Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that a particular gut microbe can prevent severe flu infections in mice, likely by breaking down naturally occurring compounds — called flavonoids — commonly found in foods such as black tea, red wine and blueberries. Credit: © taa22 / Fotolia

Natural Compound Coupled with Specific Gut Microbes may Prevent Severe Flu

A particular gut microbe can prevent severe flu infections in mice, likely by breaking down naturally occurring compounds – called flavonoids – commonly found in foods such as black tea, red wine and blueberries. The research in mice by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St...

A sample of heat – conducting polymer is tested for thickness in U-M’s Lurie Nanofabrication Facility. Image credit: Joseph Xu, Michigan Engineering

Advanced plastics could usher in lighter, cheaper, more energy-efficient product components, including those used in vehicles, LEDs and computers – if only they were better at dissipating heat. A new technique that can change plastic’s molecular structure to help it cast off heat is a promising step in that direction. Developed by a team of University of Michigan researchers in materials science and mechanical engineering and detailed in a new study published in Science Advances, the process is inexpensive and scalable.

The concept can likely be adapted to a variety of other plastics...

Tracking particle spins reveals that the quark-gluon plasma created at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider is more swirly than the cores of super-cell tornadoes, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, or any other fluid! Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory

Swirling soup of matter’s fundamental building blocks spins 10 billion trillion times faster than the most powerful tornado, setting new record for ‘vorticity’. Particle collisions recreating the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) that filled the early universe reveal that droplets of this primordial soup swirl far faster than any other fluid...

Galaxy cluster XMMXCS J2215.9–1738 observed with ALMA and the Hubble Space Telescope. Gas rich galaxies detected with ALMA are shown in red and marked with circles. Most gas rich galaxies are located in the outer part, not the center, of the galaxy cluster (around the center of the image).
Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Hayashi et al., the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope

Understanding the history of star formation in the Universe is a central theme in modern astronomy. Various observations have shown that the star formation activity has varied through the 13.8 billion-year history of the Universe. The stellar birthrate peaked around 10billion years ago, and has declined steadily since then. However, the cause of the declining stellar birthrate is still not well understood...