Feed aggregator

Scientists have gained the best view yet of the brightest explosions in the universe: A specialised observatory in Namibia has recorded the most energetic radiation and longest gamma-ray afterglow of a so-called gamma-ray burst to date. The observations with the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) challenge the idea of how gamma-rays are produced in these colossal stellar explosions which are the birth cries of black holes, as the international team reports in the journal Science.

Researchers from the University of Kansas have published a study in PLOS ONE examining if the speech-to-song illusion happens in adults who are 55 or older as powerfully as it does with younger people.

A new study by ecologist André de Roos shows that differences between juveniles and adults of the same species are crucial for the stability of complex ecological communities. The research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, represents a major advance in ecological modeling at a time when biodiversity is declining and species around the world are rapidly going extinct.

After a detailed study of digital technology in a hospital, MIT Sloan professor Kate Kellogg finds that experimenting with the technology, and then working to implement the best practices through coordinated governance, can help organizations better integrate technology in the workplace.

The open-access study, published by the international DARU Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, is entitled 'Surging trends in prescriptions and costs of antidepressants in England amid COVID-19' and has investigated the trends in prescriptions and costs of various antidepressants in England during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Interdisciplinary team finds combining certain data after a patient's first treatment can predict how a tumor will respond to chemotherapy.

Postpartum women in bad romantic relationships are not only more likely to suffer symptoms of depression, they are also at greater long-term risk of illness or death, according to new research from Rice University, Ohio State University and the University of California, Irvine.

Louisiana State University marine geologist and paleoclimatologist Kristine DeLong's new research findings uncover new information about the underwater ancient cypress forest and the Gulf Coast's past.

Researchers set out to learn how extreme winter cold and heat affected 41 common bird species in eastern North America. They found that individual bird species respond differently to these weather events, and extreme winter heat may lead to longer-term changes in bird populations.

High performance computers are central to the quest to understand the sun's behavior and its role in space weather events. With funding from NSF and NASA, scientists are using the Frontera supercomputer to improve the state-of-the-art in space weather forecasting. Writing in the Astrophysical Journal in April 2021, researchers described the role of backstreaming pickup ions in the acceleration of charged particles in the universe, which play an important role in space weather.

Many data scientists try to create models that can "fit an elephant," referring to a complex set of data points. CSHL Professor Partha Mitra describes how he views problems like these in Nature Machine Intelligence. While the role of strong prior knowledge can work well in some situations, the complete absence of prior assumptions will work adequately in others. Mitra discusses a middle ground that incorporates a little bit of both points of view.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the National Academy of Medicine, Manson and co-author Cynthia Stuenkel, M.D., of the University of California San Diego's School of Medicine, wrote a Perspective piece for The New England Journal of Medicine chronicling major points of progress in women's health since the 1970s and expectations for the future.

In a trio of papers, researchers have discovered the detailed inner workings of the molecular motor that packages genetic material into double-stranded DNA viruses. The advance provides insight into a critical step in the reproduction cycle of viruses such as pox-, herpes- and adeno-viruses. It could also give inspiration to researchers creating microscopic machines based on naturally occurring biomotors.

Researchers at the University of East Anglia have developed technology that will help to protect North American right whales, one of the world's most endangered marine species. The new techniques can remove unwanted noises from recordings, thereby increasing the reliability of detecting right whales before they reach close proximity to large vessels. This can both protect animals and avoid costly shutdowns of offshore operations.

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh used a whole-body 7-Tesla MRI scanner alongside their optimized Tic-Tac-Toe RF head coil system to study sickle cell disease's impact on the brain. They discovered that SCD can have a severe effect on specific subfields of the hippocampus - a highly complex part of the human brain that controls learning and memory and is very susceptible to injury or disorders.

A breakthrough technology uses nanoscale sensors and fiber optics to measure water status just inside a leaf's surface, providing a tool to greatly advance our understanding of basic plant biology, and opening the door for breeding more drought-resistant crops.

Patients with dementia and especially Alzheimer's run a threefold risk of dying as a result of infection by SARS-CoV-2. The risk is six times greater if they are over 80, according to a study by Brazilian researchers.

Many countries promote the expansion of wind farms. However, if these offshore wind farms are set up close to each other, wind energy and hence electricity yield is reduced. A study by the Helmholtz Zentrum Hereon, which has now been published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, shows that the losses with increasing offshore wind energy production will be considerable and detectable as large scale pattern of reduced wind speed around wind farms.

The spatially resolved determination of which of the two enantiomorphic structural variants -- the left-handed or the right-handed -- of a chiral phase is present in a polycrystalline material is the focus of our publication in Science Advances. With the EBSD (electron backscatter diffraction) -based technique, this is shown for the first time for the chiral element structure β-Mn for which a determination of the handedness with usual x-ray diffraction methods is not possible so far.

The number of data-transmitting microdevices, for instance in packaging and transport logistics, will increase sharply in the coming years. All these devices need energy, but the amount of batteries would have a major impact on the environment. Empa researchers have developed a biodegradable mini-capacitor that can solve the problem. It consists of carbon, cellulose, glycerin and table salt. And it works reliably.