transcend the confines of our solar system with technology that is within our grasp, though we might not see it in our lifetimes — at least not any genuine version of the fantastical warp-speeding, hyperdriving, space-folding type. Professors Philip Lubin and Joel Rothman of UC Santa Barbara believe that now is an excellent moment to be alive....

Stars come in a wide range of sizes, masses and compositions. Our sun is considered a relatively small specimen, especially when compared to something like Betelgeuse which is known as a red supergiant. Red supergiants are stars over nine times the mass of our sun, and all this mass means that when they die they do so with extreme ferocity in an enormous explosion known as a supernova, in particular what is known as a Type-II supernova....

Advances in soft robotics could someday allow robots to work alongside humans, helping them lift heavy objects or carrying them out of danger. As a step toward that future, Stanford University researchers have developed a new kind of soft robot that, by borrowing features from traditional robotics, is safe while still retaining the ability to move and change shape. “A significant limitation of most soft robots is that they have to be attached to a bulky air compressor or plugged into a wall, which prevents them from moving,” said Nathan Usevitch, a graduate student in mechanical engineering at Stanford....

“Coronaviruses have spike proteins on their periphery that allow them to penetrate host cells and cause infection and we have found these proteins becomes stuck to the surface of silicon, gold, and copper through a reaction that forms a strong chemical bond,” Dr. Darwish said. “We believe these materials can be used to capture coronaviruses by being used in air filters, as a coating for benches, tables, and walls, or in the fabric of wipe cloths and face masks....

Research on the feeding behavior of Antarctic minke whales found that a smaller whale could not capture enough food to survive using the lunge-feeding strategy of baleen whales. A new study of Antarctic minke whales reveals a minimum size limit for whales employing the highly efficient “lunge-feeding” strategy that enabled the blue whale to become the largest animal on Earth. Lunge feeding whales accelerate toward a patch of prey, engulf a huge volume of water, and then filter out the prey through the baleen plates in their mouths....

According to a group of scientists at the University of California, Riverside, acute skin exposure to THS raises biomarkers linked to the onset of skin diseases such as contact dermatitis and psoriasis. “We found exposure of human skin to THS initiates mechanisms of inflammatory skin disease and elevates urinary biomarkers of oxidative harm, which could lead to other diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, and atherosclerosis,” said Shane Sakamaki-Ching, a former graduate student at UC Riverside who graduated with a doctoral degree in cell, molecular, and developmental biology in March 2022....

A new study from researchers at King’s College in London indicates that smoking rots the brain by damaging memory, learning, and reasoning. The scientists published their findings in the journal Age and Ageing. The study included 8,800 people over the age of 50, and showed that high blood pressure as well as being overweight seemed to also affect the brain, to a lesser extent. Lifestyles can damage the mind as well as the body....

University of Queensland researchers have designed a novel tarantula venom mini-protein that can potentially relieve severe pain without addiction. Dr. Christina Schroeder from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience said the current opioid crisis around the world meant urgent alternatives to morphine and morphine-like drugs, such as fentanyl and oxycodone, were desperately needed. “Although opioids are effective in producing pain relief, they come with unwanted side-effects like nausea, constipation and the risk of addiction, placing a huge burden on society,” Dr....

In a new study, researchers report on observations of some of the first galaxies to form in the universe, less than 1 billion years after the big bang (or a little more than 13 billion years ago). The data show that in a few specific wavelengths of infrared light, the galaxies are considerably brighter than scientists anticipated. The study is the first to confirm this phenomenon for a large sampling of galaxies from this period, showing that these were not special cases of excessive brightness, but that even average galaxies present at that time were much brighter in these wavelengths than galaxies we see today....

Before the pandemic, the lab of Stanford University biochemist Peter S. Kim focused on developing vaccines for HIV, Ebola and pandemic influenza. But, within days of closing their campus lab space as part of COVID-19 precautions, they turned their attention to a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Although the coronavirus was outside the lab’s specific area of expertise, they and their collaborators have managed to construct and test a promising vaccine candidate....

The researchers have connected problems with the organelle to a subset of breast cancer tumors that make lots of mistakes when segregating chromosomes. Excitingly, they found their analysis offered a new way for doctors to sort patient tumors as they choose therapies. They hope these insights will allow doctors to better personalize treatments to best benefit patients – sparing up to 40 percent of patients with breast cancer, for example, a taxing treatment that won’t be effective....

Hurricanes like Nicole can cause significant damage to human structures on land, and often permanently alter terrestrial landscapes. But these powerful storms also affect the ocean, and while we have some idea of their surface effects, we didn’t know much about how hurricanes impact the deep ocean. A new study by researchers at the University of Chicago-affiliated Marine Biological Laboratory and the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences has provided novel insight on those impacts....

The neurons, known as Agrp, regulate feeding behavior in adult mammals, but it was not clear what role they played in early development. To solve that mystery, the researchers conducted a series of experiments with 10-day-old mice. They isolated the newborn animals from the nest, temporarily depriving them of nutrients. Separation from the caregiver rapidly triggered activity in the Agrp neurons and vocal protest from the mice. The researchers also observed that return to the nest, rather than ingestion of milk, suppressed the response....

Astronomers know that stars are born in clouds of gas, but what sets off star formation, and how galaxies as a whole play into it, remains a mystery. To understand this process, a team of researchers has observed various nearby galaxies with powerful telescopes on the ground and in space, scanning the different galactic regions involved in stellar births. Emsellem, who is also affiliated with the University of Lyon, France, and his team have now released their latest set of galactic scans, taken with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument on ESO’s VLT in the Atacama Desert in Chile....

Study Highlights: Sugar-sweetened beverages may be linked to about 180,000 deaths in the world each year.Countries in the Caribbean/Latin America had among the highest death rates from diabetes due to consumption of sugary beverages.About 25,000 deaths in the United States each year may be associated with sugar-sweetened drinks. Sugar-sweetened sodas, sports drinks and fruit drinks may be associated with about 180,000 deaths around the world each year, according to research presented at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology and Prevention/Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism 2013 Scientific Sessions....