101 articles from TUESDAY 1.10.2019

Doctor offers unique perspective as father of a child with rare genetic disease

From a professional standpoint, Nathan Hoot, MD, Ph.D., understands the value of medical research that leads to new, groundbreaking drugs in the treatment of rare diseases. And as an emergency medicine physician, he's familiar with adjusting ventilators and managing patients' airways. But the magnitude of these matters also weigh on Hoot personally -- as the father of a child with a rare genetic...

Terrawatch: the mysteries of the moon's largest crater

A recent Chinese mission has revealed more about the South Pole Aitken basinMost space rocks that hurtle towards Earth burn up in the atmosphere. The moon’s lack of atmosphere means it does not have the same protection, and consequently its surface is peppered with craters. The oldest and largest crater – a massive 2,000km across and 13km deep – sits at the far side of the moon. Known as the...

A metronome for quantum particles

Physicists have found a way to measure the elusive quantum phase of electrons. This enables a new, better view of important phenomena used in photosensors or photovoltaics.

Earthquake in the cell

Nuclear abnormalities such as nuclear blebs and micronuclei have devastating consequences for the genetic material and are associated with cancer or ageing. Scientists now revealed that the epigenetic enzyme MOF is crucial for the morphological integrity of the mammalian nucleus. Moreover, the study characterized the epigenetic landscape of nuclear abnormalities and discovered a formerly unknown...

Exploring the brain in a new way: Researcher records neurons to understand cognition

Whether we're searching for Waldo or our keys in a room of clutter, we tap into a part of the frontal region of the brain when performing visual, goal-related tasks. Some of us do it well, whereas for others it's a bit challenging. One researcher set out to investigate why, and what specifically this part of the brain, called the pre-supplementary motor area, does during searching.

NASA lander captures marsquakes, other Martian sounds

NASA's InSight lander on Mars has captured the low rumble of marsquakes and a symphony of other otherworldly sounds. InSight's seismometer has detected more than 100 events, but only 21 are considered strong marsquake candidates. The French seismometer is so sensitive it can hear the Martian wind as well as movements by the lander's robot arm and other mechanical "dinks and donks " as the team...

Relativity Space raises $140M to stay on track for 3D-printed rocket’s launch

Four years after it was founded in Seattle, Relativity Space has landed its biggest infusion of capital to date — and says the $140 million investment will fully fund its drive to launch the world's first all-3D-printed rocket into orbit and enter commercial service in 2021. The company, now based in Los Angeles, was founded by two rocket engineers with connections to Jeff Bezos' Blue...

Why multipartite viruses infect plants rather than animals

Being in between living and non-living, viruses are, in general, strange. Among viruses, multipartite viruses are among the most peculiar -- their genome is not packed into one, but many, particles. Multipartite viruses primarily infect plants rather than animals. A recent article uses mathematical and computational models to explain this observation.

Early warning signals heralded fatal collapse of Krakatau volcano

On 22 December 2018, a flank of the Anak Krakatau plunged into the Sunda strait between the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java, triggering a tsunami that killed 430 people. An international research team has now shown that the volcano produced clear warning signals before its collapse. The researchers recommend to use their study to improve monitoring of volcanoes.

Product authentication at your fingertips

Chemists have fabricated for the first time plasmonic color-switchable films of silver nanoparticles. Until now, such color changing of nanoparticles was mainly achieved in liquids, limiting their potential for practical applications. The technology has a number of applications: product authentication, color displays, signage, sensors, and information encryption.

Protozoans and pathogens make for an infectious mix

The new observation that strains of V. cholerae can be expelled into the environment after being ingested by protozoa, and that these bacteria are then primed for colonization and infection in humans, could help explain why cholera is so persistent in aquatic environments. The disease-causing bacteria are protected in the protozoan gut and ejected into the environment in membrane-bound expelled...

NASA to Broadcast Launch of Mission to Study the Frontier of Space

Portal origin URL: NASA to Broadcast Launch of Mission to Study the Frontier of SpacePortal origin nid: 452732Published: Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - 12:52Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) is scheduled to be air-launched over the Atlantic Ocean at 9:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Oct. 9, by Northrop Grumman’s...

Vitamin C therapy linked to better survival rates after sepsis

New research suggests that patients with sepsis and septic lung injury could have a better chance of survival and recover more quickly when treated with vitamin C infusions. On average, the vitamin C group spent three fewer days in the ICU at day 28 and a week less in the hospital overall by day 60 than the placebo group.

Barrier to rural opioid treatment: Driving distance to methadone clinics

People who live in rural counties in five states heavily affected by the opioid epidemic must drive longer distances to obtain methadone, a treatment for opioid addiction, compared to individuals from urban counties, say researchers. Their study suggests these long drive times in rural counties could be reduced by making methadone more accessible in primary care clinics.

Early warning signals heralded fatal collapse of Krakatau volcano

On 22 December 2018, a flank of the Anak Krakatau volcano plunged into the Sunda strait between the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java, triggering a tsunami that killed 430 people. An international research team led by Thomas Walter of the German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ in Potsdam has now shown that the volcano produced clear warning signals before its collapse. This was the result...

New research identifies the strengths and weaknesses of super material

Imagine a velvety, soft material that is extremely light, but also strong enough to stop a bullet. This is close to a description of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE), a super-plastic material commercially known as Dyneema or Spectra, which is already taking over from the para-aramid fibrous material, Kevlar, in e.g. bullet-proof jackets.

How to bend flat glass perfectly around corners

Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM have developed a new process that can bend sheets of glass to produce angular corners. Unlike conventional processes, this does not impair the optical properties of the glass. Bent glass looks destined to play a key role in future building design, and there are also potential applications in the fields of medical technology...

New method improves measurement of animal behavior using deep learning

A new toolkit goes beyond existing machine learning methods by measuring body posture in animals with high speed and accuracy. Developed by researchers from the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective behavior at the University of Konstanz and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, this deep learning toolkit, called DeepPoseKit, combines previous methods for pose estimation with...

Lab-made blood vessels: Mechanics matters

Biodegradable tubes that turn into living blood vessels once implanted in the human body. In an imaginary, modern remake of Fantastic Voyage, Isaac Asimov would probably navigate his submersible through the folds of our cardiovascular system, to figure out how this process occurs. And, he would understand that, regardless of how perfect these tubes look in the lab, once implanted in the human...

Researchers open a new path to end citric fruit alternate bearing

Researchers of Valencia's Polytechnic University and international collaborators have established the epigenetic mechanism through which citrus fruit inhibits the flowering of citric fruit trees. This discovery is essential to understand alternate bearing, a phenomenon that affects a large number of the most prized citric fruit varieties and which globally accounts for annual losses of around...

A metronome for quantum particles

A new measurement protocol, developed at TU Wien (Vienna), makes it possible to measure the quantum phase of electrons—an important step for attosecond physics.

Science Live - A World of Fires

At any given time, there is a fire burning somewhere on Earth. As the climate warms, it has directly affected the way fires occur, with longer fire seasons and more extreme fires that are harder to suppress. With a fleet of satellites orbiting Earth, NASA has a unique perspective to keep an eye on these fires, the impact they have on ecosystems, and how smoke degrades air quality for local...

Physicist suggests 'quantum foam' may explain away huge cosmic energy

Steven Carlip, a physicist at the University of California, has come up with a theory to explain why empty space seems to be filled with a huge amount of energy—it may be hidden by effects that are canceling it out at the Planck scale. He has published a paper describing his new theory in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Rotation on an eight-shaped path

Chemical engineers at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, Germany, have developed the first molecular motor that enables an eight-shaped movement.