A condition that affects the blood, known as idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), may be associated the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in rare cases, research suggests. The very small increased risk of the condition — which is characterized by low platelet counts — is estimated to be 11 per million doses, similar to figures seen in vaccines for flu and MMR. A low number of platelets — blood cells that help prevent blood loss when vessels are damaged — can result in no symptoms or can lead to an increased risk of bleeding or, in some cases, clotting....

High critical temperature superconductors have a variable charge density, meaning that their electrical charge is unevenly distributed. This partly results from what are known as ‘charge density waves’, which were discovered a few years ago. But these have only been observed to exist sporadically, under certain conditions. Therefore, they were not believed to be a contributing factor to the materials’ superconducting properties. What the researchers have now discovered, however, is an additional aspect to the variable charge density, which they term “charge density fluctuations”....

Researchers have successfully created a model of the Universe using artificial intelligence, reports a new study. Researchers seek to understand our Universe by making model predictions to match observations. Historically, they have been able to model simple or highly simplified physical systems, jokingly dubbed the “spherical cows,” with pencils and paper. Later, the arrival of computers enabled them to model complex phenomena with numerical simulations. For example, researchers have programmed supercomputers to simulate the motion of billions of particles through billions of years of cosmic time, a procedure known as the N-body simulations, in order to study how the Universe evolved to what we observe today....

Usually mass is transferred gradually. But sometimes, the more mass is transferred, the more mass gets pulled off, in a runaway process. The outer layers of one star completely surround the other in a phase known as the common envelope. During this phase, the dense cores of the two stars orbit each other inside the cloud, or envelope, of gas. The gas drags on the stellar cores, causing them to spiral in; this heats up the common envelope, which may get expelled....

Octopuses, squids and other sea creatures can perform a disappearing act by using specialized tissues in their bodies to manipulate the transmission and reflection of light, and now researchers at the University of California, Irvine have engineered human cells to have similar transparent abilities. In a paper published today in Nature Communications, the scientists described how they drew inspiration from cephalopod skin to endow mammalian cells with tunable transparency and light-scattering characteristics....

One of the primary ways the COVID-19 virus is transmitted is via airborne diffusion of saliva microdroplets, so it is paramount to find methods to kill the virus in airborne microdroplets. The extreme confusion that abounded at the beginning of the pandemic about safe social distances, mask wearing, and social behavior inspired Marche Polytechnic University researchers, who happen to be intrigued by saliva droplet diffusion, to search for answers and ways to help....

Deep inside the brain the putamen, not just the cortex, contributes to multitasking ability. Multitasking performance stems from the speed of information exchange between inner and outer regions of the brain, according to new research in eNeuro. Doing two things at once courts disaster, as multitasking requires outer cortical brain regions to rapidly communicate with each other. The speed of this information exchange limits multitasking capability yet can improve with practice....

In a study published April 29, 2020, in Nature Communications, the UT Dallas research team described how it created images of mantle flows in a subduction region under Central America and the Caribbean Sea using a computationally intensive technique called a full waveform inversion (FWI). “This is the first comprehensive seismic study to directly image 3D mantle flow fields in actual subduction environments using advanced FWI technology,” said Dr. Hejun Zhu, corresponding author of the study and assistant professor of geosciences in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics....

The outflow is coming from a distant quasar that was formed 6 billion years ago and is shining with the power of 10 trillion suns. It’s called PKS 0637-752 and is thought to be an early galaxy with a supermassive black hole in its center. When dust and gas fall into the black hole, they are spun around and this spiraling motion accelerates the charged particles like a particle accelerator....

The team describes the discovery of what scientists call a “ferroelectric nematic” phase of liquid crystal in a study published on June 10, 2020, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The discovery “opens a door to a new universe of materials,” said co-author Matt Glaser, a professor in the Department of Physics. Nematic liquid crystals have been a hot topic in materials research since the 1970s. These materials exhibit a curious mix of fluid- and solid-like behaviors, which allow them to control light....

What makes something hilarious has baffled philosophers and scientists since at least the time of inquiring minds like Plato. The Greeks believed that feeling superior at others’ expense was the source of humor. Sigmund Freud, a German psychologist, thought humor was a means to let off pent-up energy. In order to make people laugh, US comedian Robin Williams tapped his anger at the absurd. No one appears to be able to agree on the answer to the question, “What’s so funny?...

Observations of “Jellyfish galaxies” show a new way to fuel black holes. It seems the mechanism that produces the tentacles of gas and newborn stars that give these galaxies their nickname also makes it possible for the gas to reach the central regions of the galaxies, feeding the black hole that lurks in each of them and causing it to shine brilliantly. The results appeared on August 17 in the journal Nature....

A recent review published today (November 5, 2019) in Clinical Anatomy highlights evidence that the female clitoris is important for reproduction. The review notes that stimulating the clitoris activates the brain to cause a combination of changes in the female reproductive tract that creates its readiness to receive and process sperm to achieve possible fertilization of the egg. These include enhancement of vaginal blood flow, an increase in vaginal lubrication, an increase in vaginal oxygen and temperature, and most importantly a change in the position of the cervix, the entrance to the uterus....

Kaiser Permanente 2020 study shows that people who were the most active and spent time outdoors during the pandemic reported less anxiety and depression. Kaiser Permanente research published today (November 11, 2021) in the journal Preventive Medicine showed people who exercised more during the initial lockdown period of the COVID-19 pandemic experienced less anxiety and depression than those who didn’t exercise. It also showed that people who spent more time outdoors typically experienced lower levels of anxiety and depression than those who stayed inside....

They found that increased fat use is mainly due to lower insulin levels during exercise when people have fasted overnight, which means that they can use more of the fat from their fat tissue and the fat within their muscles as fuel. To test proof-of-principle the initial study involved only men, but future studies will look to translate these findings for different groups including women. Whilst this did not lead to any differences in weight loss over six weeks, it did have ‘profound and positive’ effects on their health because their bodies were better able to respond to insulin, keeping blood sugar levels under control and potentially lowering the risk of diabetes and heart disease....

To get a better understanding of the high-pressure behavior of iron, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) physicist and international collaborators discovered the subnanosecond phase transitions in laser-shocked iron. The research appears in the June 5, 2020, edition of the journal Science Advances. The research could help scientists better understand the physics, chemistry, and the magnetic properties of Earth and other planets by measuring time-resolved high-resolution X-ray diffractions for the entire duration of shock compression....

Rising to the challenge, researchers from ETH Zurich’s Macromolecular Engineering and Organic Chemistry Labs and entrepreneurs from Colorado-based Nanoly Bioscience worked together to develop a safe, versatile platform to increase the thermal stability of vaccines. Their goal? To vastly improve the distribution of viable vaccines and reduce the economic costs of the cold chain. Like “Tupperware” for proteins “Think of it like an egg,” explains Bruno Marco-Dufort, a doctoral researcher in Professor Mark Tibbitt’s Macromolecular Engineering lab....

At a media briefing today in Seattle as part of the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Breakthrough Listen principal investigator Andrew Siemion of the University of California, Berkeley, announced the release of nearly 2 petabytes of data, the second data dump from the four-year-old search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). A petabyte of radio and optical telescope data was released last June, the largest release of SETI data in the history of the field....

Recently, extreme events have been observed in quantum cascade lasers, as reported by researchers from Télécom Paris (France) in collaboration with UC Los Angeles (USA) and TU Darmstad (Germany). The giant pulses that characterize these extreme events can contribute the sudden, sharp bursts necessary for communication in neuromorphic systems inspired by the brain’s powerful computational abilities. Based on a quantum cascade laser (QCL) emitting mid-infrared light, the researchers developed a basic optical neuron system operating 10,000× faster than biological neurons....

Hakkila and Nemiroff propose that such superluminal jets could create the time-reversibility seen in gamma-ray burst light curves. These proposed jets, however, do not violate Einstein’s theory of relativity because they only move faster than light does through the jet medium, not faster than light through a vacuum. Hakkila says that a good way to visualize this superluminal motion is to imagine someone on one side of a pond skipping a stone across the water in your direction....