Science

Astronauts must be healthy. Job requirements. To avoid illness and mission failure, they quarantine before launch. They work and live in antiseptic conditions overhead. Some suffer viral flareups or rashes in space. “Why is it that they get infections up there?” wondered University of Ottawa molecular scientist Odette Laneuville. Laneuville and her colleagues indicate in a Frontiers in Immunology research that 100 immune-related genes, which promote opportunistic infections, may be lowered in activity. Experts think understanding what makes astronauts more susceptible to infections might make space flights safer and enhance immunocompromised treatment on Earth. Laneuville adds our bodies harbor many viruses and bacteria. “And because we’re healthy, we keep those at check an...

A fertilized human egg grows into a 200-cell hollow ball and inserts itself on the uterine wall in its first week. It splits into human tissues in three weeks. Those vital weeks are mostly unknown. “We know the basics, but the very fine details we just don’t know,” said Jacob Hanna, a developmental biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Dr. Hanna and other scientists are constructing lab models of human embryos to find out. They're getting stem cells to form embryo-like aggregates. These trials were reported by Dr. Hanna's Israeli team, Britain, the US, and China this month. While not yet published in scholarly publications, the experiments have drawn interest from other scientists who have hoped for years that such discoveries might ultimately illuminate early ...

Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, suddenly awoke in the late 1800s, according to a Nature research. According to the results, this black hole, which is 27,000 light years from Earth and four million times heavier than the Sun, awoke two millennia ago. Researchers say the celestial creature spent over a year swallowing cosmic objects before going dormant. "Imagine a bear going into hibernation after devouring everything around it," said research author Frederic Marin, according to AFP on Saturday. "At least a million times brighter than it is today," Marin said, the black hole was active in the late 19th century. "A single glowworm hidden in a forest suddenly became as bright as the Sun," according to French researchers CNRS, as adj...

The Environmental Science B.S. degree (ENVS), designed by academics from the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and the School of Biological Sciences, has debuted and is enrolling students. Math, physics, chemistry, biology, earth sciences, and environmental policy form the foundation of the ENVS degree. Upper-level electives let students tailor their studies to their interests and professional ambitions. Greg Huey, professor and chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, said the new degree will equip students to be future leaders who understand how human activity affects Earth systems and human well-being. “Graduates will be leaders in industry, academia, education, and communication to create innovative solutions to our greatest environmental challenges.” Ina...

Physical activity is healthy. A recent research based on 30 years of data questions the adage Mens sana in corpore sano (a healthy mind in a healthy body) and the value of exercise for brain health and cognition. Our health and neuroscience researchers published our study of over a quarter million participants a few days following that study. Our findings confirm the cognitive benefits of moderate and intensive physical exercise, fueling an important scientific debate. Is exercise pointless for cognition? First research released March 27, 2023. It is a more careful review of 24 meta-analyses of 11,266 healthy persons. Most of the 24 meta-analyses in this review found that exercise improved cognitive performance, but the authors say the studies were poor. The scientific comm...

Malaysia's first astronaut, Datuk Dr. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, suggested sending a woman astronaut to the ISS around 2030. He added the Malaysian National Space Agency's program will commence selecting in 2025 or 2026. In 2013, the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (MOSTI) planned to send a second group of astronauts to the ISS to conduct research by 2016. On October 10, 2007, Sheikh Muszaphar traveled to the ISS with Expedition 16 to study liver cancer, leukemia, and protein and microorganism crystallization in space. New Straits Times said that liver cancer, leukemia, and microorganism tests will assist science and medicine. Protein crystallization trials might aid local industry. Netizens claim it wastes resources. Netizens thought sending another...

Saturday, June 24, residents and tourists may see automobiles and motorcycles with heat sensors. NOAA will use citizen scientists to map heat islands worldwide. Morning, midday, and evening heat and humidity will be measured. Sedona is one of 18 cities studied this year. NOAA has mapped heat islands in 70 localities in the U.S. and other nations over seven years. Morgan Zabow, NOAA community heat and health information coordinator, was curious about urban heat island temperatures. Zabow said tall buildings, asphalt, and less natural spaces make cities warmer than undeveloped places. She stated urban heat islands might be 15–20 degrees hotter than rural, forested regions. Sedona has 10,000 residents and 3 million tourists every year. Zabow said visitors lack heat sensi...

Science's greatest mystery is whether we're alone in the cosmos. NASA and other space organizations seek for extraterrestrial life. NASA's SWIM (Sensing with Independent Micro-swimmers) mission idea seeks to find life on ocean worlds including Enceladus, Europa, and Titan. These faraway planets have liquid seas under miles of frozen crust, making them ideal for extraterrestrial life. NASA is developing and refining ocean-access mission ideas, notably the SESAME class of thermo-mechanical drilling robots, to explore these underwater worlds. SWIM, a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory idea, will greatly enhance SESAME's capacity to discover biomarkers, habitability, and maybe life in these mysterious alien ocean worlds. https://twitter.com/NASA_Technology/status/1672318101956730902 ...

In recent times, it seems as though there is a mind-blowing piece of scientific news published every other day, all of which has completely blown our small little minds. First, there was the finding of a scary black hole that was aiming directly at us; secondly, there was the discovery of a large hole found in the sun; and last, there was the discovery of a vanished continent that had been absent for more than three hundred and seventy-five years. People are just now coming to the conclusion that there is a large ocean buried beneath the surface of the Earth's crust. It has been discovered that a massive amount of water has been preserved in rock known as 'ringwoodite' for a distance of around 400 miles underground. The Earth's crust contains a massive ocean with more water th...

The search for the lost OceanGate Titan submarine, which descended to the Titanic debris, dominated the news this week. Tragically, the U.S. Coast Guard verified that wreckage recovered near the sunken ocean liner was part of the missing sub and that it experienced a "catastrophic implosion," killing five sailors. This week, science exercised your brain cells elsewhere. The exciting discovery of an exotic new state of matter made of excitons; extraordinary research on the cosmological constant problem, which suggests the expansion of the universe may be an illusion; and the discovery that your brain is filled with mysterious spiral signals that may be key to cognition. The world's oldest penis decoration is 42,000 years old, while Asia's tallest tree is 335 feet (102 meters). ...