As the cosmetics industry continues to shift to more natural ingredients, some natural preservatives have been found to not be strong enough to withstand the conditions of large-scale manufacturing processes compared to chemical counterparts. One University of Cincinnati program is addressing the issue. “The manufacturing process is optimized to work with the current system, and as a result, when they are trying to make products with these new materials, we are ending up with an increased number of cases of microbiological ...

WASHINGTON, May 3, 2023 – This year and next, Americans will have the extraordinary opportunity to witness two solar eclipses as both will be visible throughout the continental U.S. On Oct. 14, 2023, the moon will obscure all but a small annulus of the sun, producing a “ring of fire” eclipse. On April 8, 2024, the eclipse will be total in a band stretching from Texas to Maine. Both occurrences promise to be remarkable events and teachable moments. But preparation is essential. In The Physics Teacher, co-published ...

An Oak Ridge National Laboratory-developed advanced manufacturing technology, AMCM, was recently licensed by Orbital Composites and enables the rapid production of composite-based components, which could accelerate the decarbonization of vehicles, airplanes and drones. Additive manufacturing compression molding, or AMCM, uses short-fiber-filled polymer and continuous fiber to print directly onto a mold with precise orientation to make parts such as propeller blades or battery boxes. Compression molding then ...

Inside a lab, scientists marvel at a strange state that forms when they cool down atoms to nearly absolute zero. Outside their window, trees gather sunlight and turn them into new leaves. The two seem unrelated—but a new study from the University of Chicago suggests that these processes aren’t so different as they might appear on the surface. The study, published in PRX Energy on April 28, found links at the atomic level between photosynthesis and exciton condensates—a strange state of physics that allows energy to flow frictionlessly ...

WASHINGTON — Researchers have developed a new high-speed way to detect the location, size and category of multiple objects without acquiring images or requiring complex scene reconstruction. Because the new approach greatly decreases the computing power necessary for object detection, it could be useful for identifying hazards while driving. “Our technique is based on a single-pixel detector, which enables efficient and robust multi-object detection directly from a small number of 2D measurements,” said research team leader Liheng Bian from the Beijing Institute ...

New research highlights potential safety concerns around women taking romosozumab, a new anti-osteoporosis drug available on the NHS. The University of Bristol-led study, published in Arthritis & Rheumatology, analysed genetic data on nearly 34,000 people. Despite romosozumab being particularly effective at reducing the risk of fracture in women with severe osteoporosis, potential safety concerns following trial data suggest the drug may cause an increased risk of heart attack. However, subsequent research has produced conflicting results. An international team, led by Bristol Medical School researchers, sought to investigate whether, ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A power transmission grid can be destabilized by hackers who manipulate smart meters to create an oscillation in electricity demand, researchers in the Oregon State University College of Engineering have shown. Findings were published in IEEE Access. The study is important because understanding where a grid’s vulnerabilities lie and what they look like is the first step in designing protection mechanisms, says associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science Eduardo Cotilla-Sanchez, who led the project with graduate student Falah Alanazi. A ...

The need to capture CO2 and transport it for permanent storage or conversion into valued end uses is a national priority recently identified in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to move toward net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.  Now, Northwestern University researchers have worked with an international team of collaborators to create acetic acid out of carbon monoxide derived from captured carbon. The innovation, which uses a novel catalyst created in the lab of professor Ted Sargent, could spur new interest in carbon capture and storage. “Carbon capture is feasible today from a technical point of view, but not yet from an economic point ...

Virtual consulting is a new and emerging contributor to environmentally sustainable health care, according to findings of new research published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift to virtual consulting, leading to its growing use. As health systems across the world strive to achieve net-zero carbon emissions, a critical question arises: what is the impact of virtual consulting on environmental sustainability in health care? A new research study led by Sara Shaw and team aims to address this ...

LOS ANGELES — For the first time, USC Verdugo Hills Hospital (USC-VHH) earned an “A” Hospital Safety Grade from The Leapfrog Group, an independent national watchdog organization, for achieving the highest national standards in patient safety. This achievement places USC-VHH among top tier hospitals in the nation for safety and quality.   “Our entire staff is dedicated to improving and upholding the highest standards of patient care,” said Mary Virgallito, MSN, RN, chief quality officer at USC-VHH. “This score reinforces our ...

As a star runs out of fuel, it will billow out to a million times its original size, engulfing any matter — and planets — in its wake. Scientists have observed hints of stars just before, and shortly after, the act of consuming entire planets, but they have never caught one in the act until now.  In a study that will appear in Nature, scientists at MIT, Harvard University, Caltech, and elsewhere report that they have observed a star swallowing a planet, for the first time.  The ...

Artefacts made of stone, bones or teeth provide important insights into the subsistence strategies of early humans, their behavior and culture. However, until now it has been difficult to attribute these artefacts to specific individuals, since burials and grave goods were very rare in the Palaeolithic. This has limited the possibilities of drawing conclusions about, for example, division of labor or the social roles of individuals during this period. In order to directly link cultural objects to specific individuals and thus gain deeper insights into Paleolithic ...

  Graphics  //  Video Traces of sex hormones extracted from a woolly mammoth's tusk provide the first direct evidence that adult males experienced musth, a testosterone-driven episode of heightened aggression against rival males, according to a new University of Michigan-led study.   In male elephants, elevated testosterone during musth was previously recognized from blood and urine tests. Musth battles in extinct relatives of modern elephants have been inferred from skeletal injuries, broken tusk tips and other indirect lines of evidence.   But the new study, scheduled ...

About The Study: The findings of this systematic review and meta-analysis of secondary data from 40 studies suggest that the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against laboratory-confirmed Omicron or Delta infection and symptomatic disease rapidly wanes over time after the primary vaccination cycle and booster dose. These results can inform the design of appropriate targets and timing for future vaccination programs.  Authors: Piero Poletti, Ph.D., of the Bruno Kessler Foundation in Trento, Italy, is the corresponding author.  To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this ...

Menlo Park, Calif. – Photosynthesis plays a crucial role in shaping and sustaining life on Earth, yet many aspects of the process remain a mystery. One such mystery is how Photosystem II, a protein complex in plants, algae and cyanobacteria, harvests energy from sunlight and uses it to split water, producing the oxygen we breathe. Now researchers from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, together with collaborators from Uppsala University and Humboldt University and other institutions have succeeded in cracking a key secret of Photosystem II. Using SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light ...

About The Study: In this study that included 240,000 individuals, the most common causes of hospitalization in people with depression were endocrine, musculoskeletal, and vascular diseases, not psychiatric disorders. These findings suggest that depression should be considered as a target for the prevention of physical and mental disease. Authors: Philipp Frank, Ph.D., of University College London, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2023.0777) Editor’s ...

By studying countless stars at various stages of their evolution, astronomers have been able to piece together an understanding of the life cycle of stars and how they interact with their surrounding planetary systems as they age. This research confirms that when a Sun-like star nears the end of its life, it expands anywhere from 100 to 1000 times its original size, eventually engulfing the system’s inner planets. Such events are estimated to occur only a few times each year across the entire Milky Way. Though past observations have confirmed the aftermath of planetary engulfments [1], ...

Strategies to treat pain without triggering dangerous side effects such as euphoria and addiction have proven elusive. For decades, scientists have attempted to develop drugs that selectively activate one type of opioid receptor to treat pain while not activating another type of opioid receptor linked to addiction. Unfortunately, those compounds can cause a different unwanted effect: hallucinations. But a new study led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has identified a potential route ...

For the first time, scientists have been able to see the crucial final step in the reaction cycle of Photosystem II, during which oxygen is formed. Using serial femtosecond crystallography performed with the XFEL technique, they have managed to obtain more information on the interaction between Photosystem II and the Mn/Ca cluster. This has been shown in a new study by Uppsala University, published in the journal Nature. The oxygen we breathe is produced by plants, algae and cyanobacteria, which use the energy of sunlight for powering the formation of oxygen. This is done by the Photosystem II enzyme, ...

Cancer immunotherapy has transformed the treatment of many types of cancer. Yet, for reasons that remain poorly understood, not all patients get the same benefit from these powerful therapies.  One potent factor in treatment outcome appears to be an individual’s gut microbiota — the trillions of microorganisms that live in the human intestine — according to new research led by investigators at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The study, done in mice and published May 3 in Nature, pinpoints how gut microbes enhance the body’s response to a common type of immunotherapy known as PD-1 checkpoint ...

Volcanic eruptions are spectacular, violent and dangerous. Large explosive eruptions can even have global impacts. To classify the size of volcanic eruptions, the magma volume and the deposition volume are determined. Volcanologists estimate these values in order to compare the size of different volcanic eruptions or to obtain a measure of the explosiveness of the eruption. However, it is often not possible to determine the values accurately. This makes it difficult to infer the actual volume of magma and to measure the complete extent of such eruptions. In particular, because the deposits of the most violent historical eruptions are partially or completely under water, which makes geological ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In the face of global warming and other environmental changes, corals in the Atlantic Ocean have declined precipitously in recent years, while corals in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are faring better. By describing several species of symbiotic algae that these corals need to grow, an international team led by Penn State has found that these mutualistic relationships from the Indo-Pacific may be more flexible and ultimately resilient to higher ocean temperatures than those in the Atlantic. Coral reefs are vast geological structures made of calcium carbonate produced by coral animals whose colonies possess dense populations ...

Hiking, cycling, climbing and boating. When we take time off from work or school, we like to go out into nature. The landscape in other words play an important role for our vacations. To promote biodiversity and carbon sequestration there is a focus on planting more trees, especially in upland areas such as Howgill Fells. The Howgill Fells is located in the north-west of England and is known for its soft, rolling and open landscape.  It is a popular area for tourists seeking the outdoors and hill-walking in particular. But how ...

An article published in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering brings good news for coffee buffs: the plastic in used coffee pods can be recycled to make filament for 3D printers, minimizing its environmental impact. The solution was successfully tested by research groups in Brazil at the Federal University of São Carlos (USFCar) and the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), and in the United Kingdom at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU). “We produced new conductive and non-conductive filaments from waste polylactic acid [PLA] from used coffee machine ...

DALLAS, May 3, 2023 — Six local stroke heroes from across the country are being recognized by the American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association, for their resiliency and dedication to rise up against stroke. Approximately 800,000 Americans have a stroke each year,[1] a leading cause of disability in the U.S., and one in four survivors will have another one. The American Stroke Association’s annual Stroke Hero Awards honors stroke survivors, health care professionals and family caregivers. The ...