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Credit: CC0 Public Domain A high-powered intervention by 23 former national Presidents, 22 former Prime Ministers, a former UN General Secretary, and 3 Nobel Laureates are being made today to press for an urgent agreement from international negotiators on a Pandemic Accord under the Constitution of the World Health Organization, to bolster the world's collective preparedness and response to future pandemics.…

A new method can track changes in live cell gene expression over extended periods of time. Based on Raman spectroscopy, the method doesn’t harm cells and can be performed repeatedly. Credit: MIT News; iStockA new MIT-developed method combines Raman spectroscopy with machine learning to noninvasively track gene expression in cells over time. This technique enables detailed study of cellular differentiation and has potential applications in cancer research, developmental biology, and diagnostics.Sequencing all of the RNA in…

The study identified 16 different microplastic polymer types across both contemporary and archived samples. Credit: York Archaeology Researchers have for the first time discovered evidence of microplastic contamination in archaeological soil samples. The team discovered tiny microplastic particles in deposits located more than 7 meters deep, in…

Daily article downloads for tweeted vs. control articles after the tweeting date. Data obtained from John Wiley & Sons for five journals for the experimental (blue, n = 10 per journal) and control (red, n = 40 per journal) articles, aligned to the number of days after tweeting occurred for each experimental article. Credit: PLOS ONE (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0292201 A team of researchers with varied backgrounds has…

By Lauren Perkins, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center March 22, 2024Lunar eclipses happen during the full moon phase when Earth aligns exactly between the Moon and Sun, casting Earth’s shadow on the Moon. This shadowing dims the Moon and can turn it a vivid red for several hours. Visible from one hemisphere of Earth at a time, there are three kinds of lunar eclipses: total, partial, and penumbral. Credit: NASAApril’s solar eclipse has stolen the headlines for many months now, and rightfully so with millions of Americans…

Eventually, we're going to want to expand the World Wide Web across the galaxy, and NASA recently demonstrated a key piece of tech that could help, beaming messages via laser across a distance of almost 16 million kilometers (10 million miles). That's about 40 times farther than the Moon is from Earth, and the accomplishment, achieved in November 2023, represented the first time that optical communications have been sent across such a distance. Traditionally, we use radio waves to talk to distant spacecraft – but higher…

Starship, the world's most powerful rocket, flew further and faster than ever before during its third test launch Thursday, although it was eventually lost as it re-entered the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean, SpaceX said. Lift-off from the company's Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas came at 8:25 am local time (1325 GMT) and was carried live on a webcast watched by millions on social media platform X. The sleek mega rocket is vital to NASA's plans for landing astronauts on the Moon later this decade – and SpaceX CEO Elon…

In a scarred and scored terrain on the face of Mars, a giant secret lurks.There, beneath the region known as Noctis Labyrinthus (Labyrinth of the Night), scientists have found evidence of an enormous, ancient volcano – and, possibly, a buried sheet of glacier ice. The discovery makes the equatorial site an attractive option in the search for signs of ancient life on the dry and dusty planet. Finding a hidden volcano was never part of the plan, but when a team led by planetary scientist Pascal Lee of the SETI Institute…

There's something peculiar about dying star Betelgeuse.Yeah, there was the whole sneeze thing. That's been pretty much resolved for now. But before the Great Dimming Debacle of 2019, scientists spotted something even more peculiar about the giant star. Radio measurements of its changing light suggested it was rotating at 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) per second. The big problem with that is that stars of Betelgeuse's vintage should, theoretically, have a maximum rotation speed at least two orders of magnitude lower. So,…

Scientists have devised a way to produce recyclable and stable polymers from cellulose, offering a sustainable alternative to traditional plastics. This development opens up new possibilities in the production of environmentally friendly materials. Above is a transparent film made from the new recyclable polymer developed in this study. Credit: Feng LiCellulose, widely sourced from plant matter, can be transformed into molecules for the creation of a novel category of recyclable polymers, offering a sustainable…