Simulated effects of microgravity significantly affect rhythmicity and sleep in humans, a new study from the University of Surrey finds. Such disturbances could negatively affect the physiology and performance of astronauts in space.

Previous findings have shown that astronauts exposed to microgravity, simulated via 60 days of constant bed rest at a six-degree head-down tilt angle, experience changes to physiology, including immune suppression, increased inflammation, and reduced muscle mass and bone density. However, a less-studied aspect of physiology concerning the effects of microgravity is sleep and biological rhythms.

Lead author Dr María-Ángeles Bonmatí-Carrión, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Surrey (currently at CIBERFES (Carlos III Health Institute), Un...

Scientists believe the environment immediately surrounding a black hole is tumultuous, featuring hot magnetized gas that spirals in a disk at tremendous speeds and temperatures. Astronomical observations show that within such a disk, mysterious flares occur up to several times a day, temporarily brightening and then fading away.

Now a team led by Caltech scientists has used telescope data and an artificial intelligence (AI) computer-vision technique to recover the first three-dimensional video showing what such flares could look like around SagittariusA* (Sgr A*) the supermassive black hole at the heart of our own Milky Way galaxy.

The 3D flare structure features two bright, compact features located about 75 million kilometers (or half the distance between Earth and the sun) fro...

In a discovery that could hasten treatment for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), UC San Francisco scientists have discovered a harbinger in the blood of some people who later went on to develop the disease.

In about 1 in 10 cases of MS, the body begins producing a distinctive set of antibodies against its own proteins years before symptoms emerge. These autoantibodies appear to bind to both human cells and common pathogens, possibly explaining the immune attacks on the brain and spinal cord that are the hallmark of MS.

The findings were published in Nature Medicine on April 19.

MS can lead to a devastating loss of motor control, although new treatments can slow the progress of the disease and, for example, preserve a patient’s ability to walk...

An international collaboration of researchers, led by Philip Walther at University of Vienna, have achieved a significant breakthrough in quantum technology, with the successful demonstration of quantum interference among several single photons using a novel resource-efficient platform. The work published in the journal Science Advances represents a notable advancement in optical quantum computing that paves the way for more scalable quantum technologies.

Interference among photons, a fundamental phenomenon in quantum optics, serves as a cornerstone of optical quantum computing.

It involves harnessing the properties of light, such as its wave-particle duality, to induce interference...