CfA astronomer Dimitar Sasselov was part of a team with three colleagues to use the new stellar results to refine the radial measurements of 4268 exoplanets. The large dataset and refined values enable the scientists to confirm some previous hints about the distribution of exoplanet sizes, namely, that the size distribution is not exactly uniform but rather some exoplanet sizes are less common than might be expected. In particular, there is a paucity of planets with radii slightly larger than about two Earth-radii, and other slight decreases again at sizes of about four and about ten Earth-radii....

The discovery from NASA’s telescope on an airplane, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, can help explain how massive galaxies came to be, even though the universe today is dominated by galaxies that no longer form stars. The results are published in the Astrophysical Journal. “This shows us that the growth of active black holes doesn’t stop star birth instantaneously, which goes against all the current scientific predictions,” said Allison Kirkpatrick, assistant professor at the University of Kansas in Lawrence Kansas and co-author on the study....

With new images from NJIT’s Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO), the researchers have revealed in groundbreaking, granular detail what appears to be a likely mechanism – jets of magnetized plasma known as spicules that spurt like geysers from the Sun’s upper atmosphere into the corona. In a paper published today (November 15, 2019) in the journal Science, the team describes key features of jet-like spicules that are in solar terms small-scale plasma structures, between 200 and 500 kilometers (125 and 310 miles) wide, that erupt continuously across the Sun’s expanse....

It consists of an audio-tactile algorithm that transforms monophonic music into tangible stimuli based on vibration utilizing “tactile illusions.” According to the researchers, “It’s like ‘hacking’ the nervous system to receive a different response to the real stimulus sent.” “What we want to achieve in the long term is for people who do not hear to be able to ‘listen’ to music”, assures researcher Paul Remache, the main author of this paper, who insists on the power of music to influence mood, as well as its possibilities as a therapy for mental disorders and treatment of pain....

A likely cause of Alzheimer’s disease offers a significant finding that offers potential new prevention and treatment opportunities for Australia’s second-leading cause of death. Ground-breaking new Curtin University-led research has discovered a likely cause of Alzheimer’s disease, in a significant finding that offers potential new prevention and treatment opportunities for Australia’s second-leading cause of death. The study, published in the prestigious PLOS Biology journal and tested on mouse models, identified that a probable cause of Alzheimer’s disease was the leakage from blood into the brain of fat-carrying particles transporting toxic proteins....

A completely passive solar-powered desalination system developed by researchers at MIT and in China could provide more than 1.5 gallons (5.7 liters) of fresh drinking water per hour for every square meter of solar collecting area. Such systems could potentially serve off-grid arid coastal areas to provide an efficient, low-cost water source. The system uses multiple layers of flat solar evaporators and condensers, lined up in a vertical array and topped with transparent aerogel insulation....

Last week, Hawaii’s Board of Land and Natural Resources issued a construction permit for the 4-meter Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST). Its 43.5-meter tall enclosure will tower over the other astronomical facilities on the mountain. The project will begin next week by removing rocks and grading the 3,084-meter summit. The telescope will give astronomers the resolution to see the fine-scale structure of magnetic fields that lead to violent solar events like flares and coronal mass ejections....

The first comprehensive worldwide assessment of heatwaves down to regional levels has revealed that in nearly every part of the world heatwaves have been increasing in frequency and duration since the 1950’s. The research published in Nature Communications has also produced a new metric, cumulative heat, which reveals exactly how much heat is packed into individual heatwaves and heatwave seasons. As expected, that number is also on the rise. In Australia’s worst heatwave season, an additional 80°C of cumulative heat was experienced across the country....

Starburst galaxies give birth to hundreds of solar masses’ worth of stars each year in short-lived but intense events. By comparison, our own Milky Way Galaxy on average produces the equivalent of only one Sun-like star per year. Starburst galaxies generate so much starlight that they should outshine our galaxy hundreds to thousands of times over, but the enormous quantities of gas fueling them also contain vast amounts of dust as a result of the frantic star formation....

An international team of astronomers has used HiCIAO (High Contrast Instrument for the Subaru Next Generation Optics) (Note 1) to observe a disk around the young star SAO 206462. They succeeded in capturing clear, detailed images of its disk, which they discovered has a spiral structure with two discernable arms. On the basis of their observations and modeling according to spiral density wave theory, the team suspects that dynamic processes, possibly resulting from planets in the disk, may be responsible for its spiral shape....

Researchers from the University of Surrey’s Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) and the University of São Paulo have developed a new analysis technique that will help scientists improve renewable energy storage by making better supercapacitors. The team’s new approach enables researchers to investigate the complex inter-connected behavior of supercapacitor electrodes made from layers of different materials. Improvements in energy storage are vital if countries are to deliver carbon reduction targets. The inherent unpredictability of energy from solar and wind means effective storage is required to ensure consistency in supply, and supercapacitors are seen as an important part of the solution....

But a new study that followed more than 1,600 students over two years found that students’ academic motivation often did change – and usually for the better. Results showed that increasing students’ sense of “belongingness” in school was one key way of increasing academic motivation. “Our results point to a more hopeful picture for students who start out with lower levels of motivation – they tend to shift toward more adaptive profiles with better motivational characteristics over time,” said Kui Xie, lead author of the study and professor of educational studies at The Ohio State University....

Viscous, lobate flow features are commonly found at the bases of slopes in the mid-latitudes of Mars, and are often associated with gullies. These features are bound by ridges that resemble terrestrial moraines, suggesting that these deposits are ice-rich, or may have been ice-rich in the past. The source of the ice is unclear, but there is some thought that it is deposited from the atmosphere during periods of high obliquity, also known as axial tilt....

What is it about the extra chromosome inherited in Down syndrome—chromosome 21—that alters brain and body development? Researchers have new evidence that points to a protein called sorting nexin 27, or SNX27. SNX27 production is inhibited by a molecule encoded on chromosome 21. The study, published March 24 in Nature Medicine, shows that SNX27 is reduced in human Down syndrome brains. The extra copy of chromosome 21 means a person with Down syndrome produces less SNX27 protein, which in turn disrupts brain function....

This is just one of several simulated behaviors reported in a new study performed by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The study focused on linear features called “bands” and “groove lanes” found on Jupiter’s moons Europa and Ganymede. Scientists have used the same numerical model to solve mysteries about motion in Earth’s crust. The animation is a two-dimensional simulation of a possible cross-section of a band running through Europa’s ice shell....

Like many of his colleagues at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, Shyam Bhaskaran is working a lot with asteroids these days. And also like many of his colleagues, the deep space navigator devotes a great deal of time to crafting, and contemplating, computer-generated 3-D models of these intriguing nomads of the solar system. But while many of his coworkers are calculating asteroids’ past, present and future locations in the cosmos, zapping them with the world’s most massive radar dishes, or considering how to rendezvous and perhaps even gently nudge an asteroid into lunar orbit, Bhaskaran thinks about how to collide with one....

Places with higher rates of economic connectedness—linkages between people of lower and higher socioeconomic status as indicated by Facebook friendships—had significantly lower rates of premature death related to heart disease, according to a study presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session Together With the World Congress of Cardiology. Previous studies have shown that poverty or low socioeconomic status increases a person’s risk of heart disease and premature death....

NGC 1156 is located in the constellation of Aries (The Ram). It is classified as a dwarf irregular galaxy, meaning that it lacks a clear spiral or rounded shape, as other galaxies have, and is on the smaller side, albeit with a relatively large central region that is more densely packed with stars. Some pockets of gas within NGC 1156 rotate in the opposite direction to the rest of the galaxy, suggesting that there has been a close encounter with another galaxy in NGC 1156’s past....

In 2006 Hubble captured an image of the Pinwheel Galaxy which was — at the time — the largest and most detailed photo of a spiral galaxy ever taken with Hubble (see image below). NGC 5486 lies 110 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. Constellations are not only patterns of bright stars, but also a system that astronomers use to divide the sky into regions. There are 88 of these regions, and each has an associated constellation depicting a mythological figure, an animal, or even an item of scientific equipment....

Therefore, researchers were surprised when they uncovered a galaxy that is missing most, if not all, of its dark matter. An invisible substance, dark matter is the underlying scaffolding upon which galaxies are built. It’s the glue that holds the visible matter in galaxies — stars and gas — together. “We thought that every galaxy had dark matter and that dark matter is how a galaxy begins,” said Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, lead researcher of the Hubble observations....