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A team of researchers at Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, working with a colleague at the University of Texas at Austin and another from Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia, has found evidence of ripe conditions for planet formation in the vicinity of two closely orbiting protostars.

In their paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the group describes their observations and outline what might be learned from future study of the star system.

The work by the team on this new effort came on the heels of work done by another team that discovered a pair of protostars still in the very early stages of their development—in their first 500,000 years of existence. In this new effort, the researchers have taken a closer look at the two protostars and also the environment in which they exist.

Three crew members that may be stuck on the International Space Station could have the chance to return home on a SpaceX Dragon, if the option is required, a report suggests.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos plans to open the Orbital Reef commercial space station by the end of the decade, with shuttles available to the tourist hotel via the hypersonic Dream Chaser.

In a recent study published in Cell, researchers used a multi-omics approach to profile the gut microbiomes and metabolomes of mothers and infants to determine the vertical and horizontal transmission of bacterial species and strains as well as individual genes and understand the dynamics of the gut microbiome assembly that shape the development of the infant before and after birth.

The vertical transmission of gut bacteria from mother to fetus during pregnancy and the horizontal transfer of microbes through breast milk plays a vital role in the physical and cognitive development of the infant long after birth. Studies have shown associations between the gut microbiota composition of breastmilk and the development of the infant’s immune system, as well as autoimmune conditions and allergies. Furthermore, allergies and autoimmune disorders have also been linked to exogenous proteins in infant formula.

Metabolites produced by gut microbiota are also associated with the infant’s cognitive development. However, the development of gut microbiomes and metabolomes in the perinatal stage and their role in infant development remains unclear.

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//Although lipomatosis is very common and increases with age, scientists have previously devoted little discussion and research to it. Scientists at Uppsala University have just published a study that offers significant insights into the causes of human lymph node function decline with aging and the effects on immune system performance.

Scientists carefully examined more than 200 lymph nodes to show that lipomatosis starts in the medulla, which is the center of the lymph node. They also provided evidence connecting lipomatosis to converting lymph node supporting cells (fibroblasts) into adipocytes (fat cells). They also demonstrate that fibroblast subtypes in the medulla are more likely to develop into adipocytes.\.

The study is a first step toward understanding why lipomatosis occur.

Kepler-1658b’s orbit is getting a little shorter — and therefore a little closer to the blazing surface of its star — every year.

Finding doomed planets is slow, painstaking work. It took thirteen years of close observation — first with Kepler and some of the most powerful telescopes here on Earth, and then with NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which launched in 2018 — to notice the slow shrinking of Kepler-1658b’s orbit. Recognizing the signs of deadly orbital decay in other exoplanets is going to take a similar amount of time and a similar volume of data, but Vissapragada and his colleagues say they’re getting there.

“We should begin to see hints of orbital decay for these planets within the next decade,” he and his colleagues write in their recent paper.

Continue reading “Astronomers find a star pulling its giant exoplanet into a death spiral” »

Turning astrophysical data into audio has led to all sorts of surprising discoveries, from micrometeoroids bombarding spacecraft to lightning on Saturn. Now, there is a push to get more astronomers to use sonification.