The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 authorized $65 billion in funding to expand broadband access and adoption, as well as address disparities highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to remote work, school, and health care. However, in order to most effectively invest that funding in improving digital equity in the United States, new and deep data at the local level must be gathered and analyzed in order to drive effective policy and advocacy solutions for the citizens and neighborhoods most in need....

An interactive program using mobile phones helps more patients conclude treatment successfully. For tuberculosis patients, complying with a full course of treatment can be daunting and difficult. But a new experiment conducted by MIT researchers in Kenya, in collaboration with the digital health company Keheala, shows that a digital program used on mobile phones helps patients successfully finish their treatments. The program created interactive communication between patients and providers — rather than, say, one-way reminders about medication — and also used behavioral-science insights to help motivate patients to continue their recovery regimens....

The bright streaks of Dione’s wispy terrain are seen near the moon’s limb at right. The medium-sized crater Turnus (63 miles, 101 kilometers, wide) is visible along Dione’s terminator. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on December 25, 2015. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1.4 million miles (2.3 million kilometers) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 115 degrees....

Ancient Judeans commonly ate non-kosher fish surrounding the time that such food was prohibited in the Bible, suggests a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Tel Aviv. This finding sheds new light on the origin of Old Testament dietary laws that are still observed by many Jews today. Among these rules is a ban on eating any species of fish which lacks scales or fins. The study reports an analysis of ancient fish bones from 30 archaeological sites in Israel and Sinai which date to the more than 2,000-year span from the Late Bronze Age (1550-1130 BCE) until the end of the Byzantine period (640 CE)....

Within the last decade, scientists have adapted CRISPR systems from microbes into gene editing technology, a precise and programmable system for modifying DNA. Now, scientists at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have discovered a new class of programmable DNA modifying systems called OMEGAs (Obligate Mobile Element Guided Activity), which may naturally be involved in shuffling small bits of DNA throughout bacterial genomes....

Bobtail and bottletail squids are tiny marine invertebrates that are found throughout the world’s oceans and are useful model animals for researchThere are 68 recognized species of bobtail squid and five recognized species of bottletail squid, but the timing of their divergence from one another is still relatively unknownResearchers at OIST, Hiroshima University and the National University of Ireland Galway, collected 32 species of bobtail and bottletail squidsThey looked at the genetic variations across the entire genomes of these species to estimate their evolutionary relationshipsThe results showed that the divergence of these species aligned with major biogeographical events such as a global mass extinction and the division between the Indo-Pacific Sea and the Atlantic Ocean....

Beating the Odds in Mutation’s Game of Chance Discovery that plants protect their most essential genes transforms our view of evolution. Mutations of DNA do not occur as randomly as previously assumed, according to new research from Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen in Germany and University of California Davis in the US. The findings have the potential to dramatically change our view of evolution. The insights have far-reaching implications, from better knowledge of crop domestication to predictions of the mutational landscape in cancers....

November 8 – Full moonNovember 8 – Total lunar eclipse in the hours before sunriseNovember 11 – The Moon appears directly between Mars and bright blue-white star Elnath in the west before sunriseNovember 20 – In the hour before sunrise, find the crescent Moon above bright star Spica in the southeastNovember 18 – Look straight overhead for Leonid meteors after midnight. The Moon is about 35% full, and will diminish the fainter meteors....

The two are only between 200 AU and 2,000 AU apart, at least 10 times closer than the only other known supermassive binary black hole system. One AU is the distance from the Earth to the sun, which is about 150 million kilometers (93 million miles) or 8.3 light minutes. The close separation is significant because such systems are expected to merge eventually. That event will release a massive amount of energy in the form of gravitational waves, causing ripples in space in every direction (and oscillations in matter) as the waves pass through....

Cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to slow down and even reverse global warming has been posited as humankind’s greatest challenge. It is a goal that is subject to considerable political and societal hurdles, but it also remains a technological challenge. New ways of capturing and storing CO2 will be needed. Now, normally harmless gut bacteria have been shown to have the ability to play a crucial role. Professor Frank Sargent and colleagues at the University of Dundee’s School of Life Sciences, working with local industry partners Sasol UK and Ingenza Ltd, have developed a process that enables the E....

A low-cost, easy-to-build non-invasive ventilator aimed at supporting the breathing of patients with respiratory failure performs similarly to conventional high-quality commercial devices, according to new research published in the European Respiratory Journal. Non-invasive ventilators are used to treat patients with breathing difficulty and respiratory failure, a common symptom of more severe coronavirus disease. Non-invasive ventilation is delivered using facemasks or nasal masks, which push a set amount of pressurized air into the lungs....

Two major groups of bats that use echolocation have different structures for connecting the inner ear to the brain, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Chicago, the American Museum of Natural History and the Field Museum. The research, published recently in Nature, provides the first anatomical evidence of two distinctive inner ear structures used for processing bats’ echolocation signals. The study confirms previously discovered genetic evidence that echolocating bats belong to different evolutionary lineages, known respectively as “Yin” and “Yang” bats, and suggests that these two branches have different neuroanatomies of the inner ear for different styles of echolocation....

“I really was, at the beginning, very nervous,” Tipton said. MDMA is the main ingredient in the club drug known as ecstasy or molly. But Tipton wasn’t taking pills sold on the street to get high. She was trying to treat her post-traumatic stress disorder by participating in a clinical trial. After taking a dose of pure MDMA, Tipton lay in a quiet room with two specially-trained psychotherapists. They sat next to her as she recalled some of her deepest traumas, such as discovering her mother’s body after Tipton’s mother killed two people and then herself in a murder-suicide....

The first-of-its kind study, published in the May 14 issue of Radiology, identifies which patients may need to be hospitalized and intubated based on the severity of coronavirus patterns in the lungs seen in the X-rays, using a unique scoring system to evaluate severity. The results could help physicians more quickly identify, triage, and aggressively treat these high-risk patients. “This is the first study looking at how we can use chest X-rays from the emergency room to predict how sick COVID-19 patients will get....

Before the scientific discoveries made using ESO telescopes can find themselves on your screen, they pass through the expert hands of talented visual artists and composers. This new ESOcast is the twelfth episode of ESO’s Chile Chill, a series of striking videos that immerse you in the world of astronomy. In Chile Chill 12 — Fire in the Heavens, the evocative tunes of ESO’s Music Ambassador Dimitris Polychroniadis are set to stunning visuals from ESO’s expansive video archive....

The launch and commissioning of Solar Orbiter heralded a new era of space science, whilst Eutelsat Konnect revolutionized telecommunications. The new Vega SSMS began a cost-effective new launch system for small satellites, deploying exciting new technologies such as PhiSat and ESAIL. ESA’s Earth Observation activities were also showcased, with the launch of Sentinel-6 and an international effort to monitor the environmental and economic impact of COVID-19. Gaia and Cheops yielded new findings about our universe; ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano returned successfully from orbit....

OzGrav Postdoctoral Researcher Simon Stevenson from Swinburne University of Technology says: “COMPAS allows us to understand how the binary neutron stars and black holes being observed in gravitational waves are formed.” COMPAS has since expanded to include other observational signatures of binary evolution, including Galactic Double Neutrons Stars, X-ray Binaries and Luminous Red Novae. Different observations provide new insights into gravitational-wave research and help to complete the picture of binary astrophysics....

In a study recently published in Science Advances, an international team of scientists — including Sang-Heon Dan Shim and Thomas Sharp of Arizona State University — has completed a complex analysis of a “shocked meteorite” (one that has experienced high-pressure and high-temperature conditions through impact events) and gained new insight into Earth’s lower mantle. Suizhou: a shocked meteorite Shocked meteorites have provided many examples of deep mantle minerals since 1969 when high-pressure mineral Ringwoodite was discovered....

“The liquid crystals we are working with are called blue-phase liquid crystals,” said Iam Choon Khoo, the William E. Leonhard Professor of Electrical Engineering, who is the corresponding author for this article. “The most important thing about this research is the fundamental understanding of what happens when you apply a field, which has led to the development of Repetitively-Applied Field technique. We believe that this method is almost a universal template that can be used for reconfiguring many similar types of liquid crystals and soft matter....

The draft assessment was dated May 4, indicating that the FDA had kept its conclusions under wraps for a couple of months. It’s been speculated that political interference might have been responsible. AquaBounty has stated that delays wouldn’t shock it, since the company has been seeking FDA approval since 1995. When first informed of the FDA’s approval, even the CEO of AquaBounty was incredulous. The FDA has reviewed more than 50 safety studies, including one that shows that the engineered salmon poses no more of an allergic potential than wild salmon....