Last surviving Apollo 7 astronaut has died | CNN

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. CNN  —  Walter Cunningham, a retired NASA astronaut and pilot of the first crewed flight in the space agency’s famed Apollo program, died early Tuesday morning at the age of…

Researchers find hints of a ‘hidden state’ involving one of Earth’s most abundant ions

While conducting an otherwise straightforward investigation into the assembly mechanism of calcium-phosphate clusters, researchers at UC Santa Barbara and New York University (NYU) made a surprising discovery: Phosphate ions in water have a curious habit of spontaneously alternating between their commonly encountered hydrated state and a mysterious, previously unreported ‘dark’…

‘Uncharted territory’: January heat records smashed across Europe | CNN

CNN  —  The year has only just started but already Europe has broken an alarming number of weather records as extreme heat spread across the continent. On New Year’s Day, at least eight European countries recorded their warmest January day ever: Liechtenstein, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Netherlands, Belarus, Lithuania,…

New role of small RNAs in Salmonella infections uncovered

Salmonella are food-borne pathogens that infect millions of people a year. To do so, these bacteria depend on a complex network of genes and gene products that allow them to sense environmental conditions. In a new paper, researchers have investigated the role of small RNAs that help Salmonella express their…

Microprotein increases appetite in mice: Scientists discovered more than 3,800 small proteins involved in metabolism and found that one microprotein, Gm8773, increases feeding activity in mice–providing a potential new approach to encourage weight gain in people with cancer and other diseases

Obesity and metabolic diseases, such as diabetes, are extremely common in the United States. Tiny proteins called microproteins have long been overlooked in research, but new evidence demonstrates that they have an important role in metabolism. Salk scientists have discovered that both brown and white fat is filled with thousands…

Time-restricted eating reshapes gene expression throughout the body: Salk researchers find that timing calorie intake synchronizes circadian rhythms across multiple systems in mice

Numerous studies have shown health benefits of time-restricted eating including increase in life span in laboratory studies, making practices like intermittent fasting a hot topic in the wellness industry. However, exactly how it affects the body on the molecular level, and how those changes interact across multiple organ systems, has…

A brain game may predict your risk of infection: When a person’s cognitive function is highly variable, they’re likely to be more infectious and have more symptoms after exposure to a respiratory virus

If your alertness and reaction time is see-sawing more than usual, you may be more at risk of a viral illness. That’s the key finding of an experiment led by University of Michigan researchers working in close collaboration with researchers at the Duke University School of Medicine and the University…

Tracking radiation treatment in real time promises safer, more effective cancer therapy: The ability to accurately detect where X-rays land and in what dose could reduce the collateral damage from radiation therapy

Radiation, used to treat half of all cancer patients, can be measured during treatment for the first time with precise 3D imaging developed at the University of Michigan. By capturing and amplifying tiny sound waves created when X-rays heat tissues in the body, medical professionals can map the radiation dose…

To identify a voice, brains rely on sight

To recognize a famous voice, human brains use the same center that lights up when the speaker’s face is presented, finds a clever neuroscience study where participants were asked to identify U.S. presidents. The new study, published last week in the Journal of Neurophysiology, suggests that voice and face recognition…

Live updates: Congress swearing in and GOP leadership vote 2023

Members of the 118th Congress stand for the Pledge of Allegiance on Tuesday. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) The clerk of the House – Cheryl Johnson — has gaveled the 118th Congress. They’ll do a prayer and the pledge, and then she will announce the certifications of the election of the 118th Congress have…

UK train strikes will disrupt return to work this week | CNN Business

London CNN  —  Brits are facing another week of travel chaos as rail strikes drag into the new year, disrupting the return to workplaces following the holidays and dealing another blow to retail and hospitality businesses. Some 40,000 rail workers began five days of strike action over pay on Tuesday,…

Georgia realtor receives invitation to play the Masters by mistake | CNN

CNN  —  Scott Stallings arrived at his condo on Georgia’s Saint Simons Island to find a package holding the most prestigious letter in golf. He’d been invited to play in the Masters tournament in April. The only problem was this Scott Stallings is a realtor in Atlanta, not the the…