In preparation for launch scheduled for no earlier than 7:20 am EST (9:20 am GFT). The cryogenic arms attached to the Ariane 5 are now supplying top-up fuel until liftoff. All systems are being continually measured to monitor the readiness of Ariane 5 to launch and the condition of its precious cargo. Webb Mission Moving to Automated Countdown Activities (7:12 am EST) Webb has completed internal checks. All ground stations and the spacecraft are go for launch....

While the world waits eagerly for a safe and effective vaccine to prevent infections from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers also are focusing on better understanding how SARS-CoV-2 attacks the body in the search for other means of stopping its devastating impact. The key to one possibility — blocking a protein that enables the virus to turn the immune system against healthy cells — has been identified in a recent study by a team of Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers....

“We are for the first time witnessing a miniature “planet” ripped apart by intense gravity, being vaporized by starlight and raining rocky material onto its star,” said Andrew Vanderburg, graduate student from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and lead author of the paper published in Nature. As stars like our sun age, they puff up into red giants and then gradually lose about half their mass, shrinking down to 1/100th of their original size to roughly the size of Earth....

New research from Yale University reveals that the laminin alpha 5 molecule is crucial to the maturing of the adolescent brain. For a decade, the Yale team had sought answers to a fundamental question: How does the brain, marked by frantic growth of synaptic connections between cells, grow up and mature? “Up until early adulthood, synapses between cells are wild, more plastic; they shrink and grow and even destabilize sister synapses,” said senior author Anthony Koleske, professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry and of neuroscience....

The study was published yesterday (November 11, 2019) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers combined field-based plankton tow surveys and advanced remote sensing techniques to identify larval fish nursery habitats in the coastal waters of Hawai‘i. The team found that surface slicks contained far more larval fish than neighboring surface waters. Surface slicks are naturally occurring, ribbon-like, smooth water features at the ocean surface....

A new molecule with anti-cancer and anti-metastatic properties has been discovered by teams from CNRS, CEA, the Institut Curie and Inserm,[1] in collaboration with Australian and British researchers. This anticancer drug acts on cells resistant to conventional chemotherapy thanks to an entirely novel action mechanism. It targets not only the multiplication of cells but also their mobility and thus could prevent the formation of metastases. Published in Cancer Research, the results obtained in vitro and on animals could, in the medium term, lead to the development of alternative anti-cancer treatments....

The researchers published their findings in the journal Science. Virginia Lee, a neurobiologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and her team a misfolded synthetic version of the protein α-synuclein into the brains of normal mice and saw the key characteristics of Parkinson’s disease develop and progressively worsen. The study suggests that the disease is spread from one nerve cell to another by the malformed protein, rather than arising spontaneously in cells....

Cystic fibrosis is a progressive genetic disorder that results in persistent lung infection and afflicts 30,000 people in the U.S., with about 1,000 new cases diagnosed every year. More than three-quarters of patients are diagnosed by age 2, and despite steady advances in alleviating complications, the median life expectancy of CF patients is still just 40 years. One faulty gene – the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator, or CFTR – causes the disease, which is characterized by lung dehydration and mucous buildup that blocks the airway....

Researchers at the Policlinico San Matteo, in Pavia, Italy, have developed a method using ultrasound imaging to score a patient’s lung health, which is indicative of their outcome. The ability to predict when a patient might worsen can help physicians be better prepared for caring for patients. Umberto Sabatini’s presentation, “Is lung ultrasound a predictor of worsening in Covid-19 patients?” was part of the 179th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America....

Magnetoreception refers to the ability of some animals to sense Earth’s magnetic field and make use of it for navigation. Still, the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. “To solve this question might not only satisfy neuroscientific curiosity but also lead to new molecular methods,” said Prof. Dr. Gil Gregor Westmeyer. He is the principal investigator of the study at the interface of neuroscience and molecular imaging, and his team is affiliated both with Helmholtz Zentrum München and TUM....

Less than 2 minutes after the launch of a 58-foot-tall (17.7-meter) Black Brant IX sounding rocket, a payload separated and began its dive back through Earth’s atmosphere. When onboard sensors determined the payload had reached the appropriate height and Mach number (38 kilometers altitude, Mach 1.8), the payload deployed a parachute. Within four-tenths of a second, the 180-pound (82-kilogram) parachute billowed out from being a solid cylinder to being fully inflated....

Interestingly, the layers continue across the fault and appear stretched out (green arrow). These observations suggest that some of the faulting occurred while the layered deposits were still soft and could undergo deformation, whereas other faults formed later when the layers must have been solidified and produced a clean break. The map is projected here at a scale of 50 centimeters (19.7 inches) per pixel. The original image scale is 54....

The 10 month, 442 million mile trip is complete and the MAVEN spacecraft is set to continue the exploration of Mars that began 50 years ago. When the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft arrived at the Red Planet on September 21, it marked the continuation of exploration of one of Earth’s nearest celestial neighbors that began 50 years ago. In 1964, the Mariner 4 probe became the first to successfully fly by Mars, opening the way for future human exploration....

Mayo Clinic researchers report that nurses in the U.S. experience suicidal ideation in greater numbers than other general workers and those who do are less likely to tell anyone about it. The findings appear in the American Journal of Nursing. More than 7,000 nurses responded to a national survey on well-being, with questions ranging from burnout to depression. More than 400 nurses reported having suicidal ideation within the past year....

‘The Aging-US authors developed over 800 new C. sativa cultivars and hypothesized that high-CBD C. sativa extracts may be used to down-regulate ACE2 expression in target COVID-19 tissues.’ Aging-US published “In search of preventive strategies: novel high-CBD Cannabis sativa extracts modulate ACE2 expression in COVID-19 gateway tissues” which reported that Cannabis sativa, especially those high in the anti-inflammatory cannabinoid cannabidiol, has been found to alter gene expression and inflammation and harbor anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties....

Using 40 adults between the ages of 55 and 85, a newly published study from UCLA scientists found that a two-month program of mindfulness-based stress reduction successfully reduced the feelings of loneliness and the expression of inflammatory genes. Many elderly people spend their last years alone. Spouses pass and children scatter. But being lonely is much more than a silent house and a lack of companionship. Over time, loneliness not only takes a toll on the psyche but can have a serious physical impact as well....

One of the first recorded species to have been lost to forestry and agriculture in the Western Cape in the 1800s, a type of fountain bush from the pea family that used to grow next to mountain streams in the Tulbagh region, has been rediscovered. Psoralea cataracta was discovered by Brian du Preez, a Ph.D. student in botany, when he accidentally stumbled upon a population on a narrow track close to a river on a farm near Tulbagh....

But mid-life weight loss is associated with the slowing of this aging process, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a healthy weight, to stave off serious respiratory ill health, say the researchers. Lung capacity is measured by forced vital capacity (FVC) and forced expiratory volume (FEV). It’s an important indicator of future ill health and life expectancy. There’s plenty of evidence linking overweight and obesity in adulthood with poorer lung capacity, but most of the studies have been relatively short term, and tracked the respiratory health of people only up to the age of 50....

Are we the best at judging our own attractiveness? New research out in Frontiers in Robotics and AI shows that we might not be after all. Researchers from the Experimental Virtual Environments (EVENT) Lab at the University of Barcelona examined the difference between how we believe we look, and how we view our own body from an outsider’s perspective. What they found was that people rate their own body more negatively when embodied in it, compared to viewing their exact same body except as an outsider....

To get code to run as fast as possible, developers and compilers — programs that translate programming language into machine-readable code — typically use performance models that run the code through a simulation of given chip architectures. Compilers use that information to automatically optimize code, and developers use it to tackle performance bottlenecks on the microprocessors that will run it. But performance models for machine code are handwritten by a relatively small group of experts and are not properly validated....