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Scientists Find Long-Sought-After Mechanism that Creates Immunity to Influenza A Virus

This image illustrates the beginning stages of an influenza infection and shows what happens after the influenza viruses enter the human body. Image credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dec 7, 2016 by News Staff

An international team of researchers from Australia, China and the United States has shown for the first time that RNA interference is active in the response of human cells to some important viruses, including influenza A virus. The research is published in the journal Nature Microbiology. This image illustrates the beginning stages of an influenza infection and shows what happens after the influenza viruses enter the human body. Image credit: Centers...

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This map of dark matter was obtained from data from the KiDS survey, using ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope. It reveals an expansive web of dense (light) and empty (dark) regions. This image is one out of five patches of the sky observed by KiDS. The invisible dark matter is seen rendered in pink, covering an area of sky around 420 times the size of the full Moon. This image reconstruction was made by analyzing the light collected from over 3 million galaxies more than 6 billion light-years away. The observed galaxy images were warped by the gravitational pull of dark matter as the light traveled through the Universe. Some small dark regions, with sharp boundaries, appear in this image. They are the locations of bright stars and other nearby objects that get in the way of the observations of more distant galaxies and are hence masked out in the map as no weak-lensing signal can be measured in these areas. Image credit: Kilo-Degree Survey Collaboration / H. Hildebrandt & B. Giblin / ESO.

Deep Space Images Shed More Light on Dark Matter

Dec 7, 2016 by News Staff

An international research team led by Dr. Massimo Viola from the Leiden Observatory and Dr. Hendrik Hildebrandt from the Argelander-Institut für Astronomie...

Bathochordaeus charon and its ‘house’ in Monterey Bay: giant larvaceans use their oikoplastic cells to secrete complex filters or ‘houses’ that allow them to concentrate and feed on particles; a ‘house’ consists of a large, diaphanous outer structure as well as a smaller, more convoluted and bi-lobed inner structure that functions as a filter; together these serve to concentrate appropriately-sized food particles from the surrounding water; in situ, larvaceans in the genus Bathochordaeus are often visible from several meters away because their houses may span a meter in longest dimension. Image credit: MBARI.

Mysterious Deep-Sea Animal Rediscovered after 116 Years

Dec 6, 2016 by Natali Anderson

Bathochordaeus charon — an extremely rare species of giant larvacean — has been rediscovered, more than a century after the only previous known...

Astronaut Bruce McCandless II, STS 41-B mission specialist, participates in a historical spacewalk. He is pictured a few meters away from the cabin of the Earth-orbiting Space Shuttle Challenger. This spacewalk represented the first use of a nitrogen-propelled, hand-controlled device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), which allows for much greater mobility than that afforded previous space walkers who had to use restrictive tethers. Image credit: NASA.

Researchers Identify Cause of Visual Impairment in Long-Duration Mission Astronauts

Dec 6, 2016 by News Staff

Astronauts on long-duration flights experience visual impairments due to volume changes in cerebrospinal fluid, the clear fluid that helps cushion the...

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the highly inclined spiral galaxy NGC 4388. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Captures Spectacular Image of Spiral Galaxy NGC 4388

Dec 5, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a colorful photo of NGC 4388, an active spiral galaxy at the core of the Virgo Cluster. This image from the...

Star of Bethlehem May Not Have Been Star After All, Says Astrophysicist

Dec 2, 2016 by News Staff

Grant Mathews, professor of theoretical astrophysics and cosmology in the University of Notre Dame’s College of Science, believes the event that led...

An artist’s impression of a near-Earth asteroid. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

2015 TC25: Astronomers Find Smallest Known Near-Earth Asteroid

Dec 1, 2016 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers led by University of Arizona scientist Dr. Vishnu Reddy has obtained observations of the smallest near-Earth asteroid...

As computer models predicted, genetically modified plants are better able to make use of the limited sunlight available when their leaves go into the shade. Image credit: Julie McMahon.

New Biotechnology Increases Crop Yield by 20%

Dec 1, 2016 by Marcus Nield

Scientists from the University of Illinois have boosted crop yields in a revolutionary procedure that genetically enhances photosynthesis. The UN claims...

Earth’s technosphere now weighs some 30 trillion tons -- a mass of more than 50 kg for every sq.m of the planet’s surface, according to Jan Zalasiewicz et al.

Geologists: Total Mass of Earth’s Technosphere is about 30 Trillion Tons

Nov 30, 2016 by News Staff

A multinational team of geologists has made the first estimate of the sheer size of the physical structure of Earth’s technosphere — suggesting...

This artist’s view shows how the light coming from the surface of a strongly magnetic neutron star (left) becomes linearly polarized as it travels through the vacuum of space close to the star on its way to the observer on Earth (right). The polarization of the observed light in the extremely strong magnetic field suggests that the empty space around the neutron star is subject to a quantum effect known as vacuum birefringence. The magnetic and electric field directions of the light rays are shown by the red and blue lines. Image credit: L. Calçada / ESO.

Astronomers Report First Observational Evidence for Vacuum Birefringence

Nov 30, 2016 by News Staff

By studying the light emitted from the very dense and strongly magnetic neutron star RX J1856.5-3754, a team of astronomers has found the strongest observational...

Super-resolution microscopy of GapmeR co-localization with SNX5 protein -- a member of the sorting nexin family of proteins -- in human T-cells. Image credit: Fazil, M. H. U. T. et al, doi: 10.1038/srep37721.

Researchers Develop New Method for Silencing Specific Genes in Human T-Cells

Nov 30, 2016 by News Staff

An international team of researchers led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, has developed a novel technique for gene silencing in human T-lymphocytes...

Planets form around a young star in this artist’s concept. Image credit: David A. Hardy, www.astroart.org / NASA.

Solar System’s Birth was Triggered by Nearby Low-Mass Supernova, Researchers Say

Nov 29, 2016 by News Staff

A low-mass core-collapse supernova catalyzed the birth of our Solar System, according to a team of scientists led by University of Minnesota researcher. Planets...

Crystals of cesium platinide hydride 4Cs2Pt*CsH. Image credit: Ames Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy.

Researchers Synthesize First Intermetallic Double Salt with Platinum

Nov 28, 2016 by News Staff

A team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory has synthesized and accurately characterized cesium platinide hydride (4Cs2Pt*CsH),...

This artist’s impression shows a super-Earth orbiting a red dwarf star. Image credit: NASA.

K2-3d: Ground-Based Telescope Observes Super-Earth Transiting Bright Star

Nov 28, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

A team of astronomers in Japan has conducted the first ground-based transit observation of K2-3d, a super-Earth within the habitable zone around a bright...

Neuroscientists Say Simple Mathematical Logic Underlies Complex Brain Computations

Nov 25, 2016 by News Staff

According to Dr. Joe Tsien, a neuroscientist at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, the brain’s basic computational algorithm is organized...

Hen Harrier is Actually Two Different Species

Nov 24, 2016 by News Staff

New research confirms that the hen harrier (Circus cyaneus), a medium-sized bird of prey found in parts of North America and Eurasia, is two different...

DNA. Image credit: Qimono.

Only Half of Chromosome is DNA, New Study Reveals

Nov 24, 2016 by News Staff

DNA makes up only half of the material inside chromosomes, according to a new study published in the journal Molecular Cell. Up to 47% of their structure...

Artist’s concept of ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Ice-Quake Echoes Could Lift Lid on Oceans within Pluto and Europa

Nov 22, 2016 by James Romero

Measuring outer solar system ice-quakes could identify if Europa’s subsurface ocean is an oxygen-rich, leading candidates for life, or uncover the origin...

Virgo I: New Dwarf Galaxy Discovered in Orbit around Milky Way

Nov 21, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers have identified a new ultra-faint dwarf satellite companion of our Milky Way Galaxy. A schematic showing the locations of Virgo I and other...

Caenorhabditis elegans. Image credit: Bob Goldstein / University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

LITE-1: Researchers Discover New Type of Photoreceptor

Nov 21, 2016 by News Staff

Scientists have discovered a new type of photoreceptor protein that is about 50 times more efficient at capturing light than the rhodopsin, a protein that...

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