Cord blood measures could predict children’s social, emotional development. Babies born with high levels of bad cholesterol and a certain type of fat may face a heightened risk for social and psychological problems in childhood, according to new scientific findings. In a study involving 1,369 children tracked from birth to 5 years of age, psychological scientists found that results of a standard blood test taken at birth could predict how teachers rated the children on emotion regulation, self-awareness, and interpersonal behavior 5 years later....

This Hubble image, taken on October 12, 2019, is the sharpest view of the comet to date. Hubble reveals a central concentration of dust around the solid icy nucleus (which is too small to be seen by Hubble). Comet 2I/Borisov is only the second such interstellar object known to have passed through the solar system. In 2017, the first identified interstellar visitor, an object officially named ‘Oumuamua, swung within 24 million miles ( 38 million kilometers) of the Sun before racing out of the solar system....

A gauge on the Voyager home page tracks levels of two of the three key signs scientists believe will appear when the spacecraft leaves our solar neighborhood and enter interstellar space. When the three signs are verified, scientists will know that one of the Voyagers has hurtled beyond the magnetic bubble the sun blows around itself, which is known as the heliosphere. The gauge indicates the level of fast-moving charged particles, mainly protons, originating from far outside the heliosphere, and the level of slower-moving charged particles, also mainly protons, from inside the heliosphere....

Acid rain gained attention in the 1960s and 1970s when scientists linked degradation of forest and aquatic ecosystems across the northeastern US and Europe to fossil fuel emissions from industrial centers often hundreds of kilometers away. This research prompted the Clean Air Act and its Amendments, which regulated air pollution, driving sulfur levels in atmospheric deposition down to low levels today. “It seemed like the sulfur story was over,” said Eve-Lyn Hinckley, assistant professor of environmental studies at University of Colorado, Boulder, and lead author of the study....

Now, eons later, astronomers are using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope’s unique capabilities to uncover even more clues about this cataclysmic explosion. Looking to the far outskirts of our galaxy, they found that the black hole’s floodlight reached so far into space it illuminated a vast train of gas trailing the Milky Way’s two prominent satellite galaxies: the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and its companion, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The black hole outburst was probably caused by a large hydrogen cloud up to 100,000 times the Sun’s mass falling onto the disk of material swirling near the central black hole....

A complete and fully assembled genome is critical for understanding the biological characteristics of an organism. Scientists have previously attempted to sequence the genome of Schmidtea mediterranea, but ended up with a collection of more than 100,000 short pieces. The reason for this is that a great deal of the genome consists of many, nearly identical copies of the same sequence that repeats over and over. New sequencing methods To overcome this challenge of an exceptionally repetitive genome, the research groups of Jochen Rink and Eugene Myers at the MPI-CBG utilized Pacific Bioscience’s long-read sequencing technology, operated at the DRESDEN-concept Sequencing Center, a joint operation between the MPI-CBG and the TU Dresden....

By modifying a single variable, temperature, Yale geneticists have expanded the potential uses of a groundbreaking gene-editing technology. The CRISPR-Cpf1 gene-editing technology has proved to be highly efficient in mice but not in other model organisms. The Yale team showed that temperature is a key factor controlling Cpf1 activity and have optimized this technology allowing researchers to make targeted genetic changes in a host of model organisms such as zebrafish and the fruit fly Drosophila....

Hunter-gatherer and pastoralist tribes in sub-Saharan Africa, where humans are thought to have originated, even though linguistically close, belong to two different distinct genetic clusters. Two new studies exploring their genetics were published in Science and Nature Communications (preprint available through arXiv). Both teams looked at single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the DNA of the various populations. The teams deduced that the southern Africa click-speaking populations actually belong to two genetically differentiated groups, one in the north and one in the south of the Kalahari....

NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren “Woody” Hoburg, as well as UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, will lift off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to perform science, technology demonstrations, and maintenance activities aboard the microgravity laboratory. The flight is the sixth crew rotation mission with SpaceX to station, and the seventh flight of Dragon with people as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program....

Photons — quantum packets of electromagnetic radiation like light or microwaves — usually don’t interact with one another. For example, two crossed flashlight beams pass through one another undisturbed. However, microwave photons can be made to interact in an array of superconducting qubits. Researchers at Google Quantum AI describe how they engineered this unusual situation in “Formation of robust bound states of interacting photons,” which was published on December 7 in the journal Nature....

While significant progress has been made on volumetric capture systems, focusing on 3D geometric reconstruction with high-resolution textures, such as methods to achieve realistic shapes and textures of the human face, much less work has been done to recover photometric properties needed for relighting characters. Results from such systems lack fine details and the subject’s shading is prebaked into the texture. Computer scientists at Google are revolutionizing this area of volumetric capture technology with a novel, comprehensive system that is able, for the first time, to capture full-body reflectance of 3D human performances, and seamlessly blend them into the real world through AR or into digital scenes in films, games, and more....

On July 26, 2012, the H.E.S.S. II telescope started operation in Namibia. Dedicated to observing the most violent and extreme phenomena of the Universe in very high energy gamma-rays, H.E.S.S. II is the largest Cherenkov telescope ever built, with its 28-meter-sized mirror. Together with the four smaller (12 meter) telescopes already in operation since 2004, the H.E.S.S. (“High Energy Stereoscopic System”) observatory will continue to define the forefront of ground-based gamma ray astronomy and will allow deeper understanding of known high-energy cosmic sources such as supermassive black holes, pulsars and supernovae, and the search for new classes of high-energy cosmic sources....

Washington – Thirty-five years after its launch, Voyager 1 appears to have traveled beyond the influence of the Sun and exited the heliosphere, according to a new study appearing online today. The heliosphere is a region of space dominated by the Sun and its wind of energetic particles, and which is thought to be enclosed, bubble-like, in the surrounding interstellar medium of gas and dust that pervades the Milky Way galaxy....

We might not notice them, but the crops farmers grow are protected by scores of tiny invertebrate bodyguards. Naturally occurring arthropods like spiders and lady beetles patrol crop fields looking for insects to eat. These natural enemies keep pests under control, making it easier to grow the crops we depend on. New research from Michigan State University by Nate Haan, Yajun Zhang, and Doug Landis shed light on how these natural enemies respond to large-scale spatial patterns in agricultural landscapes....

An international study now suggests a comprehensive solution package for feeding 10 billion people within our planet’s environmental boundaries. Supplying a sufficient and healthy diet for every person whilst keeping our biosphere largely intact will require no less than a technological and socio-cultural U-turn. It includes adopting radically different ways of farming, reduction of food waste, and dietary changes. “When looking at the status of planet Earth and the influence of current global agriculture practices upon it, there’s a lot of reason to worry, but also reason for hope – if we see decisive actions very soon,” Dieter Gerten says, lead author from PIK and professor at Humboldt University of Berlin....

This remarkable source has since been found to emit lines at infrared wavelengths short enough to qualify them as being genuine lasers (not just masers). The object has been carefully modeled and the detailed conditions producing the lasers and masers have been determined: the lines arise predominantly in a dense disk of ionized gas seen nearly edge-on. Since the initial discovery, despite many searches, no other source has been found that is as complex and dramatic in its emission as is MWC349, although several other cases of weak hydrogen masers have been found....

Nuclear physicists have made a new, highly accurate measurement of the thickness of the neutron “skin” that encompasses the lead nucleus in experiments conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and just published in Physical Review Letters. The result, which revealed a neutron skin thickness of .28 millionths of a nanometer, has important implications for the structure and size of neutron stars. The protons and neutrons that form the nucleus at the heart of every atom in the universe help determine each atom’s identity and properties....

Two mutations that collectively occur in 71 percent of malignant melanoma tumors have been discovered in what scientists call the “dark matter” of the cancer genome, where cancer-related mutations haven’t been previously found. Reporting their findings in the January 24 issue of Science Express, Harvard Medical School (HMS) researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and researchers at the Broad Institute said the highly “recurrent” mutations — occurring in the tumors of many people — may be the most common mutations in melanoma cells found to date....

Holden Crater in southern Margaritifer Terra displays a series of finely layered deposits on its floor (white and light purple in an enhanced color image). The layered deposits are especially well exposed in the southwestern section of the crater where erosion by water flowing through a breach in the crater rim created spectacular outcrops. In this location, the deposits appear beneath a cap of alluvial fan materials (tan to brown in this image)....

People with gender dysphoria taking hormone replacements as part of gender affirmation therapy face a substantially increased risk of serious cardiac events, including stroke, heart attack, and pulmonary embolism. This is according to a study to be presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session Together With the World Congress of Cardiology. Gender dysphoria occurs when a person’s gender identity conflicts with the sex they were assigned at birth....