Science Trends

Oxygen element in periodic table. Science fiction stories are chock full of terraforming schemes and oxygen generators for a very good reason -- we humans need molecular oxygen (O 2 ) to breathe, and space is essentially devoid of it. Even on other planets with thick atmospheres, O 2  is hard to come by. So, when we explore space, we need to bring our own oxygen supply. That is not ideal because a lot of energy is needed to hoist things into space atop a rocket, and once the supply runs out, it is gone. One place molecular oxygen does appear outside of Earth is in the wisps of gas streaming off comets. The source of that oxygen remained a mystery until two years ago when Konstantinos P. Giapis, a professor of chemical engineering at Caltech, and his postdoctoral fellow Yunxi Yao, proposed the existence of a new chemical process that could account for its production. Giapis, along with Tom Miller, professor of chemistry, have now demonstrated a new reaction for generating...

Supernova illustration. Did ancient supernovae induce proto-humans to walk on two legs, eventually resulting in  Homo sapiens  with hands free to build cathedrals, design rockets and snap iPhone selfies? A paper published today in the  Journal of Geology  makes the case: Supernovae bombarded Earth with cosmic energy starting as many as 8 million years ago, with a peak some 2.6 million years ago, initiating an avalanche of electrons in the lower atmosphere and setting off a chain of events that feasibly ended with bipedal hominins such as  Homo habilis , dubbed "handy man." The authors believe atmospheric ionization probably triggered an enormous upsurge in cloud-to-ground lightning strikes that ignited forest fires around the globe. These infernos could be one reason ancestors of  Homo sapiens  developed bipedalism -- to adapt in savannas that replaced torched forests in northeast Africa. "It is thought there was already some tendency ...

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci produced some of the world's most iconic art, but historical accounts show that he struggled to complete his works. 500 years after his death, King's College London researcher Professor Marco Catani suggests the best explanation for Leonardo's inability to finish projects is that the great artist may have had Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). In an article in the journal  Brain , Professor Catani lays out the evidence supporting his hypothesis, drawing on historical accounts of Leonardo's work practices and behaviour. As well as explaining his chronic procrastination, ADHD could have been a factor in Leonardo's extraordinary creativity and achievements across the arts and sciences. Professor Catani, from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King's, says: 'While impossible to make a post-mortem diagnosis for someone who lived 500 years ago, I am confident that ADHD is t...

Erasing memories concept. What if scientists could manipulate your brain so that a traumatic memory lost its emotional power over your psyche? Steve Ramirez, a Boston University neuroscientist fascinated by memory, believes that a small structure in the brain could hold the keys to future therapeutic techniques for treating depression, anxiety, and PTSD, someday allowing clinicians to enhance positive memories or suppress negative ones. Inside our brains, a cashew-shaped structure called the hippocampus stores the sensory and emotional information that makes up memories, whether they be positive or negative ones. No two memories are exactly alike, and likewise, each memory we have is stored inside a unique combination of brain cells that contain all the environmental and emotional information associated with that memory. The hippocampus itself, although small, comprises many different subregions all working in tandem to recall the elements of a specific memory. Now, ...

The white-browed sparrow-weaver is one of the 'winners'. Researchers at the University of Southampton have forecast a worldwide move towards smaller birds and mammals over the next 100 years. In the future, small, fast-lived, highly-fertile, insect-eating animals, which can thrive in a wide-variety of habitats, will predominate. These 'winners' include rodents, such as dwarf gerbil -- and songbirds, such as the white-browed sparrow-weaver. Less adaptable, slow-lived species, requiring specialist environmental conditions, will likely fall victim of extinction. These 'losers' include the tawny eagle and black rhinoceros. The researchers predict the average (median) body mass of mammals specifically will collectively reduce by 25 per cent over the next century. This decline represents a large, accelerated change when compared with the 14 per cent body size reduction observed in species from 130,000 years ago (the last interglacial period) until today...

Earth from Moon's Surface The Earth is unique in our solar system: It is the only terrestrial planet with a large amount of water and a relatively large moon, which stabilizes the Earth's axis. Both were essential for Earth to develop life. Planetologists at the University of Münster (Germany) have now been able to show, for the first time, that water came to Earth with the formation of the Moon some 4.4 billion years ago. The Moon was formed when Earth was hit by a body about the size of Mars, also called Theia. Until now, scientists had assumed that Theia originated in the inner solar system near the Earth. However, researchers from Münster can now show that Theia comes from the outer solar system, and it delivered large quantities of water to Earth. The results are published in the current issue of  Nature Astronomy . From the outer into the inner solar system Earth seen from the moon (stock image; elements of this image are furnished by NASA). ...

button batteries Damage to the lining of the stomach can occur quickly when children swallow button batteries; therefore, clinicians should consider prompt endoscopic removal, even when the child is s ymptom free and the battery has passed safely through the narrow esophagus, according to research presented at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2019. The recommendations represent a change from current practice of watching and waiting. "We know there can be injury even when there are no symptoms," said Racha Khalaf, MD, lead researcher and pediatric gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition fellow at the Digestive Health Institute at Children's Hospital Colorado, Aurora. "Batteries in the stomach cause damage, including perforation of the gastric wall, so physicians should consider removing the batteries as soon as possible and not let them pass through the digestive tract." Researchers from pediatric hospitals in Colorado, Florida, Texas and Ohio collecte...

Laser light University o f British Columbia researchers have developed a specialized microscope that has the potential ability to both diagnose diseases that include skin cancer and perform incredibly precise surgery -- all without cutting skin. The researchers describe the technology in a study published today in  Science Advances . "Our technology allows us to scan tissue quickly, and when we see a suspicious or abnormal cell structure, we can perform ultra-precise surgery and selectively treat the unwanted or diseased structure within the tissue -- without cutting into the skin," said Yimei Huang, co-lead author of the study and a former postdoctoral fellow at the department of dermatology and skin science at UBC and BC Cancer. Huang co-led the study with Zhenguo Wu, a UBC PhD student. The device is a specialized type of multiphoton excitation microscope that allows imaging of living tissue up to about one millimeter in depth using an ultrafast infrared la...

Influenza virus illustration. Yale researchers have pinpointed a key reason why people are more likely to get sick and even die from flu during winter months: low humidity. While experts know that cold temperatures and low humidity promote transmission of the flu virus, less is understood about the effect of decreased humidity on the immune system's defenses against flu infection. The Yale research team, led by Akiko Iwasaki, the Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Immunobiology, explored the question using mice genetically modified to resist viral infection as humans do. The mice were all housed in chambers at the same temperature, but with either low or normal humidity. They were then exposed to the influenza A virus. The researchers found that low humidity hindered the immune response of the animals in three ways. It prevented cilia, which are hair-like structures in airways cells, from removing viral particles and mucus. It also reduced the ability of airway cel...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa illustration. An all-Princeton research team has identified bacteria that can detect the speed of flowing fluids. Many kinds of cells can sense flow, just as our skin cells can feel the difference between a gentle breeze and a strong wind. But we depend on feeling the force involved, the push-back from the air against us. Without that push, we can't distinguish speed; when the windows are closed, our skin can't feel any difference in air force whether we are sitting in an office, a speeding car or a cruising airplane. But now, a team of Princeton researchers has now discovered that some bacteria can in fact detect the speed of flow regardless of the force. Their paper appears in the online journal  Nature Microbiology. "We have engineered bacteria to be speedometers," said Zemer Gitai, Princeton's Edwin Grant Conklin Professor of Biology and the senior author on the paper. "There's an application here: We can actually...

Bacteriophage attacking bacteria  The patient, a 15-year-old girl, had come to London's Great Ormond Street Hospital for a double lung transplant. It was the summer of 2017, and her lungs were struggling to reach even a third of their normal function. She had cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that clogs lungs with mucus and plagues patients with persistent infections. For eight years, she had been taking antibiotics to control two stubborn bacterial strains. Weeks after the transplant, doctors noticed redness at the site of her surgical wound and signs of infection in her liver. Then, they saw nodules -- pockets of bacteria pushing up through the skin -- on her arms, legs, and buttocks. The girl's infection had spread, and traditional antibiotics were no longer working. Now, a new personalized treatment is helping the girl heal. The treatment relies on genetically engineering bacteriophages, viruses that can infect and kill bacteria. Over the next six months, near...

Binary data concept. Research funded in part by the U.S. Army identified properties in materials that could one day lead to applications such as more powerful data storage devices that continue to hold information even after a device has been powered off. A team of researchers led by Cornell University and the University of California Berkeley made a discovery that opens up a plethora of materials systems and physical phenomena that can now be explored. The scientists observed what's known as chirality for the first time in polar skyrmions in an exquisitely designed and synthesized artificial material with reversible electrical properties. Chirality is where two objects, like a pair of gloves, can be mirror images of each other but cannot be superimposed on one another. Polar skyrmions are textures made up of opposite electric charges known as dipoles. Researchers had always assumed that skyrmions would only appear in magnetic materials, where special interactions ...