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    Parker Solar Probe Flies into the Fast Solar Wind and finds its Source

    June 9, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Artist’s concept of the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft approaching the sun. Launched in 2018, the probe is increasing our ability to forecast major space-weather events that impact life on Earth. (Image credit: NASA)

    NASA’s Parker Solar Probe (PSP) has flown close enough to the sun to detect the fine structure of the solar wind close to where it is generated at the sun’s surface, revealing details that are lost as the wind exits the corona as a uniform blast of charged particles.

    It’s like seeing jets of water emanating from a showerhead through the blast of water hitting you in the face.

    In a paper to be published in the journal Nature, a team of scientists led by Stuart D...

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    Mechanism behind Reductions in Depression Symptoms from LSD and Mushrooms found

    June 7, 2023, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    An international team of biotechnologists and neuroscientists has found the mechanism responsible for reducing depression symptoms in patients given two kinds of hallucinogenic compounds. In their mouse study, reported in the journal Nature Neuroscience, the group isolated binding receptors involved in the types of neural plasticity associated with improvements in depression symptoms. The editors at Nature Neuroscience have published a Research Briefing in the same journal issue outlining the work done by the team on this new effort.

    For several years, mental health specialists have known that psychedelic drugs like magic mushrooms and LSD can reduce symptoms in patients with chronic depression. But until now, it was not known how such compounds function...

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    First Detection of Secondary Supermassive Black Hole in a well-known Binary System

    June 7, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Artistic illustration of OJ287 as a binary black hole system.
    Artistic illustration of OJ287 as a binary black hole system. The secondary black hole of 150 million solar masses moves around the primary black hole of 18 billion solar masses. A disk of gas surrounds the latter. The secondary black hole is forced to impact on the accretion disk twice during its 12-year orbit. The impact produces a blue flash which was detected in February 2022. In addition, the impact also induces the secondary black hole to bright bursts of radiation several weeks earlier, and these bursts have also been detected as a direct signal from the secondary black hole. Credit: AAS 2018

    An international team of astronomers observed the second one of the two supermassive black holes circling each other in an active galaxy OJ 287.

    Supermassive black holes that weigh sever...

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    Study shows Promising Treatment for Tinnitus

    June 7, 2023, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Tinnitus, the ringing, buzzing or hissing sound of silence, varies from slightly annoying in some to utterly debilitating in others. Up to 15% of adults in the United States have tinnitus, where nearly 40% of sufferers have the condition chronically and actively seek relief.

    A recent study from researchers at the University of Michigan’s Kresge Hearing Research Institute suggests relief may be possible.

    Susan Shore, Ph.D., Professor Emerita in Michigan Medicine’s Department of Otolaryngology and U-M’s Departments of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, led research on how the brain processes bi-sensory information, and how these processes can be harnessed for personalized stimulation to treat tinnitus.

    Her team’s findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

    The study, a...

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