Science X Newsletter Week 22

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Here is your customized Science X Newsletter for week 22:

	Study finds red meat as part of a healthy diet linked to reduced risk of multiple sclerosis People who consume unprocessed red meat as part of a healthy Mediterranean diet may reduce their risk of multiple sclerosis (MS), new research led by Curtin University and The Australian National University has found.
	Music helps to build the brains of very premature babies In Switzerland, as in most industrialized countries, nearly 1 percent of children are born "very prematurely," i.e. before the 32nd week of pregnancy, which represents about 800 children yearly. While advances in neonatal medicine now give them a good chance of survival, these children are however at high risk of developing neuropsychological disorders. To help the brains of these fragile newborns develop as well as possible despite the stressful environment of intensive care, researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG), Switzerland, propose an original solution—music written especially for them. And the first results, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in the United States, are surprising: Medical imaging reveals that the neural networks of premature infants who have listened to this music, and in particular a network involved in many sensory and cognitive functions, are developing much better.
	James Webb Space Telescope emerges successfully from final thermal vacuum test NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has successfully cleared another critical testing milestone, taking this ambitious observatory one step closer to its 2021 launch. The spacecraft has gone through its final thermal vacuum test meant to ensure that its hardware will function electronically in the vacuum of space, and withstand the extreme temperature variations it will encounter on its mission.
	The 'Forbidden' planet has been found in the 'Neptunian Desert' An exoplanet smaller than Neptune with its own atmosphere has been discovered in the Neptunian Desert, by an international collaboration of astronomers, with the University of Warwick taking a leading role.
	Children who nap are happier, excel academically, and have fewer behavioral problems: study Ask just about any parent whether napping has benefits and you'll likely hear a resounding "yes," particularly for the child's mood, energy levels, and school performance. New research from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Irvine, published in the journal Sleep backs up that parental insight.
	Physicists create stable, strongly magnetized plasma jet in laboratory When you peer into the night sky, much of what you see is plasma, a soupy amalgam of ultra-hot atomic particles. Studying plasma in the stars and various forms in outer space requires a telescope, but scientists can recreate it in the laboratory to examine it more closely.
	India heatwave temperatures pass 50 Celsius Temperatures passed 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in northern India as an unrelenting heatwave triggered warnings of water shortages and heatstroke.
	Scientists find telling early moment that indicates a coming megaquake Scientists combing through databases of earthquakes since the early 1990s have discovered a possible defining moment 10-15 seconds into an event that could signal a magnitude 7 or larger megaquake.
	Researchers use magnetically actuated microrobots to deliver stem cells to tissue targets A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in South Korea and one in Switzerland has demonstrated that it is possible to use magnetically actuated microrobots to deliver stem cells to targeted tissue. In their paper published in the journal Science Robotics, the group describes creating the tiny bots and how well they worked when tested.
	New compound which kills antibiotic-resistant superbugs discovered A new compound which visualises and kills antibiotic resistant superbugs has been discovered by scientists at the University of Sheffield and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL).
	Three ways to travel at (nearly) the speed of light One hundred years ago today, on May 29, 1919, measurements of a solar eclipse offered verification for Einstein's theory of general relativity. Even before that, Einstein had developed the theory of special relativity, which revolutionized the way we understand light. To this day, it provides guidance on understanding how particles move through space—a key area of research to keep spacecraft and astronauts safe from radiation.
	Scientists revisit the cold case of cold fusion Scientists from the University of British Columbia (UBC), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Maryland, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Google are conducting a multi-year investigation into cold fusion, a type of benign nuclear reaction hypothesized to occur in benchtop apparatus at room temperature.
	Researchers crack an enduring physics enigma For decades, physicists, engineers and mathematicians have failed to explain a remarkable phenomenon in fluid mechanics: the natural tendency of turbulence in fluids to move from disordered chaos to perfectly parallel patterns of oblique turbulent bands. This transition from a state of chaotic turbulence to a highly structured pattern was observed by many scientists, but never understood.
	Hyphens in paper titles harm citation counts and journal impact factors According to the latest research results, the presence of simple hyphens in the titles of academic papers adversely affects the citation statistics, regardless of the quality of the articles. The phenomenon applies to all major subject areas. Thus, citation counts and journal impact factors, commonly used for professorial evaluations in universities worldwide, are unreliable.
	Stabilizing the no-boundary proposal sheds light on the universe's quantum origins One idea for how the universe began is that the universe may have appeared out of nothing due to some quantum effect, such as quantum tunneling. In the 1980s, Stephen Hawking and James Hartle further elaborated on this idea by suggesting that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe, leading them to conclude that the universe has no initial boundary conditions on either time or space. The idea is called the "no-boundary proposal" or the "Hawking-Hartle state."
	Eating blueberries every day improves heart health Eating a cup of blueberries a day reduces risk factors for cardiovascular disease—according to new research led by the University of East Anglia, in collaboration with colleagues from Harvard and across the UK.
	SpaceX satellites pose new headache for astronomers It looked like a scene from a sci-fi blockbuster: an astronomer in the Netherlands captured footage of a train of brightly-lit SpaceX satellites ascending through the night sky this weekend, stunning space enthusiasts across the globe.
	Radio-wave therapy proves effective against liver cancer cells A new targeted therapy using non-thermal radio waves has been shown to block the growth of liver cancer cells anywhere in the body without damaging healthy cells, according to a study conducted by scientists at Wake Forest School of Medicine, part of Wake Forest Baptist Health.
	Artificial intelligence detects a new class of mutations behind autism Many mutations in DNA that contribute to disease are not in actual genes but instead lie in the 99% of the genome once considered "junk." Even though scientists have recently come to understand that these vast stretches of DNA do in fact play critical roles, deciphering these effects on a wide scale has been impossible until now.
	Energy researchers break the catalytic speed limit A team of researchers from the University of Minnesota and University of Massachusetts Amherst has discovered new technology that can speed up chemical reactions 10,000 times faster than the current reaction rate limit. These findings could increase the speed and lower the cost of thousands of chemical processes used in developing fertilizers, foods, fuels, plastics, and more.

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