The binding of amyloid beta peptides to prion proteins triggers a cascade of devastating events in the progression of Alzheimer’s — accumulation of plaques, a destructive immune system response, and damage to synapses. “We wanted to find molecules that might have a therapeutic effect on this network,” said senior author Stephen Strittmatter, the Vincent Coates Professor of Neurology, professor of neuroscience, and director of the Yale Alzheimer Disease Research Center....

While the archipelago is made up of over 6000 islands, this image focuses on Japan’s four main islands. Running from north to south, Hokkaido is visible in the top right corner, Honshu is the long island stretching in a northeast–southwest arc, Shikoku can be seen just beneath the lower part of Honshu, and Kyushu is at the bottom. Honshu’s land mass comprises approximately four-fifths of Japan’s total area. Honshu’s main urban areas of Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka are clearly visible in the image....

The General Theory of Relativity, published by Albert Einstein between 1911 and 1916, introduced a new concept of space and time, by showing that massive objects cause a distortion in space-time which is felt as gravity. In this way, Einstein’s theory predicts, for example, that light travels in curved paths near massive objects, and one consequence is the observation of the Einstein Cross, four different images of a distant galaxy which lies behind a nearer massive object, and whose light is distorted by it....

This vivid picture of an active star-forming region — NGC 2467, sometimes referred to as the Skull and Crossbones Nebula — is as sinister as it is beautiful. This image of dust, gas, and bright young stars, gravitationally bound into the form of a grinning skull, was captured with the FORS instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). Whilst ESO’s telescopes are usually used for the collection of science data, they can also capture images such as this — which are beautiful for their own sake....

The Danish 1.54-meter telescope located at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile has captured a striking image of NGC 6559, an object that showcases the anarchy that reigns when stars form inside an interstellar cloud. NGC 6559 is a cloud of gas and dust located at a distance of about 5000 light-years from Earth, in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer). The glowing region is a relatively small object, just a few light-years across, in contrast to the one hundred light-years and more spanned by its famous neighbor, the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8, eso0936)....

During the pollen season, many people with allergies tend to avoid nature. That isn’t entirely justified, a new KU Leuven study into biodiversity and health suggests. People allergic to birch pollen experience less symptoms after being exposed to certain natural environments, such as pastures and forests. An important condition is that the environment shouldn’t be dominated by allergenic tree species, and that there are no high concentrations of pollen or air pollution....

Scientists have long speculated about the features that our long-ago single-celled ancestors might have had, and the order in which those features came about. Bubble-like compartments are a hallmark of the superkingdom to which we, and many other species including yeast, belong. But the cells in today’s superkingdom have a host of specialized molecules that help make and shape these bubbles inside our cells. Scientists wondered what came first: the bubbles or the shaping molecules?...

Extraordinary heat events occur around the planet during most summers, but the current heatwave in the Pacific Northwest is truly exceptional. In June 2021, all-time temperature records fell in multiple cities in the U.S. and Canada during a heatwave that the National Weather Service called “historic and dangerous.” The heat began to build up late last week, and the effect is apparent in this map (above) which shows land surface temperatures on June 25 in Washington....

Yesterday, July 23, 2020, the European Space Agency (ESA) and dozens of industrial partners assessed the readiness of the ExoMars robotic explorer, named Rosalind Franklin, for a trip to the Red Planet in 2022. The European rover will drill down to two meters into the Martian surface to sample the soil, analyze its composition and search for evidence of life buried underground. The rover successfully proved that it is fit to endure the martian conditions during the environmental test campaign earlier this year in Toulouse, France....

Cancún’s location on the Caribbean Sea, tropical climate, and string of beaches have made the city and the Riviera Maya to the south of Cancún one of Mexico’s top tourist destinations. In this image, captured on April 16, 2021, the city can be seen in the bottom-right corner, shrouded in clouds. Cancun International Airport, Mexico’s second busiest airport, is located around 20 km south of the city. The Cancún Island resort area, visible just off the coast, is shaped like the number seven and is around 22 km in length....

In this new study, investigators determined that massive stars (typically between 8 and 20 solar masses) in the last phase of their lives, the so-called ‘red supergiant’ phase, will suddenly become around a hundred times fainter in visible light in the last few months before they die. This dimming is caused by a sudden accumulation of material around the star, which obscures its light. Until now, it was not known how long it took the star to accrete this material....

A team of researchers used the UH Institute for Astronomy-operated Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) on Maui and W. M. Keck Observatory on Hawaiʻi Island to observe the red supergiant during its last 130 days leading up to its deadly detonation. The observations were part of their ongoing Young Supernova Experiment (YSE) transient survey. “This is a breakthrough in our understanding of what massive stars do moments before they die,” said Wynn Jacobson-Galán, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and lead author of the study....

Dr. Ian Towle, lead author of the study, says the “surprisingly large” monkey lemur, Archaeolemur, had novel anatomical features not seen in living lemurs, such as lacking a ‘tooth comb’ in the front of the mouth for grooming. Towle is in the Faculty of Dentistry of the Sir John Walsh Research Institute at the University of Otago. “These extinct lemurs are so different to those alive today. They also show fascinating similarities to monkeys and apes, including humans,” he says....

This is the conclusion of a new research study by Jan Kramers, Georgy Belyanin, and Hartmut Winkler of the University of Johannesburg, and others that has been published in the journal Icarus. Since 2013, Belyanin and Kramers have discovered a series of highly unusual chemistry clues in a small fragment of the Hypatia Stone. In the new research, they meticulously eliminate ‘cosmic suspects’ for the origin of the stone in a painstaking process....

Following three consecutive failed rainy seasons, more than 20 million people in eastern Africa now face some of the worst food security risks in 35 years. Climate and agriculture experts are advising governments and relief agencies to expect a significant need for food assistance in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia. Climate change and ongoing La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean, half a world away, have contributed to the persistent dry weather and might bring more of it during the next rainy season....

The test is highly sensitive and prevents false positives that happen due to the genetic similarity of SARS-CoV-2 and other human coronaviruses. Scientists at the Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and SunYat-Sen University in China have set the stage for the development of highly sensitive antibody tests for infection with all known human coronaviruses, including new variants of SARS-CoV-2. These tests should also allow differentiation of immune responses due to infection and vaccination....

Researchers compared the risk of Alzheimer’s disease incidence between patients with and without prior flu vaccination in a large nationwide sample of U.S. adults aged 65 and older. The study was led by first author Avram S. Bukhbinder, MD, a recent alumnus of McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, and senior author Paul. E. Schulz, MD, the Rick McCord Professor in Neurology at McGovern Medical School. An early online version of the paper detailing the findings is available in advance of its publication in the August 2, 2022, issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease....

The practice is first recorded in the Old Testament where several verses mandate isolation for those with leprosy. Ancient civilizations relied on isolating the sick, well before the actual microbial causes of disease were known. In times when treatments for illnesses were rare and public health measures few, physicians and lay leaders, beginning as early as the ancient Greeks, turned to quarantine to contain a scourge. In January, Chinese authorities attempted to lock down millions of residents of Wuhan and the surrounding area, to try to keep the new coronavirus from spreading outward....

For the study, investigators analyzed 7,548 SARS-CoV-2 genomes of COVID-19 patients worldwide and looked for an association between genomic variants and mortality. In total, 29,891 locations in the viral genome were assessed. One location was significantly linked with patient mortality. Mutations at this location cause changes in part of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which plays a key role in viral entry into host cells. “When, in the fall of 2020, we applied methodology from genome-wide association studies to COVID-19 genomes, we noticed one locus in the COVID-19 genomes from Brazil that was associated with mortality and that later became part of the definition of the P....

Scheduled to launch no earlier than February 2025, IMAP will observe and map the Sun’s heliosphere — the volume of space filled with particles streaming out from the Sun, known as the solar wind — and study how it interacts with the local galactic neighborhood beyond. The boundary zone at the edge of the heliosphere offers protection from the harsher radiation of interstellar space; it may have played a role in creating a habitable solar system and is critical in NASA’s plans for safe human exploration of the Moon and Mars....