Scientists have just discovered the Milky Way’s equivalent of a giant fake mustache.
For four decades, astronomers have puzzled over a giant loop apparently ballooning out of the center of the Milky Way.
Known as the Galactic center lobe (GCL), the structure has been blamed on everything from the aftermath of a supernova to an ancient eruption from the Milky Way’s core – so many competing explanations that one team described it as “a Rorschach test for Galactic astrophysics.”
Researchers in the Neuromechatronics Lab at Carnegie Mellon University have already proven that spinal cord stimulation can help people regain movement after stroke, but until now they didn’t quite know how.
In a new study, published today in Cell Reports Medicine, a research team led by Doug Weber, professor of mechanical engineering and neuroscience, and Ph.D. candidate Luigi Borda report that epidural spinal cord stimulation works by restoring inhibitory spinal circuits. These circuits enable the nervous system to coordinate opposing muscles, such as the biceps and triceps, which must work together to bend and straighten the elbow. After a stroke, those neural control circuits are disrupted. The new study found that spinal cord stimulation helps restore that balance, allowing stroke survivors to move their arms more smoothly, quickly and efficiently.
“This discovery allows us to move beyond simply strengthening weak muscles; we can now fine-tune stimulation to release the ‘brakes’ on overactive muscles, providing a more effective and personalized path to recovery,” said Weber.
The Martin-Hopkins equation to assess low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels in blood samples has been used by laboratories in the U.S. and other countries to guide efforts to lower cardiovascular disease risk. Now, a simplified machine-learning version of this equation has been shown in a study of millions of U.S. adult and child blood samples to match the accuracy of the original—making it broadly accessible. The findings and code were published in JAMA Cardiology.
“We’ve optimized the calculation of LDL cholesterol and made this equation accessible and easier for all labs to implement,” says Seth Martin, M.D., M.H.S., the senior study author and director of the Advanced Lipid Disorders Program and Digital Health Lab at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease.
“Our goal is to enable clinicians and patients to make better decisions about starting treatments that prevent heart attacks and strokes and save lives.”
A rare CO chondrite meteorite was the probable impacter that struck Earth 66 million years ago, wiping out 75% of Earth’s species, including nonavian dinosaurs. These findings are published in Science Advances. Researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Paris, Brussels and Vienna, used advanced nickel isotope analysis of samples to narrow down the composition of the deadly Cretaceous-Paleogene meteorite.
“Carbonaceous chondrites of the Ornans class are definitely not like the typical meteors you find in museum collections,” says Dr. Philippe Claeys, who worked on the study as a visiting professor at UBC.
“A CO contains much less volatile elements—like carbon, zinc, water and particularly sulfur—than other classes of meteorites we’ve discovered so far on Earth. It doesn’t alter our theory of what caused the extinction event—but it makes it less likely that sulfur contained in the impacter was the smoking gun. The fine debris thrown into the atmosphere would have been the primary factor.”
Seoul National University College of Engineering announced that a joint research team led by Professor Namkyoo Park and Professor Sunkyu Yu of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at SNU, in collaboration with Professor Xianji Piao of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Seoul, has developed a photonic integrated circuit that can slow light on demand.
With the rapid advancement of generative AI and large-scale AI models, computational demands have surged, exposing the limitations of conventional electronic semiconductors, including high power consumption and limited data transmission speeds. As a result, demand for optical computing technologies capable of low-power, ultrafast processing is increasing. However, because light travels at a fixed speed, implementing buffer and memory functions—essential for optical computing—has remained fundamentally challenging.
To address this issue, the joint research team devised a method to freely control both the speed and shape of optical signals using a programmable photonic integrated circuit. Through this approach, the team demonstrated the ability to control “slow light” with a higher degree of freedom than any previously proposed method.
Electrical interconnects may very well be the unsung heroes of modern microchips. These tiny wires—typically made of copper due to its high conductivity—string together the billions of transistors that drive our computers and electronic devices. But as the technology advances and additional transistors are piled on, the components must shrink to the nanoscale. And that’s when copper begins to fail.
Cornell researchers have developed a potential replacement for copper interconnects: single-crystal nanowires of niobium arsenide. This topological semimetal paradoxically becomes a better conductor the thinner it gets, boosting electronic performance.
The findings were published July 16 in Science. The lead author is doctoral student Yeryun Cheon. Judy Cha, the Rick and Betty Tsai Ph.D. 1981 Professor in Materials Science and Engineering in the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering, is the paper’s senior author.
When the team tested the novel CAR-NKT therapy on 35 ovarian patient-derived tumor samples, the results were striking. The CAR-NKT cells successfully killed ovarian cancer cells in every single sample — including samples from both newly diagnosed patients and patients whose cancers had recurred after chemotherapy.
“Combating this high rate of recurrence in ovarian cancer is my career mission,” said co-senior author Memarzadeh, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and a member of the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center and the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. “When I see these results, I know we’re getting closer to offering patients like mine a more effective and permanent solution.”
