A team of astronomers, including associate professor Chad Trujillo of Northern Arizona University's Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, have confirmed a planetoid that is almost four times farther from the Sun than Pluto, making it the most distant object ever observed in our solar system. The planetoid, which has been nicknamed "Farfarout," was first detected in 2018, and the team has now collected enough observations to pin down its orbit. The Minor Planet Center has now given it the official designation of 2018 AG37. Farfarout's nickname distinguished it from the previous record holder "Farout," found by the same team of astronomers ...

Orange, Calif. - The mutually beneficial relationship between legumes and rhizobia, the nitrogen-fixing soil bacteria that make their home in legume root nodules and create nutrient-rich fertilizer for them, is one of the most well-known and agronomically important examples of symbiosis. New research from END ...

Individual choices in medicine carry a certain amount of uncertainty. An innovative partnership at The University of Texas at Austin takes aim at medicine down to the individual level by applying state-of-the-art computation to medical care. "Medicine in its essence is decision-making under uncertainty, decisions about tests and treatments," said Radek Bukowski, MD, PhD, professor and associate chair of Investigation and Discovery in the Department of Women's Health at Dell Medical School at UT Austin. "The human body and the healthcare system are complex systems made of ...

Firefighters and emergency medical services workers are at high risk of exposure to COVID-19 while on the job and pose an additional risk of transmitting the virus to others. Although vaccines are a promising public health tool for reducing COVID-19 transmission, little has been known about the perceptions of the COVID-19 vaccine among first responders. To provide insight, a University of Miami Miller School of Medicine-led study queried a national sample of U.S. firefighters and emergency medical services workers through an anonymous online survey. The study results, published online Feb. 1 in the Journal of Occupational ...

Ten years ago, researchers at Aarhus University, Denmark, reported the discovery of centimeter-long cable bacteria, that live by conducting an electric current from one end to the other. Now the researchers document that a few cells operate with extremely high oxygen consumption while the rest of the cells process food and grow without oxygen. An outstanding way of life. We humans need food and oxygen to live. Now, imagine if oxygen was to be found only at the mountain top and food only in the valley. That's how the world looks like for cable bacteria, which live in the bottom of seas and lakes. For them, ...

In far too many cases over the years, scientists have discovered promising new cancer treatments, only to report later that the tumor cells found ways to become resistant. These disappointing results have made overcoming drug resistance a major goal in cancer research. Now, experts at Cincinnati Children's report success at averting drug resistance in a subtype of brain tumors called glioblastomas. Importantly, the research indicates that the approach may also work in other cancers, such as melanoma, that exhibit a similar pathway of drug resistance. The method involves inhibiting a protein called SCD and reducing the ...

A potent ozone-depleting chemical whose emissions unexpectedly spiked in recent years has quickly dropped back to much lower levels, putting the recovery of the stratospheric ozone layer back on track, according to a new study by scientists at MIT, the University of Bristol, and other institutions in South Korea, the U.S., Japan, Australia, and Switzerland. The chemical in question is CFC-11, a chlorofluorocarbon that was once commonly used for refrigeration, insulation, and other purposes. When emitted to the atmosphere, CFC-11 can loft into the stratosphere, where the sun's ultraviolet radiation breaks the chemical down to release chlorine -- a noxious chemical that then eats ...

In the face of a changing climate and crop diseases, manufacturers of products containing natural flavors and fragrances are pivoting to a new way to source ingredients. Companies have been partnering with biotechnology firms to manufacture scents and flavors using fermented microbes, which experts say are more sustainable. A new story in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, details how the industry is brewing up new fragrances. Although the availability of natural fragrances and flavors like citrus and vanilla is dwindling, the demand for them has increased, writes Senior Business Editor Melody Bomgardner. In recent years, flavor and fragrance companies have been working with the biotech industry to shore ...

Rates of overweight and obesity in children are rising around the world, with serious long-term consequences for health and health care costs. In prior research, video and mobile games have helped children eat healthier and exercise more. A new study examined how Indian 10- and 11-year-olds' food choices were affected by playing a pediatric dietary mobile game that uses implicit learning--educating players without making them aware of the lessons through innovations in neurocognitive training and immersive technology. The study found that the game significantly improved children's food choices immediately after play. The study was conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Hofstra University, Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs (CCP), ...

The visibility of scientific articles and conference papers is conditional upon being easily found in academic search engines, especially Google Scholar. To enhance this visibility, search engine optimization (SEO) has been applied in recent years to academic search engines in order to optimize documents and, thereby, ensure they are better ranked in search pages (i.e., academic search engine optimization or ASEO). Recent research, published in Future Internet, has found out whether the language of the document is a factor involved in the sorting algorithm of search results on Google Scholar. The study authors are Cristòfol Rovira, Lluís Codina and ...

Because of their small size, some microorganisms can come through the pores of bacterial filters. Such filtrable microorganisms are difficult to grow in lab conditions and therefore remain understudied. Scientists believe that filtrable microorganisms are widely spread in the biosphere and participate in many biogeochemical processes, such as the restoration of sulfur in deep-see regions. They also play an important role in the production and use of dissolved organic matter. This term refers to a group of compounds (such as amino acids, organic acids and monomeric sugars) that are easily utilizable sources of nutrients in freshwater systems. These compounds occur in pristine lotic systems at very low concentrations mainly from primary producers ...

FRANKFURT. The lens of the human eye gets its transparency and refractive power from the fact that certain proteins are densely packed in its cells. These are mainly crystallines. If this dense packing cannot be maintained, for example due to hereditary changes in the crystallines, the result is lens opacities, known as cataracts, which are the most common cause of vision loss worldwide. In order for crystallins to be packed tightly in lens fibre cells, they must be folded stably and correctly. Protein folding already begins during the biosynthesis of proteins in the ribosomes, which are large protein complexes. Ribosomes ...

Seismic monitoring devices linked to the internet are vulnerable to cyberattacks that could disrupt data collection and processing, say researchers who have probed the devices for weak points. Common security issues such as non-encrypted data, insecure protocols, and poor user authentication mechanisms are among the biggest culprits that leave seismological networks open to security breaches, Michael Samios of the National Observatory of Athens and colleagues write in a new study published in Seismological Research Letters. Modern seismic stations are now implemented as an Internet-of-Things (IoT) station, with physical devices that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet. In their test attacks ...

Human language can be inefficient. Some words are vital. Others, expendable. Reread the first sentence of this story. Just two words, "language" and "inefficient," convey almost the entire meaning of the sentence. The importance of key words underlies a popular new tool for natural language processing (NLP) by computers: the attention mechanism. When coded into a broader NLP algorithm, the attention mechanism homes in on key words rather than treating every word with equal importance. That yields better results in NLP tasks like detecting positive or negative sentiment or predicting which words should come next in a sentence. The attention mechanism's ...

(Philadelphia, PA) - While the COVID-19 pandemic brought most of the country to a standstill in March 2020, Philadelphia trauma surgeons noticed an alarming trend in the incidence of firearm violence. Instead of decreasing with containment measures, firearm-injured patients were presenting at even higher rates to Temple University Hospital and other trauma centers around the city. A team led by Jessica H. Beard, MD, MPH, FACS, Assistant Professor of Surgery and Director of Trauma Research at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM), sought to determine the magnitude of Philadelphia's increase in firearm violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. They also aimed to understand potential causes ...

A new study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) found that the risk of death from COVID-19 was 3.5 times higher than from influenza. "We can now say definitively that COVID-19 is much more severe than seasonal influenza," says Dr. Amol Verma, St. Michael's Hospital, Unity Health Toronto, and the University of Toronto. "Patients admitted to hospital in Ontario with COVID-19 had a 3.5 times greater risk of death, 1.5 times greater use of the ICU, and 1.5 times longer hospital stays than patients admitted with influenza." These ...

Dramatic decreases in traffic caused by COVID-19 shutdowns improved air quality in car-dependent states but didn't offset additional forms of pollution in other parts of the country. Those findings by a University of South Florida researcher suggest that while decreasing the number of vehicles on the road is a good first step toward creating cleaner air, additional measures aimed at reducing other sources of air pollution, such as coal plants or industrial factories, must also be considered. The study, led by Yasin Elshorbany, an assistant professor of atmospheric chemistry and climate change at USF's St. Petersburg campus, was published ...

CLEVELAND--A team of Case Western Reserve University researchers has found a way to measure key characteristics of proteins that bind to RNA in cells--a discovery that could improve our understanding of how gene function is disturbed in cancer, neurodegenerative disorders or infections. RNA--short for ribonucleic acid--carries genetic instructions within the body. RNA-binding proteins play an important role in the regulation of gene expression. Scientists already knew that the way these proteins function depends on their "binding kinetics," a term that describes how frequently they latch on to a site in an RNA, and how long they ...

A team of researchers, led by a Texas A&M University professor, has found that some energy drinks have adverse effects on the muscle cells of the heart. The study, led by Dr. Ivan Rusyn, a professor in the Veterinary Integrative Biosciences (VIBS) Department at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (CVMBS), was published in Food and Chemical Toxicology. In it, researchers observed cardiomyocytes - human heart cells grown in a laboratory - exposed to some energy drinks showed an increased beat rate and other factors affecting cardiac function. When placed in the context of the human body, ...

A team at the University of Colorado Boulder has designed new kinds of liquid crystals that mirror the complex structures of some solid crystals--a major step forward in building flowing materials that can match the colorful diversity of forms seen in minerals and gems, from lazulite to topaz. The group's findings, published today in the journal Nature, may one day lead to new types of smart windows and television or computer displays that can bend and control light like never before. The results come down to a property of solid crystals that will be familiar to many chemists and gemologists: Symmetry. Ivan Smalyukh, ...

Israelis across the political spectrum prefer the status quo to the two-state solution, and Palestinians are only willing to accept a two-state solution that Israelis will be unable to accept, according to a new RAND Corporation report that assesses whether there are any alternative solutions to the conflict that average Israelis and Palestinians would support. Derived from a series of innovative, structured focus group discussions, the report suggests that the Biden Administration's recent reaffirmation of U.S. policy to support a "mutually agreed two-state solution, one in which Israel lives in peace ...

The number of people who own electric vehicles (EVs) is increasing, but they face a conundrum: Unlike those who own gasoline-burning cars, EV owners can't just pop down to the corner gas station for a fill-up. Particularly in rural areas, charging stations can be few and far between. Joshua Pearce, Richard Witte Endowed Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Michigan Technological University, hopes to change that. In a model outlined in a paper in the journal Renewable Energy, Pearce and his co-author, graduate student Swaraj Sanjay Deshmukh, note the untapped potential of retail parking lot solar photovoltaic awnings. The study investigates the energy-related benefits ...

A team of researchers from Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University obtained magnetic nanoparticles using sweet flag (Acorus calamus). Both the roots and the leaves of this plant have antioxidant, antimicrobial, and insecticide properties. The extract of sweet flag was used as a non-toxic reagent for the manufacture of coated particles. The authors of the work also showed the efficiency of the new nanoparticles against several types of pathogenic fungi that damage cultivated plants. A technology developed by the team provides for the manufacture of nanoparticles from a cheap plant-based raw material and reduces the harmful effect of reagents on the environment. Because of their unique properties, nanoparticles are used in many areas, from medicine to oil production. ...

The gram-negative bacteria Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) colonize the stomachs of the majority of the world's population. Although most people may never experience major complications due to the pathogen, H. pylori infections increase the risk of certain types of gastric cancer, as well as other illnesses such as peptic ulcers and gastritis. Currently, H. pylori infections are treatable with a cocktail of antibiotics, but the rapid emergence of antibiotic resistance in H. pylori is a significant concern. To counter these threats, Pushkar Lele, assistant professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, investigated how ...

The GIP receptor in the central nervous system plays a crucial role in the regulation of body weight and food intake. This is shown by a recent study by Helmholtz Zentrum München, ETH Zurich and the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD). The study, which has now been published in 'Cell Metabolism', identifies new targets for the development of a drug treatment for obesity and type 2 diabetes. Dual-agonists targeting the receptors for Glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) are promising novel drug candidates for the treatment of obesity and diabetes. The new study shows how GIP decreases body weight. GIP is a hormone produced by ...