Potentially habitable 'exo-Venus' with Earth-like temperature discovered Royal Astronomical Society press release RAS PR 24/12 Embargoed until 15:00 BST on Thursday 23 May 2024   Astronomers have made the rare and tantalising discovery of an Earth-like exoplanet 40 light-years away that may be just a little warmer than our own world. The potentially-habitable planet, named Gliese 12 b, orbits its host star every 12.8 days, is comparable in size to Venus - so slightly smaller than ...

The discovery of a planet similar to Venus around a star in the neighborhood of the Solar System raises hopes that astronomers may someday unlock the secret to why life appeared on Earth. The study of life in the Universe is difficult because we have only one example of a planet where life has been confirmed: Earth. It is difficult to say which characteristics of Earth are required for life to appear, and which are irrelevant. Until we find an “Earth twin” where the conditions for life also appeared, the best astronomers ...

Lupus is a lifelong, often painful and occasionally lethal autoimmune disease. Few treatments exist today beyond powerful steroids to knock down a patient's immune system — a therapy that has its own serious risks. The good news is that new and promising treatments are in clinical trials. But the term lupus belies the fact that the disease has a variety of causes, which means that treatments will have to be highly personalized to guarantee that each patient is given the drug that targets the specific genetic mutation ...

Both literally and figuratively, light pervades the world. It banishes darkness, conveys telecommunications signals between continents and makes visible the invisible, from faraway galaxies to the smallest bacterium. Light can also help heat the plasma within ring-shaped devices known as tokamaks as scientists worldwide strive to harness the fusion process to generate green electricity. Now, scientists have made discoveries about light particles known as photons that could aid the quest for fusion ...

When we think about drones, we tend to think about Amazon. But their potential is much greater, and arguably far more important, than dropping off a box of laundry pods by lunchtime (an idea that’s struggled to take off since Jeff Bezos floated it more than a decade ago).  Aerial robots could be a huge asset, saving time, money, and workers’ well-being, in industries like construction where humans often have to heft materials up multiple floors, says David Saldaña, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering. They could also deliver ...

Dr. Ifana Mahbub, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at The University of Texas at Dallas, has been awarded the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Director’s Fellowship to continue her research to develop wireless technology to recharge unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in flight. DARPA awards the fellowships to its Young Faculty Award recipients who demonstrate exceptional performance. Mahbub received a Young Faculty Award, which provided $500,000 over ...

Background and Aims Oncology patients undergoing cancer treatment and experiencing episodes of fever are known to be at increased risk for invasive bacterial infection, including bloodstream infection. This study aimed to identify the incidence of bacteremia along with the bloodstream isolates for immunocompromised oncology patients referred to the emergency department (ED) due to fever.   Methods Oncology patients with fever were referred to the ED according to a protocol previously reported. Virtually ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Economic difficulty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic led to a cascade of connected problems for some parents – resulting in mental health problems for their children, a new study suggests.   Researchers found that economic insecurity was linked to higher levels of depressive symptoms for parents, which was then associated with poorer relationship quality for the couples.  That was linked with more harsh parenting and then to increased internalizing behaviors for their children.   “Pandemic-induced ...

Summer is coming and that means more boats in the sea. Danish coastal waters are especially cluttered with small boats in the summertime. Locals water skiing, going fishing or just riding around the beautiful bays and fjords. In general people relax and have a good time on the water, but that is unfortunately not the case for the harbor porpoise. The more motor boats speeding noisily around, the more they are disturbed. And that can be a big problem for the animals.  Because the harbor porpoise is a relatively large animal that feeds on small fish it needs to spend a lot of time hunting. New research shows that it spends around 60 percent of its time on the hunt, but ...

In organic chemistry, π-stacking systems are supramolecular structures that arise due to the dispersion force, a type of intermolecular noncovalent interaction. They are a common occurrence in nature; the stabilized structure of DNA is a very prominent example of a π-stacking system, and so are the arrangement of amino acids in certain proteins. Interestingly, π-stacking can be leveraged in the design of materials with useful electronic and optical properties. These include organic semiconductors of various kinds, as well as conjugated polymers for sensing and biomedical applications. Thus far, a good portion of technologically relevant π-stacking system has been limited ...

The first scientific pictures from the Euclid satellite mission have revealed more than 1,500 billion orphan stars scattered throughout the Perseus cluster of galaxies.  Led by astronomers from the University of Nottingham, this discovery sheds light on the origins of these celestial wanderers. The Perseus cluster, located 240 million light-years away from Earth, is one of the Universe's most massive structures, boasting thousands of galaxies. However, amidst this cosmic ensemble, the Euclid satellite captured faint ghostly light - the orphan stars - drifting between the cluster's galaxies.  Stars naturally form within galaxies, so the presence of orphan ...

As the European Space Agency publishes the first findings from its Euclid space telescope, scientists from the University of Surrey are celebrating fresh insights from the data. Dr Denis Erkal, Associate Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Surrey, studies how the gravity of the Milky Way pulls clusters of stars apart, creating streams of stars trailing across the galaxy.   Now, his model for how this happens (video HERE) has been confirmed by data from Euclid. Dr Erkal said: “For a long time, my modelling ...

Scientists have released the first set of scientific data captured with the Euclid telescope, showing an exciting glimpse of the Universe’s distant past. The telescope, launched in July 2023, is part of the Dark Energy Satellite Mission, which aims to map the dark Universe. Led by the European Space Agency in collaboration with The Euclid Consortium - which includes astronomers at The University of Manchester in leadership positions – the mission seeks to unlock mysteries of dark matter and dark energy and reveal how and why the Universe looks as it does today. Early observations, described in a series ...

What should the medicine of the future look like? A team of scientists writing in Frontiers in Science lays out a bold vision for precision approaches to understanding, preventing, and treating diseases, driven by revolutionary technologies and new interdisciplinary collaborations between researchers and other health sector professionals. The internationally renowned authors – led by Prof Michel Goldman, recipient of the Blaise Pascal Medal 2024 for his exceptional contributions to immunology and healthcare innovation, and leading microbiologist Prof Philippe Sansonetti from the Institut Pasteur and Collège ...

Peer-reviewed - survey - people  Nurses who assess patients at emergency departments would like more training and say their decisions can be negatively impacted by the high pressures of their work.  Researchers at the University of East Anglia conducted the first ever UK survey of triage nurses to discover the background, training and decision-making processes of this role in emergency departments.  Lead author Hugh Gorick, a PhD researcher at UEA’s School of Health Sciences who also works as an assistant practitioner in an NHS hospital’s Acute Medical Unit, said: “More than 24 million patients present to emergency departments ...

Water scarcity will intensify with climate and socioeconomic change, disproportionately impacting populations located in the Global South. So concludes a new Utrecht University article published in Nature Climate Change on 23 May 2024, which used a state-of-the-art global water quantity and quality model to estimate clean water scarcity until the end of the century. Humans require clean water for drinking and sanitation purposes, but also for the production of food, energy and manufactured goods. As communities and policymakers grapple with water scarcity issues on the ground, researchers ...

A small antibiotic called plectasin uses an innovative mechanism to kill bacteria. By assembling into large structures, plectasin latches onto its target on the bacterial cell surface comparable to how both sides of Velcro form a bond. A research team, led by structural biologist Markus Weingarth and biochemist Eefjan Breukink  at Utrecht University, mapped how the Velcro-structure is formed. Their discovery, published in the scientific journal Nature Microbiology, unveils a new approach that could have broad implications for the development of antibiotics to ...

LOS ANGELES — World-renowned physicians and researchers from City of Hope®, one of the largest cancer research and treatment organizations in the United States, will present new data and offer expert perspectives on leading-edge cancer research and treatments in development at the 2024 ASCO Annual Meeting, which will take place in Chicago from May 31 to June 4. Highlights include the following: 2024 Best of ASCO® program: New data on mismatched unrelated donor peripheral blood stem cell transplantation Late-breaking data on the phase 3 CodeBreaK 300 trial Glofitamab monotherapy for patients ...

When it comes to the animal kingdom, bigger is better. Well, at least for proboscis monkeys, famously known for their long, large and droopy noses. Researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) have provided a world-first explanation for why male proboscis monkeys have larger and “enhanced” nasal structures. The researchers examined the bony nasal cavity inside the skulls of proboscis monkeys and found their large noses are more than just an eye sore and in fact offer several major benefits, especially when ...

About The Study: The results of this cohort study suggest that first-seizure clinic (FSC) attendance, particularly early attendance, was associated with reduced rates of subsequent hospital utilization. This knowledge may support adequately resourcing FSCs to improve equitable, timely access. Future study directions include assessing interventions that may support FSC attendance for at-risk groups. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Emma Foster, M.B.B.S.(Hons), Ph.D., email emma.foster@monash.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2024.1187) Editor’s ...

A new paper in Nicotine and Tobacco Research, published by Oxford University Press, shows that advertising and sales of vaping products is common on TikTok, the video sharing platform popular among teenagers. Users pushing these items often use hashtags like #puffbundles to disguise vaping products by including things like lip gloss and candy in the packages for sale. Despite smoking rates reaching an all-time low in the United States, public health professionals are concerned about adolescent use of electronic cigarettes. In 2023 some 4.7 million (17%) middle school and high school students ...

The prevalence of pathogenic E. coli has meant the frequent misidentification of a similar bacterium of the Escherichia genus. E. albertii is an emerging zoonotic foodborne pathogen, first isolated in Bangladesh in 1991. Large-scale outbreaks of food poisoning caused by E. albertii have since been reported especially in Japan, causing severe symptoms in both children and adults. In the hopes of establishing a diagnostic method, a joint research group led by Professor Shinji Yamasaki and Dr. Sharda Prasad Awasthi, a specially appointed ...

An exploration into the national U.S. dataset on children ever diagnosed with ADHD has revealed an “ongoing and ever-expanding” public health issue.    Findings published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology uncover that approximately one million more children, aged 3-17, had received an ADHD diagnosis in 2022 than in 2016.    The paper reveals around one in nine children have ever received an ADHD diagnosis – 11.4%, ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (May 23, 2024) — Positive sports experiences can be a game changer for kids, with physical, social, emotional and mental health benefits that last a lifetime, according to a new survey from The Kids Mental Health Foundation. However, youth mental health advocates with The Kids Mental Health Foundation stress the importance of ongoing conversations with young athletes about how their sports are impacting their confidence, self-esteem and happiness, whether it’s positive or negative.  The national survey conducted by Ipsos on behalf of The Kids Mental Health Foundation finds parents overwhelmingly ...

A study from the University of Adelaide has discovered molecular pathways regulated by a gene traditionally used to control wheat-flowering behaviour could be altered to achieve greater yields. The gene is called Photoperiod-1 (Ppd-1) and it is used regularly by breeders to ensure wheat crops flower and set grain earlier in the season, avoiding the harsh conditions of summer. However, there are known drawbacks. “While this variation benefits wheat productivity by aligning pollination and grain development with more favourable environmental conditions, it also penalises yield by reducing the number of ...