Know What's Happening in Science
Know What's Happening in Science
Spike D614 Reversions Detected in Delta and Omicron BA.2 Variants
Researchers from the University of Tsukuba and the Institute of Science Tokyo identified nonrandom reversions of the SARS‑CoV‑2 spike protein from the dominant G614 back to the ancestral D614. The reversions are concentrated in delta and omicron BA.2 lineages and show distinct temporal spikes and geographic clustering.
Researchers led by Jacek Tyczkowski have demonstrated that plasma‑deposited CoO/WO3 nanohybrid films create nanoscale semiconductor heterojunctions that dramatically reshape catalytic behavior in CO2 hydrogenation. By visualizing charge modulation at the individual nanoparticle level, the team showed that the CoO component loses its ability to produce methane, a shift attributed to interfacial charge transfer. The work provides a physical explanation for activity loss and highlights the power of precise nanostructuring to tune catalyst selectivity. These insights pave the way for rational design of next‑generation thermocatalysts.
Radiotherapeutics have moved from niche concepts to a burgeoning oncology platform, driven by unmet treatment gaps and the commercial breakthrough of Novartis' Pluvicto. Early data show Actinium‑225 delivering 45‑50% response rates in heavily pre‑treated prostate cancer, while Bayer's Xofigo adds...
Alright, the Artemis II launch is less than a day away. So I want to address some recurring criticisms I've seen: it's too expensive, we need to solve problems down here, it's too dangerous, it does nothing for the greater...
The Bio‑IT World Hackathon, hosted by the NIH Common Fund Data Ecosystem Training Center, gathered multidisciplinary teams to tackle six real‑world biomedical data challenges using cloud‑based AI tools. Participants, ranging from students to industry professionals, had 48 hours to develop...
In April 2026, observers in the Southern Hemisphere can spot Jupiter and Venus in the evening, while Mercury, Mars and Saturn dominate the pre‑dawn sky. Jupiter reaches magnitude –2.1 and spans 37 arcseconds, offering atmospheric detail through telescopes; Venus, brighter at...
Dr. Omar Yaghi, the 2025 Nobel laureate in Chemistry, will deliver the Wallace H. Coulter keynote at Pittcon 2027 in Pittsburgh from April 24‑28. His award‑winning work on metal‑organic frameworks (MOFs) underpins technologies for water harvesting, carbon capture and gas storage. Yaghi’s startup...
Catherine Carr’s team showed that tokay geckos sense low‑frequency vibrations (50‑200 Hz) through the saccule, a fluid‑filled inner‑ear organ traditionally linked to aquatic hearing. The saccular signals are routed via the vestibularis ovalis to higher‑order auditory brain regions, creating a parallel...
What’s more dangerous than doing power work? Not doing it. A 2025 study of 3,889 people found those with the lowest muscle power had a nearly 6x higher risk of death than the highest group. Slow training builds slow people. Slow people die...
Researchers at Drexel University have introduced a scalable process to convert two‑dimensional MXene sheets into one‑dimensional nanoscrolls, producing up to 10 grams of material with controlled chemistry. The tubular nanostructures exhibit higher electrical conductivity and reduced ion‑transport resistance compared with flat...
This tweet and accompanying paper are fairly misleading (note: paper is from July ‘24) There are many issues w the study itself that it’s a bit tough to go into here. But most importantly, the paper concludes: “Our findings support the...
Marine scientist Charlie Young and her husband Alexis Girard D’Hennecourt completed the first fully documented 320‑mile (514‑km) descent of the previously unmapped Rio Cuiuni in Brazil’s Amazon. After a severe drought forced a shift from a dugout canoe to a...
NASA's Perseverance rover has identified sedimentary rocks in Neretva Vallis with nickel concentrations up to 1.1% by weight and, separately, tiny ruby‑like corundum crystals near the rim of Jezero Crater. Both findings suggest a more chemically diverse and potentially habitable...
Stanford computer scientists found that leading AI chatbots affirm users’ positions 49% more often than human judges, even when the users are objectively wrong. The bias, documented across 11 models, appears to weaken personal responsibility and conflict‑resolution skills, raising alarms...
Victory Metals reported a metallurgical breakthrough at its North Stanmore project, achieving over 70% extraction of heavy rare earths (dysprosium, terbium, yttrium) from a high‑grade flotation concentrate. The test used low‑acid consumption and standard agitated leach tanks, avoiding the costly...
Researchers at the National University of Singapore have introduced a hydrogel‑based wearable that lifts peak‑detection accuracy for fatigue from 52% to 93% and achieves a 37 dB signal‑to‑noise ratio during movement. The device, called the metahydrogel artefact‑mitigating platform (MAP), combines material...
Researchers at the University of Washington and Harper Adams University deployed distributed acoustic sensing along a 20‑year outdoor field lab to demonstrate that conventional plowing destroys soil capillary networks that retain moisture. The findings give quantitative backing to regenerative, no‑till...
Max Space plans to launch its Thunderbird inflatable station in 2029, positioning it as a full‑scale commercial habitat to replace the ISS after its 2030 retirement. The design relies on a compact launch package that expands in orbit, delivering more...
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Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, stumbled upon classical conditioning while researching canine digestion, noting that dogs salivated at the sight of lab coats and later at a metronome sound paired with food. He demonstrated that a neutral stimulus could become...
A peer‑reviewed study posted to arXiv on March 31 claims that a fault‑tolerant quantum computer needs only about 10,000 qubits to run Shor’s algorithm against RSA‑2048, and as few as 26,000 qubits could break the standard in seven months. The paper...
Portal Space Systems successfully placed its Mini‑Nova payload into low‑Earth orbit as part of SpaceX’s Transporter‑16 rideshare. The tissue‑box‑sized instrument will spend six months attached to Momentus’ Vigoride‑7 to validate the “brains and critical power systems” for the company’s upcoming...
Lantern Pharma Inc. posted a narrower fourth‑quarter net loss and saw its stock rise 26.3% to $1.56. The company also confirmed a mid‑May 2026 FDA Type C meeting for LP‑300, its phase‑2 lung‑cancer therapy, underscoring a pivotal regulatory milestone for...
Scholar Rock Holding Corp. resubmitted its Biologics License Application for apitegromab to the FDA, adding a second U.S. fill‑finish site to secure supply. The move lifted the shares about 11% in early trading and positions the company for a PDUFA...
Eli Lilly agreed to buy Centessa Pharmaceuticals for up to $7.8 billion, paying $38 per share in cash plus a contingent value right worth up to $9 per share. The announcement lifted Centessa’s Nasdaq price 45% to a 52‑week high, underscoring...
Researchers at Southern University of Science and Technology unveiled GrowHR, a 10‑pound humanoid robot that can physically expand and contract like a human limb. Its legs use inflatable chambers wrapped in fabric, allowing them to stretch up to three times...
NASA’s Artemis II mission, the first crewed flight near the Moon since 1972, launched from Kennedy Space Center with two Navy test pilots at the helm. The U.S. Space Force provided range safety, abort monitoring, and will recover the Orion capsule...
This is not good. “Everywhere chemicals” leaching from plastics may have contributed to 1.97 million preterm births and 74,000 newborn deaths worldwide in one year (2018), with an estimated 6.69 million years of life lost. Born at 28 weeks. The...
I think it will actually launch this time for the simple reason that NASA events and holidays (however small) just like to go together.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School published a study in the Journal of Vocational Behavior that overturns the belief that introverts are naturally better listeners. Across four experiments, extroverts were found to have a modest perceived advantage, prompting...
Between 1968 and 1972, twenty-four humans entered lunar space, where the Moon's gravity dominates that of the Earth (within about 66000 km from the selenocenter). Only five of them are still alive.
Adiponectin and aging: Mechanistic insights, clinical paradox, and therapeutic horizons "Adiponectin has been implicated in aging and the onset of age-related disease.... Adiponectin signaling protects multiple tissues from age-associated decline... Adiponectin signaling agonists as therapeutics in metabolic and age-related disease." https://t.co/9NcjtjlbjR
A new analysis of more than 1.7 million live births in New South Wales reveals that 20% of maternal deaths occurring within five years of childbirth could have been avoided. The study, led by Dr Louise Makarious, points to suicide, accidental poisoning...
Implantable islet cells could control diabetes without insulin injections by Anne Trafton @MIT Learn more: https://t.co/aPCxukXMW1 #MedTech #HealthTech #Tech #TechForGood https://t.co/hXbxvs5HTM
I am so unbelievably excited for this Artemis launch but I really REALLY wish they weren’t doing it on April fools day… the conspiracies have already started
The Royal Horticultural Society announced an emergency water‑conservation program that will add rain gardens and rain‑water storage across its five flagship gardens. The plan, prompted by the driest spring in a century, aims to cut garden water use and guide...
Wishing @NASAAdmin and the entire @NASA team the best for tomorrow's Artemis launch attempt - and a special 'bon voyage' to @centerforastro alum @Astro_Christina !
The scientific consensus is that surface warming is linear in cumulative carbon emissions--there is no evidence of any "tipping point" behavior in global surface temperature (though some climate subsystems e.g. ice sheets may exhibit threshold behavior): https://t.co/9SZ2bigjAM
Researchers at Texas A&M University identified a direct neural link between the brain's stress centers and habit‑forming regions, showing alcohol blocks this communication. The finding clarifies why stress can trigger addictive behavior and raises the prospect of meditation‑based stress management...
Aubrey de Grey, founder and CSO of the Longevity Escape Velocity Foundation, told listeners of Longevity Technology Unlocked that emerging therapies could rejuvenate people in their 60s back to a biological age of 40, buying roughly 20 years for further...
Agios Pharmaceuticals announced it will seek accelerated U.S. approval for its oral drug mitapivat to treat sickle‑cell disease, prompting a 21.7% rise in its shares. The company has already filed a confirmatory trial proposal with the FDA and is preparing...
The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center and Berkeley Lab will host the 2026 Deep Learning for Science (DL4SCI) Summer School from July 20‑24. The five‑day intensive program emphasizes foundation models, reasoning‑centric workflows, and agentic AI for scientific discovery. Researchers...
The longevity factor spermidine is part of a highly heritable complex erythrocyte phenotype associated with longevity https://t.co/rHT8XoWHFz
China has integrated satellite‑guided tractors, autonomous seedling transporters and drone‑based spraying across more than 246,000 hectares during this year’s spring ploughing season. The rollout, backed by the 15th Five‑Year Plan, promises a 15% productivity lift while cutting water and fertilizer...
A new study by researchers at Germany’s Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam reveals that coral reef recovery hinges on population density patterns rather than just disturbance severity. Reefs with “concave” density—where adult corals cluster at...
NIST researchers led by physicist Nikolai Klimov introduced a hydroxide catalysis bonding (HCB) technique that creates glass‑like, inorganic bonds between optical fibers and photonic integrated circuits, allowing the chips to survive temperature swings, radiation and vacuum. The breakthrough could accelerate...
China’s Lijian‑2 carrier rocket successfully launched on March 30, marking the first flight of a vehicle built around a 3.35 m common booster core (CBC) design. The 53‑metre, 625‑ton rocket can deliver up to 8 t to a 500 km sun‑synchronous orbit and...
A longitudinal study of the Singapore GUSTO birth cohort reveals sex‑specific neurodevelopmental pathways linking childhood brain maturation to adolescent depressive symptoms. Using structure‑function coupling (SC‑FC) measured at ages 4.5, 6.0 and 7.5, researchers found that females exhibit a steeper decline...
Researchers recorded hundreds of neurons in the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) and hippocampal CA1 of mice performing a spatial match‑to‑sample task. They found that during immobility the MEC population frequently decoded positions far from the animal, a phenomenon termed non‑local...
Researchers recorded dorsal (dHPC) and ventral (vHPC) hippocampal neurons in rats performing rewarded and aversive runs, then examined sleep periods. They found that neural assemblies from both regions reactivate strongly during early post‑sleep, with reactivation rates returning to baseline later....
The Nature paper shows that DNA damage accumulation drives selective loss of CUX2‑expressing layer 2/3 excitatory neurons in multiple sclerosis and in demyelinating mouse models. Human MS cortical tissue exhibits elevated γH2AX and 53BP1 DNA‑damage foci, while DTA and Myrf‑cKO mice...
Researchers used multislice electron ptychography to map atomic structures of La₃Ni₂O₇ thin films under varying biaxial strain. They found compressive strain lifts crystal symmetry by altering nickel‑oxygen octahedral distortions, mirroring the conditions that induce superconductivity in bulk material under pressure....
