Curated News: Top Clipped Stories

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Spread across 106 acres in southcentral Utah, the Pando aspen grove resembles a forest but is actually a single organism with more than 47,000 genetically identical aspen stems connected at the root. As an artist-in-residence for the nonprofit group Friends of Pando, Jeff Rice used a variety of microphones to record Pando’s leaves, birds, and weather. As part of the 184th ASA Meeting, Rice and Lance Oditt will describe their work to reveal a unique acoustic portrait of this botanical wonder.

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Over 20 years ago, the BBC’s Walking with Dinosaurs TV documentary series showed a 25-metre long Liopleurodon. This sparked heated debates over the size of this pliosaur as it was thought to have been wildly overestimated and more likely to have only reached an adult size of just over six metres long.

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In Physics of Fluids, University of Huddersfield researchers explore the role of uneven coffee extraction using a simple mathematical model. They split the coffee into two regions to examine whether uneven flow does in fact make weaker espresso. One of the regions in the model system hosted more tightly packed coffee than the other, which caused an initial disparity in flow resistance. The extraction of coffee decreased the flow resistance further. Understanding the origin of uneven extraction and avoiding or preventing it could enable better brews and substantial financial savings by using coffee more efficiently.

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Synthetic data from large language models can mimic human responses in interviews and questionnaires. Research data from popular crowdsourcing platforms may now contain fake responses that cannot be reliably detected, raising the risk of poisoned data.

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The roles microbes play in ecosystems are changing with global warming. Microbes are also affected by infection by viruses, but scientists know relatively little about how these viral infections could change how microbes react to warming. In this study, scientists describe different ways that increasing temperatures could affect viruses and their microbial hosts. Their preliminary models show that viruses could alter carbon balance, causing some ecosystems to switch from net carbon sources to net carbon sinks.

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The coqui frog, one of Puerto Rico’s most iconic animals, gets its name from its distinctive two-note call, “co-qui,” which can be heard throughout the island every night. The males produce these calls to mark their territory and ward away rivals, but scientists can use them to study the changing climate. At the 184th ASA Meeting, Peter Narins of the University of California, Los Angeles will describe changes in the coqui calls over a 23-year period. Every frog call had grown higher in pitch, indicating a mini-migration that corresponds with the temperature shift induced by climate change.

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A new Webb Space Telescope image of the bright, nearby star Fomalhaut reveals its planetary system with details never seen before, including nested concentric rings of dust. These belts most likely are carved by the gravitational forces produced by embedded, unseen planets. Similarly, inside our solar system Jupiter corrals the asteroid belt of leftover debris that lies between us and the giant planet. Astronomers first discovered Fomalhaut’s disk in 1983. But there has never been a view as spectacular – or as revealing – as Webb’s.

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A research team led by Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley has engineered bacteria to produce new-to-nature carbon products that could provide a powerful route to sustainable biochemicals. The advance could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacturing of fuels, drugs, and chemicals.

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An AI tool identified people at the highest risk for pancreatic cancer up to three years before actual diagnosis.

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Recognizing and separating enantiomers is a difficult task for chemical engineers. Researchers from the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a modular method of recognizing chiral molecules.

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The start of this year’s physics run at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) also marks the start of a new era. For the first time since RHIC began operating at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in 2000, a brand new detector, known as sPHENIX, will track what happens when the nuclei of gold atoms smash into one another at nearly the speed of light. RHIC’s STAR detector, which has been running and evolving since 2000, will also see some firsts in Run 23.

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Researchers at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory captured one of the fastest movements of a molecule called ferricyanide for the first time by combining two ultrafast X-ray spectroscopy techniques. They think their approach could help map more complex chemical reactions like oxygen transportation in blood cells or hydrogen production using artificial photosynthesis.

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Sunshine levels have a significant impact on the bidding behaviour of stock market investors, according to new research from the University of Portsmouth in England, and several Chinese universities.

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A study from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago found that parents with children who were not yet vaccinated against COVID-19 were most likely to vaccinate their child after reading the following hypothetical scenario.

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UT Southwestern Medical Center stem cell and developmental biologists and colleagues have developed a method to produce bovine blastoids, a crucial step in replicating embryo formation in the lab that could lead to the development of new reproductive technologies for cattle breeding.

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Acute radiation dermatitis (ARD)—characterized by red, sore, itchy or peeling skin—affects up to 95% of people undergoing radiation treatment for cancer. Severe cases can cause significant swelling and painful skin ulcers that can severely impair quality of life, yet little is known about why this condition occurs and no standardized treatments for preventing severe ARD have been widely adapted.

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Astronomers using Hubble have uncovered two eerie shadows from gas-and-dust disks encircling the star TW Hydrae. They are evidence for two unseen planets that have pulled dust into their orbits, which blocks light from the central star and makes shadows.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified four important signs and symptoms that signal an elevated risk of early-onset colorectal cancer. The incidence of colorectal cancer is rising in people under 50, making it important to recognize such signs.

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How are you sleeping? A new study has found the transition from daylight saving time to standard time, when one hour is gained overnight, was associated with a brief increase in sleep disorders such as difficulty going to sleep or staying asleep, but there was no such association when an hour is lost in the change from standard time to daylight saving time. The study is published in the May 3, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. It also found a small difference in the amount of sleep people get depending on the season.

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Immunotherapy has redefined cancer treatment, but not all patients experience the same benefit when treated.

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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.

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Strategies to treat pain without triggering dangerous side effects such as euphoria and addiction have proven elusive. Now scientists at Washington University School of Medicine have identified a potential pathway to pain relief that neither triggers addiction nor causes hallucinations.

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In APL Machine Learning, researchers develop a deep learning model to classify cancer cells by type. The tool requires only a simple microscope and a small amount of computing power, producing results on par or better than more sophisticated and complex techniques. After feeding an image into the neural network, the tool converts the data to a probability. A result lower than 0.5 categorizes the cancer as one cell type, while a number higher than 0.5 designates another. The tool reached over 94% accuracy across the data sets used in the study.

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Researchers have used Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source to characterize a set of broadly neutralizing antibodies effective against a wide range of coronaviruses.

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A new study finds intriguing brain wave patterns in comatose patients who died following cardiac arrest.

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A team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames National Laboratory demonstrated a way to advance the role of quantum computing in materials research with an adaptive algorithm for simulating materials. Quantum computers have potential capabilities far beyond today’s computers, and using an adaptive algorithm allows them to produce solutions quickly and accurately.

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Webb Finds Water Vapor, But From a Rocky Planet or Its Star?

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Spider mites avoid chemicals extracted from caterpillar traces; the repellent effect lasts for days. Butterfly and moth caterpillars then indiscriminately consume spider mite-infested and intact leaves along with dormant individuals or their eggs.

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Research from Cedars-Sinai Cancer detailing the largest examination to date of prostate cancer in transgender women, as well as treatment options that improve outcomes in patients with recurrent prostate cancer, will be presented during the American Urological Association (AUA) annual meeting April 28-May 1 in Chicago.

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People with anxiety or major depressive disorders experience more alcohol-related symptoms and problems than people without those disorders, even at the same levels of drinking, according to a large study. This finding might help to explain why those who develop an anxiety or mood disorder are at heightened risk of alcohol use disorder (AUD).

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More than a dozen scientists from multiple disciplines across the university collaborated on the Zoonomia Project.

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Bacterial spores can survive for years, even centuries, without nutrients, resisting heat, UV radiation, and antibiotics. How inert, sleeping bacteria — or spores — spring back to life has been a century-long mystery.

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Illinois researchers identified cells in the hippocampus that could be chemogenetically turned off to make young mice show signs of cognitive decline associated with aging. They are using this new mouse model to search for ways to prevent or reverse age-related learning and memory problems.

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Those who experience brain fog, memory issues or other neuropsychiatric symptoms for months after a COVID-19 diagnosis were found to have abnormal brain activity during memory tests on functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), according to a new study led by University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers.

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Months after COVID-19, previously infected people with persistent neuropsychiatric symptoms had abnormal brain activity during memory tests, with less activity in brain regions normally used for the memory tasks, but more activity in other areas of the brain, according to new research published in the April 26, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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A fossil of a ‘royal fish’ - estimated to be over 66 million years old - is the first ever to be found in Africa.

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Retail investors typically lose with zero-commission complex or multi-leg options, especially around earnings announcements.

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Knowing how cultural evolution happens also means we can harness it for the larger good, creating a more just and sustainable world, according to a new article from a research team including faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

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New research suggests that even mild cases of COVID-19 can have long-term detrimental effects on cardiovascular health. The study was the first to compare pre and post COVID-infection levels of arterial stiffness; a marker associated with the ageing and function of our arteries.

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In Physics of Fluids, researchers model the behavior of blood drops during secondary atomization to examine how the phenomenon affects a crime scene. The team examined different starting droplet sizes, confirming their model with experiments. They found the effect of secondary atomization was significant and predictable: The smaller droplets were easier to sweep up by the firearm’s gases and turn around toward the victim. This discovery could explain how a short-range shooter might stay clean from blood stains.

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In Physics of Fluids, researchers develop a model to describe the interaction between a rocket plume and the surface of a planetary body in near-vacuum conditions. The computational framework takes in information about the rocket, its engines, and the surface composition and topography, as well as the atmospheric conditions and gravitational forces at the landing site, and the results can be used to evaluate the safety and feasibility of a proposed landing site and to optimize the design of spacecraft and rocket engines for planetary landings.

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In Physics of Fluids, researchers develop an early warning system that combines acoustic technology with AI to immediately classify earthquakes and determine potential tsunami risk. They propose using underwater microphones, called hydrophones, to measure the acoustic radiation produced by the earthquake, which carries information about the tectonic event and travels significantly faster than tsunami waves. The computational model triangulates the source of the earthquake and AI algorithms classify its slip type and magnitude. It then calculates important properties like effective length and width, uplift speed, and duration, which dictate the size of the tsunami.

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Scientists carried out an analysis of hundreds of popular song recordings from 1946 to 2020 to determine the lead vocal to accompaniment ratio, or LAR. The study considered the four highest-ranked songs from the Billboard Hot 100 chart for each year and the results show that, contrary to expectations, the LAR for popular music decreased over the decades in question. This means that, relative to their bands, lead singers are getting quieter.

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Helping your mother make pancakes when you were three…riding your bike without training wheels…your first romantic kiss: How do we retain vivid memories of long-ago events? As described in a paper published online on April 25 in Neuron, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have found the explanation.

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People who first experience problems with alcohol after the age of 60 may have better mental health functioning than those whose drinking problems start sooner, and the benefits of alcohol treatment are not conditional on when hazardous drinking began, a new study suggests.

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The Webb Space Telescope's latest findings are the first to spectroscopically confirm distances for a young protocluster of galaxies just 650 million years after the big bang. Astronomers think the protocluster represents the earliest stages of what will develop into a massive conglomeration like the Coma Cluster, which includes thousands of gravitationally bound member galaxies.

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In the first few days after a traumatic brain injury (TBI), food is often an afterthought as clinicians focus on minimizing the damage to the brain.

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Neutrinos are involved in a process named beta decay that involves a neutron converting into a proton emitting an electron and an antineutrino. There may also be an ultra-rare kind of beta decay that emits two electrons but no neutrinos, called neutrinoless-double beta decay (NLDBD). Researchers are using the Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) to search for these rare NLDBD processes using different nuclei. Scientists have reported new tests using Tellurim-128 to look for NLDBD.

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Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) contribute to reduced vascular function and diminished sleep quality in young adults, according to a study at the University of Iowa.