Новости за 01.01.2025

Ebola is a deadly hemorrhagic disease caused by a virus that is endemic in parts of East-Central and West Africa. Most people are aware that a primary route for person-to-person transmission is through contact with bodily fluids from an infected person. But more recent outbreaks, including the 2013–2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, demonstrated that infectious Ebola virus (EBOV) is also found on the skin's surface of those who have succumbed to infection or at late times during infection.

NSF NOIRLab rings in the New Year with a glittering galaxyscape captured with the Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera, mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NSF NOIRLab. This ultra-deep view of the Antlia Cluster reveals a spectacular array of galaxy types among the hundreds that make up its population.

Mechanical force is an essential feature for many physical and biological processes. Remote measurement of mechanical signals with high sensitivity and spatial resolution is needed for a wide range of applications, from robotics to cellular biophysics and medicine and even to space travel. Nanoscale luminescent force sensors excel at measuring piconewton forces, while larger sensors have proven powerful in probing micronewton forces.

Researchers have come up with a new way to identify more infectious variants of viruses or bacteria that start spreading in humans—including those causing flu, COVID, whooping cough and tuberculosis.

Fast radio bursts are brief and brilliant explosions of radio waves emitted by extremely compact objects such as neutron stars and possibly black holes. These fleeting fireworks last for just a thousandth of a second and can carry an enormous amount of energy—enough to briefly outshine entire galaxies.

Scientists at the Allen Institute have identified specific cell types in the brain of mice that undergo major changes as they age, along with a specific hot spot where many of those changes occur. The discoveries, published in the journal Nature, could pave the way for future therapies to slow or manage the aging process in the brain.

A joint research group team led by Sayuri Tsukahara and Tetsuji Kakutani of the University of Tokyo has clarified a mechanism of how retrotransposons, genetic elements that can "jump around" chromosomes and are known drivers of evolution, preferentially insert in the centromere. The findings were published in the journal Nature.

Waves of human migration across Europe during the first millennium AD have been revealed using a more precise method of analyzing ancestry with ancient DNA, in research led by the Francis Crick Institute.

When the Quadrantid meteor shower peaks on Friday, it will be the year's first chance to see fireballs in the sky.

The new year will bring a pair of lunar eclipses, but don't expect any sun-disappearing acts like the one that mesmerized North America last spring.

Two tiny tortoises emerged from their burrows as soon as they detected Brian Henen's footsteps, eager for the handfuls of bok choy and snap peas that would soon be tossed their way.

Bananas are a sociable fruit. They thrive in bunches, bound by a unifying stalk which joins them happily together in curvy yellow brightness.

SpaceX knocked out a midnight launch from Cape Canaveral on Sunday, but has a midnight Monday launch on tap from Kennedy Space Center to cap off a record year for the Space Coast.

About 10 years ago, while working at Badrutt's Palace Hotel in the Swiss town of St Moritz, I was shocked to learn a guest once requested an elephant be brought in to deliver a birthday gift to his wife. And the hotel made it happen, squeezing the elephant into the lobby.