The heart is the first organ that forms during development and contains four different regions (ventricles and atria), which contain different cells that perform specialized functions: the beating cardiomyocytes ensure the pumping activity, vascular cells represent the inner lining and blood vessels and the pacemaker cells set the heartbeat. Unless the progenitor cells that will form the heart are specified at the correct time, migrate to the correct location, and differentiate into the correct cell types, severe malformations of the heart occur....

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are bright X-ray and gamma-ray flashes observed in the sky, emitted by distant extragalactic sources. They are associated with the creation or merging of neutron stars or black holes; processes that result in an explosive outburst of material moving incredibly close to the speed of light. The initial flashes, which last a few seconds, are followed by a long-lived afterglow phase that can be detectable for several days in X-rays, and often weeks or even months in the optical and radio bands....

Professors Jos Lelieveld and Thomas Münzel, of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and the Department of Cardiology of the University Medical Centre Mainz in Mainz, Germany, who led the research, say the findings suggest the world is facing an air pollution “pandemic.” Using a new method of modeling the effects of various sources of air pollution on death rates, the researchers estimated that globally air pollution caused an extra 8....

A near doubling of the probability of dying from any cause during the following 10 years is associated with the inability to stand on one leg for 10 seconds in mid- to later life. This is according to new research findings published on June 21, 2022, in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. According to the researchers, this simple and safe balance test could be included in routine health checks for older adults....

Honoring a pair of former astronauts … And a milestone on Mars … A few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA! Spacewalk Positions the Space Station for More Power On February 2, NASA astronaut Nicole Mann and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata conducted a spacewalk to finish installing hardware needed for the International Space Station’s next roll-out solar arrays. The arrays – to be installed on a future spacewalk – are an upgrade to the station’s power system....

Two new papers published in MNRAS shed light on how the youngest generation of stars will eventually stop contributing metals back to the universe. The authors are all members of ASTRO 3D, the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions. They are based at Monash University, the Australian National University (ANU), and the Space Telescope Science Institute. “We know the first two elements of the periodic table – hydrogen and helium – were created in the Big Bang,” says Amanda Karakas, first author of a paper studying metal-rich stars....

Crotoxin, extracted from the venom of the South American rattlesnake Crotalus durissus terrificus, has been studied for almost a century for its analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and antitumor activities and as an even more powerful muscle paralyzer than botulinum toxin. However, the toxicity of crotoxin limits its medicinal use. A new study, published by Brazilian researchers in the journal Toxins, shows that crotoxin’s therapeutic effects can be enhanced and its toxicity reduced when it is encapsulated in nanostructured SBA-15 silica, a material originally developed for use in vaccine formulations....

Comets and asteroids preserve the building blocks of our Solar System and should help explain its origin. But there are unsolved puzzles. For example, how did icy comets obtain particles that formed at high temperatures, and how did these refractory particles acquire rims with different compositions? Carnegie’s theoretical astrophysicist Alan Boss and cosmochemist Conel Alexander* are the first to model the trajectories of such particles in the unstable disk of gas and dust that formed the Solar System....

The scientists presented their findings at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. Sleep-based therapies could help treat conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder. One of the most common treatments for PTSD requires the patient to recall the original trauma in a controlled environment. With repeated exposures to the memory, patients can learn how to deal with it and avoid further flashbacks. Many patients who undergo that therapy eventually relapse....

This year has had its share of science and technology advances from Army researchers. The U.S. Army CCDC Army Research Laboratory, the Army’s corporate research laboratory, has the mission to discover, innovate and transition science and technology to ensure dominant strategic land power. The lab’s chief scientist, Dr. Alexander Kott, picked the coolest advances to showcase what Army scientists and engineers are doing to support the Soldier of the future with a top 10 list from 2019:...

In a new clinical trial, UC Davis Health will test the effectiveness and safety of REGN-COV2, the monoclonal antibody cocktail, in preventing COVID-19 in adults living with infected patients. The drug was recently administered to President Donald Trump as part of his treatment for SAR-CoV-2 infection. It is still in the clinical experimental stage as potential treatment and prevention for COVID-19. Stuart Cohen, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and director of Hospital Epidemiology and Infection Prevention at UC Davis Health, will oversee the clinical trial and help recruit participants....

The advent of DNA sequencing has given scientists a clearer insight into the interconnectedness of evolution and the web-like path that different organisms take, splitting apart and coming back together. Tony Capra, associate professor of biological sciences, has come to new conclusions about the influence of Neanderthal DNA on some genetic traits of modern humans The article “Neanderthal introgression reintroduced functional ancestral alleles lost in Eurasian populations” was published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution on July 27, 2020....

A parent’s reassuring touch. A friend’s warm hug. A lover’s enticing embrace. These are among the tactile joys in our lives. Now, scientists at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute and two partner institutions report previously unidentified starting points in the neurobiological pathways underlying pleasurable, sexual, and otherwise rewarding social touch. Most notably in their mouse studies, they for the first time teased out a full pathway that begins with neurons in the skin that respond to gentle stroking and run all of the way to pleasure centers of the brain....

A survey completed using a combination of ground and space-based telescopes yielded a treasure trove of previously unknown globular clusters – old, dense groups of thousands of stars that all formed at the same time – in the outer regions of the elliptical galaxy Centaurus A. The work presents a significant advance in understanding the architecture and cosmological history of this galaxy and offers new insights into galaxy formation in general and the distribution of dark matter in the universe....

In the paper “Magnify is a universal molecular anchoring strategy for expansion microscopy,” published today (January 2, 2023) in the journal Nature Biotechnology, collaborators from Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Brown University describe new protocols for dubbed Magnify. “Magnify can be a potent and accessible tool for the biotechnology community,” said Yongxin (Leon) Zhao, the Eberly Family Career Development Associate Professor of Biological Sciences. Zhao’s Biophotonics Lab is a leader in the field of enabling super-resolution imaging of biological samples through physically expanding samples in a process known as expansion microscopy....

Research by geoscientists at Yale suggests that convection in Earth’s mantle — the slow movement of rocks circulating beneath the surface, caused by heat from inside the Earth — is affected by how ferropericlase melts at high pressures. The findings appear online December 8 in the journal Nature Communications. “The melting temperature of most materials increases as one increases pressure, and for ferropericlase this is true except at depths between ~1000 and 1500 km (~620 to 930 mi),” said Kanani Lee, the study’s principal investigator and an associate professor of geology and geophysics at Yale....

Recently, media reports and pre-print scientific papers on SARS-CoV-2 variants have discussed various genetic mutations in the virus that have occurred. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19. Viral variants are not unexpected, as all viruses evolve and mutate over time. Variants are more likely to occur if a virus transmits unabated in a population. SARS-CoV-2 variants are a concern if they are more transmissible, cause more severe disease, or can evade immune responses to a greater extent than other SARS-CoV-2 strains, such that vaccines or antibody products are less effective....

Owners of electric vehicles are well aware of “range anxiety” as the charge level runs low or the location of the closest charging station seems too distant. Fast charging remains a critical challenge if such vehicles are ever to capture a large segment of the transportation market. Charging for an electric car on empty typically takes about eight hours. Special supercharging stations now exist that achieve ultrafast charging of electric vehicles by delivering a much higher current to the battery....

During nuclear fusion, two atomic nuclei fuse into one new nucleus. In the lab this can be done by particle accelerators, when researchers use fusion reactions to create fast free neutrons for other experiments. On a much larger scale, the idea is to implement controlled fusion of light nuclei to generate power – with the sun acting as the model: its energy is the product of a series of fusion reactions that take place in its interior....

Susceptible people should receive a 3-dose vaccine series and a booster. New real-world evidence gathered by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that COVID-19 vaccines are less effective at protecting against COVID-19-associated hospitalizations in people who are immunocompromised. In general, immunocompromised individuals are at an increased risk for severe COVID-19 outcomes. “These findings indicate that while two-doses of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are beneficial in immunocompromised individuals, they are significantly less protected from severe disease than people with normal immune systems,” said study lead author Peter Embí, M....