The 10th-brightest star in the night sky, Betelgeuse, may not be on the brink of exploding as a supernova, according to a new study of the star’s brightening and dimming. Instead, recent research shows that the observed pulsing of the starlight is probably caused by an unseen companion star orbiting Betelgeuse. Formally named Alpha Ori B, the “Betelbuddy” (as astrophysicist Jared Goldberg calls it) acts like a snowplow as it orbits Betelgeuse, pushing light-blocking dust out of the way and temporarily making Betelgeuse seem brighter. Goldberg and his colleagues present their simulations of this process in ...

SAN ANTONIO — October 21, 2024—A Southwest Research Institute researcher collaborated with a team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to attempt to explain the presence of mysterious flow features that exist on the surfaces of airless celestial bodies, such as the asteroids Vesta and Ceres, explored recently by the NASA Dawn mission, or Jupiter’s moon Europa, which will soon be explored in detail by the NASA Europa Clipper mission that includes SwRI’s involvement. In a new paper published in The Planetary Science Journal, its lead author, SwRI’s Dr. Michael J. Poston, and a team of researchers outline how post-impact conditions, ...

Although smell has historically played an important role in the fight against diseases such as the plague and tuberculosis, the human nose is generally not sensitive enough to be used as a reliable diagnostic tool. However, a new artificial ‘nose’ inspired by our sense of smell could now make it possible to detect undiagnosed disease, hazardous gases, and food that is starting to spoil. And it is all made possible with technology that already exists. Surrounded by antennas What do your mobile phone, computer and TV have in common? Antennas. “We are literally surrounded by technology that communicates using antenna technology,” said Michael ...

Amidst the sustainable evolution of the economy and society, the issues of energy scarcity and environmental degradation have gained increasing prominence, making energy conservation and emission reduction the focal point of societal concern. Within this context, metal tubes fittings, as essential components, wield significant and extensive influence in domains such as aviation, aerospace, and new energy vehicles. Notably, the burgeoning prominence of advanced plastic forming methods, epitomized by the flexible medium forming process of tubes, has garnered ...

In recent years, additive manufacturing technology has attracted considerable attention from various stakeholders. Among the different techniques, Arc wire-based direct energy deposition (DED) has experienced a notable increase in development, offering compelling advantages such as cost-effectiveness and high forming efficiency. However, a high deposition rate results in extremely high heat input and temperature inhomogeneity, leading to a deterioration in surface quality, a reduction in material properties, an increase in residual stresses and even distortion and cracking. Consequently, the current research agenda is focused on developing methods to ensure the quality ...

RICHLAND, Wash.—Some computing challenges are so big that it’s necessary to go all in. That’s the approach a diverse team of scientists and computing experts led by the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, along with colleagues from Microsoft and other national laboratories and universities, are taking to democratize access to emerging cloud computing resources.  The effort, outlined in a recent peer-reviewed journal publication, provides a road map to moving scientific computing resources into a sustainable ecosystem that evolves as ...

For the main energy storage system for EVs, Li-ion batteries are extensively applied owing to their excellent overall performance The safe and efficient operation of the electric vehicle significantly depends on the accurate state-of-charge (SOC) and state-of-temperature (SOT) of Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. A recent breakthrough study presented by researchers from the Tongji University and Chongqing University introduces a co-estimation of state-of-charge and state-of-temperature for large-format lithium-ion batteries based on ...

Lithium-ion power battery technology stands out as a pivotal component in advancement of new energy electric vehicles (EVs). Battery parameter identification, as one of the core technologies to achieve an efficient battery management system (BMS), is the key to predicting and managing the performance of Li-ion batteries. A recent breakthrough study presented by researchers from Hebei University of Technology proposes an online battery model parameters identification approach based on bias-compensated forgetting factor recursive least squares. This advanced method is expected to improve the accuracy of parameter identification under different noise. The ...

Over four hundred people, 80% of them being children under 14 years old, will be diagnosed with B-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (B-ALL) next year in Spain, according to the latest projections from the Spanish network of cancer registries (REDECAN). Survival rates for this rapid-growing and aggressive type of blood cancer are high in youth, but fall rapidly with age, especially after 40, stressing the need for new therapeutic alternatives. B-ALL arises when B-lymphocytes - the antibody producing cells of the immune system - fail to properly mature in the bone marrow, leading to the accumulation of immature progenitors ...

A new study by researchers at Zhejiang University has highlighted the disproportionate health challenges faced by sexual and gender-diverse (SGD) individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. By analyzing over 471 million tweets using advanced natural language processing (NLP) techniques, the study reveals that SGD individuals were more likely to discuss concerns related to social connections, mask-wearing, and experienced higher rates of COVID-19 symptoms and mental health issues than non-SGD individuals. The study has been published in the journal Health Data ...

A new study1 has unveiled the Hispanic Thrifty Food Plan (H-TFP), a culturally adapted and affordable diet specifically designed to align with the eating habits of U.S. Hispanic households. The research, led by Adam Drewnowski, PhD, from the University of Washington, used advanced dietary modeling to create a version of the USDA’s Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) that respects the distinctive food patterns of Hispanic communities.  The USDA's Thrifty Food Plan is the foundation for setting benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), but it has not traditionally accounted for the ...

An innovative study, to be published in Nature Communications on October 21, 2024, reveals the mechanism behind two seemingly contradictory effects of fear memories: the inability to forget yet the difficulty to recall. Led by researchers from Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc., ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, and the University of Tokyo, the study shows how fear experiences are initially remembered as broad, associative memories, but over time become integrated into episodic memories with a more specific timeline. The researchers conducted experiments using functional ...

Guideline Highlights: Each year in the U.S., over half a million people have a first stroke; however, up to 80% of strokes may be preventable. The new primary prevention of stroke guideline from the American Stroke Association urges health care professionals to screen people for stroke risk factors, including high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, high blood sugar and obesity. Increasing public awareness and knowledge about healthy lifestyle changes, such as smoking cessation, increased physical activity, improved dietary habits and better sleep, may also help people reduce their stroke risk. The new guideline highlights the American Heart ...

It is one of the most fundamental questions in science: how can lifeless molecules come together to form a living cell? Bert Poolman, Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Groningen, has been working on this problem for over twenty years. He aims to understand life by trying to reconstruct it; he is building simplified artificial versions of biological systems that can be used as components for a synthetic cell. Poolman recently published two papers in Nature Nanotechnology and Nature Communications. In the first paper, he describes a system for energy conversion ...

In one of the largest-ever studies of DNA and brain volume, researchers have identified 254 genetic variants that shape key structures in the “deep brain,” including those that control memory, motor skills, addictive behaviors and more. The findings were just published in the journal Nature Genetics. The study is powered by the Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) consortium, an international effort based at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, which unites more than 1,000 research labs across 45 countries to hunt for genetic variations that affect the brain’s structure and function. “A lot of brain diseases are known to be partially ...

Food production is one of the pillars of human civilization and underlies many of the changes caused by humans on planet’s landscapes. Producing food and getting it to people’s plates entails a significant expenditure of energy and resources. Unfortunately, approximately one third of all food produced globally is not consumed and discarded. Hence, to build sustainable societies, it is essential to minimize food waste. In Japan, based on estimates reported by governmental institutions, an astonishing 2.47 megatons of food waste was generated in ...

Many women who receive chemotherapy experience a decreased ability to remember, concentrate, and/or think—commonly referred to as “chemo-brain” or “brain fog”—both short- and long-term. In a recent clinical trial of women initiating chemotherapy for breast cancer, those who simultaneously started an aerobic exercise program self-reported greater improvements in cognitive function and quality of life compared with those receiving standard care. The findings are published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The study, called the Aerobic exercise and ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Protein bars, shakes and powders are increasingly popular among adults – but many teens may be jumping on the bandwagon too. Two in five parents say their teen consumed protein supplements in the past year, according to the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health. The trend was more common among teen boys who were also more likely to take protein supplements every day or most days, parents reported. “Protein is part of a healthy diet but it can be hard for parents to tell if ...

SAN DIEGO, California, 21 October 2024. In an illuminating Genomic Press Interview published today, Dr. Stephanie Knatz Peck, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), unveils her groundbreaking work in eating disorder treatment and psychedelic research. The interview, featured in the journal Psychedelics, offers an intimate look at Dr. Knatz Peck's journey from personal struggle with an eating disorder to becoming a leading innovator in the field. Dr. Knatz Peck's research ...

In stalk-eyed flies, longer eyestalks attract the ladies. Females prefer males with longer eyestalks, and other males are less likely to fight them for access to females. But some males have a copy of the X chromosome which always causes short eyestalks. Scientists investigating why this mutation hasn’t died out, despite sexual selection, have discovered that the flies could be compensating for their shorter eyestalks with increased aggression.  “It's the first time I'm aware of that there's ...

A research team led by Dr. Ho Sang Jung of the Advanced Bio and Healthcare Materials Research Division at the Korea Institute of Materials Science has developed an innovative sensor material that amplifies the optical signals of cancer metabolites in body fluids (saliva, mucus, urine, etc.) and analyzes them using artificial intelligence to diagnose cancer. This technology quickly and sensitively detects metabolites and changes in cancer patients' body fluids, providing a non-invasive way to diagnose cancer instead of traditional blood draws or biopsies. In collaboration with Professor Soo Woong ...

Inuit children in Nunavut, Canada, are being overdiagnosed for macrocephaly and underdiagnosed for microcephaly, two neurological conditions measured by head size, because of reliance on World Health Organization (WHO) growth curves, according to new research in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.230905. “Clinicians must be able to identify children with potential medical issues appropriately, without underdiagnosis or overdiagnosis at the extremes of head circumference measurements,” writes Dr. Kristina Joyal, a pediatric neurologist, University of Manitoba and University of Saskatchewan, ...

New poll shows nearly two-thirds of adults (61%) expect global research universities, such as the University of Cambridge, to come up with new innovations that will help to reduce the effects of climate change. Alternative fuels for cars and planes, improved batteries and capturing more carbon will have the greatest impact on climate change, the UK public believe. Respondents want the government to listen to universities when making climate policy, ahead of all other interest groups tested. Cambridge University is playing a leading role in ...

PHILADELPHIA — While recovering from major surgery, Black patients may be less likely to receive certain multimodal analgesia options and more likely to receive oral opioids than white patients, according to research being presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2024 annual meeting. Multimodal analgesia, which uses multiple types of pain medication to reduce pain, has been shown to be more effective at treating postsurgical pain than a single medication alone, particularly after complex surgeries such ...

PHILADELPHIA — People who experience poor sleep in the month before surgery may be more likely to develop postoperative delirium, according to new research being presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2024 annual meeting. Postoperative delirium is a change in mental function that can cause confusion and occurs in up to 15% of surgical patients. In certain high-risk patients, such as those with hip fractures, the incidence can be even higher. It is a significant complication in older adults. Pain, age, stress, anxiety and insomnia are known to contribute to the risk for postoperative delirium. The researchers believe this study is the first to assess sleep quality ...