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The team from the University of Aberdeen hit upon the 1.7 meter-long stone in a farmer’s field while conducting geophysical surveys to try and build a greater understanding of the important Pictish landscape of Aberlemno, near Forfar. Aberlemno is already well known for its Pictish heritage thanks to its collection of unique Pictish standing stones the most famous of which is a cross-slab thought to depict scenes from a battle of vital importance to the creation of what would become Scotland – the Battle of Nechtansmere....

What is antimatter? Although it is often associated with the world of science fiction, antimatter does indeed exist. It is observed in outer space and in physics laboratories. It is a state symmetrical to the ordinary matter we know. According to the laws of physics known to date, the Universe should contain equal amounts of matter and antimatter. However, today antimatter is only found at the trace level, and research suggests that the entire Cosmos is devoid of it....

Scientists at University of Cincinnati say restoring a brain protein, not removing amyloid plaques, should be the target of Alzheimer’s dementia therapies. Experts estimate more than 6 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s dementia. But a recent study, led by the University of Cincinnati, sheds new light on the disease and a highly debated new drug therapy. The UC-led study, conducted in collaboration with the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, claims that the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease might lie in normalizing the levels of a specific brain protein called amyloid-beta peptide....

For more than half a century, researchers have known that neurons in the brain’s visual system respond unequally to different images — a feature that is critical for the ability to recognize, understand, and interpret the multitude of visual clues surrounding us. For example, specific populations of visual neurons in an area of the brain known as the inferior temporal cortex fire more when people or other primates — animals with highly attuned visual systems — look at faces, places, objects, or text....

The artificial skin is wearable, flexible, lightweight, and magnetized, making it useful in a variety of applications without the need for a wired connection to other devices. KAUST electrical engineers have developed an artificial electronic skin that requires no power supply or data storage. © 2019 KAUST “Artificial electronic skins typically require a power supply and data storage or a communication network. This involves batteries, wires, electronic chips, and antennas and makes the skins inconvenient to wear,” says electrical engineer Jurgen Kosel, who led the project....

NASA’s FY2014 budget proposal includes a plan to robotically capture a small near-Earth asteroid and redirect it safely to the Earth-Moon system, where astronauts can visit and explore it. The proposed mission would combine the efforts of three NASA mission directorates: Human Exploration and Operations, Science and Space Technology. The astronauts will build on years of knowledge from the International Space Station, exploration mission concepts, scientific spacecraft and ground-based analog missions....

Astronomers announced today that they have found eight new planets in the “Goldilocks” zone of their stars, orbiting at a distance where liquid water can exist on the planet’s surface. This doubles the number of small planets (less than twice the diameter of Earth) believed to be in the habitable zone of their parent stars. Among these eight, the team identified two that are the most similar to Earth of any known exoplanets to date....

Using a radio survey of a giant molecular cloud filled with recently formed stars and a mathematical model that can explain the observations, astronomers reveal new evidence that all sun-like stars are born with a companion. Did our sun have a twin when it was born 4.5 billion years ago? Almost certainly yes — though not an identical twin. And so did every other sun-like star in the universe, according to a new analysis by a theoretical physicist from UC Berkeley and a radio astronomer from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at Harvard University....

One of the most spectacular achievements in physics so far this century has been the observation of gravitational waves, ripples in space-time that result from masses accelerating in space. So far, there have been five detections of gravitational waves, thanks to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and, more recently, the European Virgo gravitational-wave detector. Using these facilities, scientists have been able to pin down the extremely subtle signals from relatively small black holes and, as of October, neutron stars....

An international team, led by researchers from Swinburne University of Technology, observed a quasar – the extremely bright surroundings of a supermassive black hole – using the Very Large Telescope in Chile and the W M Keck Observatory and Subaru Telescope, both in Hawaii. The quasar light passed through three different galaxies, some 10, 9 and 8 billion years ago, on its way to Earth. These galaxies absorbed a characteristic pattern of colors out of the quasar light, revealing the strength of electromagnetism – one of Nature’s four fundamental forces – in the early and distant Universe....

Orion re-acquired signal with NASA’s Deep Space Network, at 7:59 a.m. EST (4:59 a.m. PST) after successfully performing the outbound powered flyby burn at 7:44 a.m. EST with a firing of the orbital maneuvering system engine for 2 minutes and 30 seconds to accelerate the spacecraft at a rate of more than 580 mph (930 km/h). At the time of the burn, Orion was 328 miles (528 km) above the Moon, traveling at 5,023 mph....

The Narmada Valley in central India is famous for its Lameta Formation, which holds fossils of dinosaur skeletons and eggs from the Late Cretaceous Period. Recent excavation in the area uncovered 92 nesting sites filled with 256 fossilized eggs belonging to the titanosaurs, some of the largest dinosaurs to ever exist. Through a thorough examination of these nests, Dhiman and his team were able to gain new knowledge about the lifestyles of these dinosaurs....

A team of scientists has developed a hybrid artificial photosynthesis system that produces renewable molecular hydrogen and uses it to synthesize carbon dioxide into methane. A team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) developing a bioinorganic hybrid approach to artificial photosynthesis have achieved another milestone. Having generated quite a buzz with their hybrid system of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria that used electrons to synthesize carbon dioxide into acetate, the team has now developed a hybrid system that produces renewable molecular hydrogen and uses it to synthesize carbon dioxide into methane, the primary constituent of natural gas....

Q: For starters, tell us about the problem that this research aims to address. Varanasi: Biofilms grow on surfaces in space stations, which initially was a surprise to me. Why would they grow in space? But it’s an issue that can jeopardize the key equipment — space suits, water recycling units, radiators, navigation windows, and so on — and can also lead to human illness. It therefore needs to be understood and characterized, especially for long-duration space missions....

Antagonistic and co-operative social interactions within groups have long been suggested to drive the evolution of big brains. But animals from across the social spectrum must constantly juggle threats and opportunities from outsiders too. Interactions with outsiders have been little considered in the context of cognitive evolution. Drawing on their varied backgrounds in animal cognition, intergroup conflict, and social evolution, the Bristol scientists have expanded the Social Intelligence Hypothesis to include this missing social axis....

Many animals, including humans, harbor ingrained biases to act when they can obtain rewards and to remain inactive to avoid punishment. Sometimes, however those biases can steer us wrong. A new study finds that theta brainwave activity in the prefrontal cortex predicts how well people can overcome these biases when a better choice are available. Vertebrates are predisposed to act to gain rewards and to lie low to avoid punishment....

The properties of quark-gluon plasma (QGP), the primordial form of matter in the early universe, is conventionally described using relativistic hydrodynamical models. However, these models predict low particle yields in the low transverse momentum region, which is at odds with experimental data. To address this discrepancy, researchers from Japan now propose a novel framework based on a “core-corona” picture of QGP, which predicts that the corona component may contribute to the observed high particle yields....

Astronomers took this image using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), as they were observing an extraordinary exploding star — a supernova — which can still be faintly seen as a tiny red dot near the galaxy’s central yellow core. Named SN2014C, it rapidly evolved from a supernova containing very little Hydrogen to one that is Hydrogen-rich — in just one year. This rarely observed metamorphosis was luminous at high energies and provides unique insight into the poorly understood final phases of massive stars....

Researchers at the University of Cambridge, the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden, the University of Tennessee, and the Universidad Nacional de La Plata have uncovered an altogether new type of fractal appearing in a class of magnets called spin ices. The discovery was surprising because the fractals were seen in a clean three-dimensional crystal, where they conventionally would not be expected. Even more remarkably, the fractals are visible in the dynamical properties of the crystal and hidden in static ones....

The all-new 3rd edition highlights distinct patterns and inequities in the present cancer burden around the world; outlines the risk factors that are driving cancer patterns; and details the prospects for cancer prevention and control. This theme of the current edition is “Access Creates Progress,” drawing attention not only to the problem at hand, but also the means of tackling the cancer burden through access to information and services. The Cancer Atlas provides information on the global burden of cancer in a user-friendly and accessible form for cancer control advocates, government and public health agencies, and policy makers around the world as well as patients, survivors, and the general public....