The moons of planets that have no parent star can possess an atmosphere and retain liquid water. Astrophysicists at LMU have calculated that such systems could harbor sufficient water to make life possible - and sustain it. Water - in liquid form - is the elixir of life. It made life possible on Earth and is indispensable for the continuing existence of living systems on the planet. This explains why scientists are constantly on the lookout for evidence of water on other solid bodies in the Universe. Up to now, however, the existence of liquid water on planets other than Earth has not been directly proven. However, ...

The increased use of ridesharing apps was linked to a decrease in motor vehicle collisions and impaired driving convictions in Houston, according to published research by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). The findings were published today in JAMA Surgery. Christopher Conner, MD, PhD, neurosurgery resident in the Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth and the study's lead author, said the research is timely as more individuals are utilizing ridesharing apps. "Automobile accidents are the leading cause of death and disability among young people, so anything we can do to reduce those incidents ...

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer among men, according to the American Cancer Society. It's also one of the trickiest cancers to diagnose and treat. But new research from the University of Georgia has identified a protein that appears to prevent the cancer from spreading to and colonizing the bone, providing a new target for future therapeutics. "Unfortunately, prostate cancer that has spread to the bone is very aggressive, often lethal and very difficult to treat," said Brian Cummings, corresponding author of the study and head of the College of Pharmacy's pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences department. "Even in cases of successful treatment, the patient's quality of life is severely lessened due to bone loss." Prostate cancer that hasn't spread beyond nearby ...

There are still many unsolved mysteries about the human brain and its development. Now, a novel study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry sheds new light on the neurobiological origins of our individual traits. Functional connectivity is the coordinated activity - activation or deactivation - through time between separate brain regions, regardless of their physical closeness or the type of neural connections between them. Changes in functional connectivity can be a sign of mental health disorders such as depression, eating disorders, and schizophrenia, and are thought to have developmental origins. We know that mental health is characterized by three functional brain networks. The first is hypoconnectivity ...

People who have a high sensation-seeking personality trait may be more likely to develop an addiction to cocaine, according to a Rutgers study. "Although many people try illicit drugs like cocaine or heroin, only a small proportion develop an addiction," said lead author Morgan James, a member of the Rutgers Brain Health Institute and an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. "The interaction found between sensation-seeking traits and the drug-taking experience show that predisposition to addiction has a genetic basis, and that this interacts with environmental factors such as patterns of drug use. The sensation-seeking trait was predictive of rats' likelihood to exhibit stronger ...

For older adults, participating in social activities can protect against physical and mental signs of aging, but it may also pose risks, especially for women. A new analysis of national data led by UC San Francisco found that older women who were broadly engaged in social activities before the COVID pandemic had 76 percent higher odds of experiencing emotional abuse or mistreatment than women who were less engaged. The paper is published June 9, 2021 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. "Given widespread discussion about the negative effects of social isolation of ...

Research from the University of Washington shows that endangered blue whales are present and singing off the southwest coast of India. The results suggest that conservation measures should include this region, which is considering expanding tourism. Analysis of recordings from late 2018 to early 2020 in Lakshadweep, an archipelago of 36 low-lying islands west of the Indian state of Kerala, detected whales with a peak activity in April and May. The study was published in May in the journal Marine Mammal Science. "The presence of blue whales in Indian waters is well known from several strandings and some live sightings of blue whales," said lead author Divya Panicker, a ...

A new study conducted by the researchers at the University of Liverpool reveals how the ancient photosynthetic organisms - cyanobacteria - evolve their photosynthetic machinery and organise their photosynthetic membrane architecture for the efficient capture of solar light and energy transduction. Oxygenic photosynthesis, carried out by plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, produces energy and oxygen for life on Earth and is arguably the most important biological process. Cyanobacteria are among the earliest phototrophs that can perform oxygenic photosynthesis and make significant contributions to the Earth's atmosphere and primary production. Light-dependent photosynthetic reactions are performed by a set of photosynthetic ...

Laser-produced high energy density plasmas, akin to those found in stars, nuclear explosions, and the core of giant planets, may be the most extreme state of matter created on Earth. Now scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), building on nearly a decade of collaboration with the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), have designed a novel X-ray crystal spectrometer to provide high-resolution measurements of a challenging feature of NIF-produced HED plasmas. Most powerful lasers The ...

An international research team led by members from the Technical University of Munich, the Deutsches Museum, Munich, and the Swedish Linköping University has developed a method to manufacture two-dimensional polymers with the thickness of a single molecule. The polymers are formed on a surface by the action of light. The discovery paves the way to new ultrathin and functional materials. The quest for new two-dimensional materials has rapidly intensified after the discovery of graphene - a supermaterial whose excellent properties include high conductivity and strength, making it incredibly versatile. Two main ...

WASHINGTON -- In a new study, researchers demonstrate an automated, easy-to-operate quantum key distribution (QKD) system using the fiber network in the city of Padua, Italy. The field test represents an important step toward implementing this highly secure quantum communication technology using the type of communication networks already in place in many regions around the world. QKD offers impenetrable encryption for data communication because it uses the quantum properties of light to generate secure random keys for encrypting and decrypting data. "QKD can be useful in any situation where security is paramount because it offers unconditional security for the key exchange process," ...

Two gene variants found in African American women may explain why they are more likely to be diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) than white women of European ancestry, according to Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian investigators. The study findings may have implications for developing better risk assessment tools for TNBC in African American women and for understanding why they have poorer TNBC outcomes. In a study, published April 29 in Scientific Reports, the investigators found that a version of the ANKLE1 gene that can be protective against TNBC is less likely to be found in African American women than white women of European ancestry. In addition, African American women with a mutation in the Duffy gene, which plays a role in inflammation, ...

Inside each proton or neutron there are three quarks bound by gluons. Until now, it has often been assumed that two of them form a "stable" pair known as a diquark. It seems, however, that it's the end of the road for the diquarks in physics. This is one of the conclusions of the new model of proton-proton or proton-nucleus collisions, which takes into account the interactions of gluons with the sea of virtual quarks and antiquarks. In physics, the emergence of a new theoretical model often augurs badly for old concepts. This is also the case with the description of collisions of protons with protons or atomic nuclei, proposed by scientists from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN) ...

Organic residues on ceramic pottery are a valuable resource for understanding medieval cuisines of Islamic-ruled Sicily, according to a study published June 9, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Jasmine Lundy of the University of York, UK and colleagues. During the 9th to 12th century AD, Sicily was under Islamic rule. This transition is known to have profoundly impacted the region, and the capital city of Palermo thrived as an economic and cultural center of the Mediterranean Islamic world. But little is known about how the lives of people in the region were impacted during this important time period. In this study, researchers examined organic residues of plant and animal products on ceramic pottery to gain insights ...

Today, solar energy provides 2% of U.S. power. However, by 2050, renewables are predicted to be the most used energy source (surpassing petroleum and other liquids, natural gas, and coal) and solar will overtake wind as the leading source of renewable power. To reach that point, and to make solar power more affordable, solar technologies still require a number of breakthroughs. One is the ability to more efficiently transform photons of light from the Sun into useable energy.Organic photovoltaics max out at 15% to 20% efficiency -- substantial, but a limit on solar energy's potential. Lehigh University engineer Ganesh Balasubramanian, like many others, wondered if there were ways to improve the design of solar cells to make them more ...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (JUNE 8, 2021) -- Chronic inflammation in the gut may propel processes in the body that give rise to Parkinson's disease, according to a study by scientists at Van Andel Institute and Roche. The study, published in Free Neuropathology, is the latest in a growing list that links the gut and the immune system to Parkinson's. The researchers' findings in an experimental mouse model of gut inflammation track with several large-scale epidemiological studies that show an association between Parkinson's and inflammatory bowel diseases, such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. Epidemiological evidence from other groups indicates the risk of developing Parkinson's fades in certain people whose ...

Small pieces of plastic are everywhere, stretching from urban environments to pristine wilderness. Left to their own devices, it can take hundreds of years for them to degrade completely. Catalysts activated by sunlight could speed up the process, but getting these compounds to interact with microplastics is difficult. In a proof-of-concept study, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces developed self-propelled microrobots that can swim, attach to plastics and break them down. While plastic products are omnipresent indoors, plastic waste and broken bits now litter the outdoors, too. The smallest of these ...

TORONTO, June 9, 2021 - Researchers from York University and the University of British Columbia have found social media use to be one of the factors related to the spread of COVID-19 within dozens of countries during the early stages of the pandemic. The researchers say this finding resembles other examples of social media misinformation ranging from the initial phase of vaccine rollout to the 2021 Capitol riot in the United States. Countries with high social media use leading to off-line political action prior to the pandemic, as surveyed before the pandemic by V-Dem (a database from the University of Gothenburg), showed ...

Skoltech researchers and their colleagues from RAS Institute for Physics of Microstructures, Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, ITMO University, Lomonosov Moscow State University, and A.M. Prokhorov General Physics Institute have found a way to increase photoluminescence in silicon, the notoriously poor emitter and absorber of photons at the heart of all modern electronics. This discovery may pave the way to photonic integrated circuits, boosting their performance. The paper was published in the journal Laser and Photonics Reviews. "Natural selection" in semiconductor technology ...

Vertebrate life began in the water, but around 340-360 million years ago, four-limbed creatures, or tetrapods, made the transition onto land. In the years that followed, some species adapted to terrestrial life, while others turned back to the water and readapted to an aquatic lifestyle. A new study of these early amphibians, published in the journal PLOS ONE and led by Penn paleontologist Aja Carter, suggests that these environmental shifts left an impression--on the shape of the animals' spines. "I'm interested in how the shapes of the vertebrae affect how animals move," she says. "Our findings suggest that, in at least one part of the vertebrae, the shape of the bones ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University engineers have developed a method to transform existing cloth items into battery-free wearables resistant to laundry. These smart clothes are powered wirelessly through a flexible, silk-based coil sewn on the textile. In the near future, all your clothes will become smart. These smart cloths will outperform conventional passive garments, thanks to their miniaturized electronic circuits and sensors, which will allow you to seamlessly communicate with your phone, computer, car and other machines. This smart clothing will not only make you more productive but also check on your health status and even call for help if you suffer an accident. The reason why this smart clothing ...

As many as 450,000 Americans die every year from a sudden, fatal heart condition, and in slightly more than one in ten cases the cause remains unexplained even after an autopsy. Researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and their colleagues found that nearly 20 percent of patients with unexplained sudden cardiac death - most of whom were under age 50 - carried rare genetic variants. These variants likely raised their risk of sudden cardiac death. In some cases, their deaths may have been prevented if their doctors had known about their genetic predisposition to heart disease. The study findings were published ...

WASHINGTON--After their initial blast, space rockets shoot away from the Earth with rumbles in infrasound, soundwaves too low to be heard by human ears that can travel thousands of miles. New research used a system for monitoring nuclear tests to track the infrasound from 1,001 rocket launches. The research identified the distinctive sounds from seven different types of rockets, including the Space Shuttles, Falcon 9 rockets, various Soyuz rockets, the European Space Agency's Ariane 5, Russian Protons and several types of Chinese Long March rockets. In some cases, like the Space Shuttle and the Falcon 9, the researchers were also able to identify the various stages of the rockets' journey. https://youtu.be/IfMtEcNkkho The ...

Smokers needed their blocked arteries fixed nearly a decade earlier than non-smokers, and patients with obesity underwent these procedures four years earlier than non-obese patients, according to a new statewide study. The research included patients without a history of heart attack who were treated at hospitals across Michigan participating in BMC2, the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Cardiovascular Consortium. The patients had undergone angioplasty and/or stenting to widen or unblock their coronary arteries and restore blood flow. Almost all of them had at least one traditional ...

Millions of people with diabetes are at risk of developing foot ulcers, which often lead to amputations and other health complications. Now, Scientists from the Centre for Biomechanics and Rehabilitation Technologies (CRBT) have developed a new method to reliably detect this risk without the need for complex electronic in-shoe sensors. Dr Panagiotis Chatzistergos, Associate Professor in Orthopaedic Biomechanics, explained: "In the UK alone, 169 people have a toe, foot or limb amputated as a result of diabetes every week, yet importantly up to 80% of these amputations could have been prevented with correct management. "Routine overloading ...