In the waning months of 2018, two of the mightiest deep earthquakes ever recorded in human history rattled the Tonga-Fiji region of the South Pacific. In the first-ever study of these deep earthquakes — generally defined as any earthquake occurring 350 kilometers or more below the Earth’s surface — a Florida State University-led research team…
A study conducted in C. elegans nematode roundworms may lead to improved treatment of a rare human genetic disorder that causes severe neurological symptoms leading to death in early childhood. In their report published in Nature Chemical Biology, two Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators describe finding that C. elegans can acquire the molybdenum cofactor (Moco)…
Working two or more night shifts in a week may increase a pregnant woman’s risk of miscarriage the following week by around a third, shows a prospective study published online in Occupational & Environmental Medicine. Previous studies have suggested that pregnant women face a greater risk of miscarriage if they work night shifts, but they…
-Smart speakers that are customarily used in your living room can be programmed to act as an aid to physicians in hospital operating rooms, according to new research presented today at the Society of Interventional Radiology’s 2019 Annual Scientific Meeting. Smart speakers, such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home, offer a conversational voice interface…
Exposure to dim light at night, which is common in today’s lifestyle, may contribute to the spread of breast cancer to the bones, researchers have shown for the first time in an animal study. Results of the study will be presented Saturday at ENDO 2019, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in New Orleans, La. “To…
Scientists at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Georgia Tech have found that modulating blood-forming stem cells’ stiffness could possibly facilitate mobilization procedures used for stem cell-based transplants. Temporary squishiness could help drive blood-forming stem cells out of the bone marrow and into the blood, but the cells need to…
A University of Oklahoma-led project is showing how citizen science programs provide valuable data on rivers in southwestern United States. The datasets of ecological and hydrological data obtained from intermittent rivers (rivers that dry at some point in space or time) in Arizona are input into a nationwide network. Trained citizen scientists are mapping three…
A new area in artificial intelligence involves using algorithms to automatically design machine-learning systems known as neural networks, which are more accurate and efficient than those developed by human engineers. But this so-called neural architecture search (NAS) technique is computationally expensive. One of the state-of-the-art NAS algorithms recently developed by Google took 48,000 hours of…
The center of our galaxy is a frenzy of activity. A behemoth black hole — 4 million times as massive as the sun — blasts out energy as it chows down on interstellar detritus while neighboring stars burst to life and subsequently explode. Now, an international team of astronomers has discovered two exhaust channels —…
Most emerging infectious diseases affecting people are zoonotic — they make the jump from other animals to humans. Transmission, however, is a two-way street. These zoonotic diseases can also jump from humans to other animals. Even if a disease is eradicated in humans, it can live on in animals that act as reservoirs, ensuring that…