Gran Telescopio Canarias finds the farthest black hole that belongs to a rare family of galaxies

 An international team of astronomers has identified one of the rarest known classes of gamma-ray emitting galaxies, called BL Lacertae, within the first 2 billion years of the age of the Universe. The team, that has used one of the largest optical telescope in the world, Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), located at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (Garafía, La Palma), consists of researchers from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM, Spain), DESY (Germany), University of California Riverside and Clemson University (USA). The finding is published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Only a small fraction of the galaxies emits gamma rays, which is the most extreme form of light. Astronomers believe that these highly energetic photons originate from the vicinity of a supermassive black hole residing at the centers of these galaxies. When this happens, they are known as active galaxies. The black hole swallows matter from its surroundings and emits jets or, in other words, collimated streams of matter and radiation. Few of these active galaxies (less than 1%) have their jets pointing by chance toward Earth. Scientists call them blazars and are one of the most powerful sources of radiation in the universe.

Blazars come in two flavors: BL Lacertae (BL Lac) and flat-spectrum radio-quasars (FSRQs). Our current understanding about these mysterious astronomical objects is that FSRQs are relatively young active galaxies, rich in dust and gas that surround the central black hole. As time passes, the amount of matter available to feed the black hole is consumed and the FSRQ evolves to become a BL Lac object. "In other words, BL Lacs may represent the elderly and evolved phase of a blazar's life, while FSRQs resemble an adult," explains Vaidehi Paliya, a DESY researcher who participated in this program.

"Since the speed of light is limited, the farther we look, the earlier in the age of the Universe we investigate," says Alberto Domínguez of the Institute of Physics of Particles and the Cosmos (IPARCOS) at UCM and co-author of the study. Astronomers believe that the current age of the Universe is around 13.8 billion years. The most distant FSRQ was identified at a distance when the age of the universe was merely 1 billion years. For a comparison, the farthest BL Lac that is known was found when the age of the Universe was around 2.5 billion years. Therefore, the hypothesis of the evolution from FSRQ to BL Lacs appears to be valid.

Now, the team of international scientists has discovered a new BL Lac object, named 4FGL J1219.0+3653, much farther away than the previous record holder. "We have discovered a BL Lac existing even 800 million years earlier, this is when the Universe was less than 2 billion years old," states Cristina Cabello, a graduate student at IPARCOS-UCM. "This finding challenges the current scenario that BL Lacs are actually an evolved phase of FSRQ," adds Nicolás Cardiel, a professor at IPARCOS-UCM. Jesús Gallego, also a professor at the same institution and a co-author of the study concludes: "This discovery has challenged our knowledge of the cosmic evolution of blazars and active galaxies in general."

The researchers have used the OSIRIS and EMIR instruments, designed and built by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and mounted on GTC, also known as Grantecan. "These results are a clear example of how the combination of the large collecting area of ??GTC, the world's largest optical-infrared telescope, together with the unique capabilities of complementary instruments installed in the telescope are providing breakthrough results to improve our understanding of the Universe," underlines Romano Corradi, director of Grantecan.

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Over 80 percent of COVID-19 patients have vitamin D deficiency, study finds

 Over 80 percent of 200 COVID-19 patients in a hospital in Spain have vitamin D deficiency, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Vitamin D is a hormone the kidneys produce that controls blood calcium concentration and impacts the immune system. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to a variety of health concerns, although research is still underway into why the hormone impacts other systems of the body. Many studies point to the beneficial effect of vitamin D on the immune system, especially regarding protection against infections.

"One approach is to identify and treat vitamin D deficiency, especially in high-risk individuals such as the elderly, patients with comorbidities, and nursing home residents, who are the main target population for the COVID-19," said study co-author José L. Hernández, Ph.D., of the University of Cantabria in Santander, Spain. "Vitamin D treatment should be recommended in COVID-19 patients with low levels of vitamin D circulating in the blood since this approach might have beneficial effects in both the musculoskeletal and the immune system."

The researchers found 80 percent of 216 COVID-19 patients at the Hospital Universitario Marqués de Valdecilla had vitamin D deficiency, and men had lower vitamin D levels than women. COVID-19 patients with lower vitamin D levels also had raised serum levels of inflammatory markers such as ferritin and D-dimer.

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Scientists discover how a common mutation leads to 'night owl' sleep disorder

 A new study by researchers at UC Santa Cruz shows how a genetic mutation throws off the timing of the biological clock, causing a common sleep syndrome called delayed sleep phase disorder.

People with this condition are unable to fall asleep until late at night (often after 2 a.m.) and have difficulty getting up in the morning. In 2017, scientists discovered a surprisingly common mutation that causes this sleep disorder by altering a key component of the biological clock that maintains the body's daily rhythms. The new findings, published October 26 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveal the molecular mechanisms involved and point the way toward potential treatments.

"This mutation has dramatic effects on people's sleep patterns, so it's exciting to identify a concrete mechanism in the biological clock that links the biochemistry of this protein to the control of human sleep behavior," said corresponding author Carrie Partch, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UC Santa Cruz.

Daily cycles in virtually every aspect of our physiology are driven by cyclical interactions of clock proteins in our cells. Genetic variations that change the clock proteins can alter the timing of the clock and cause sleep phase disorders. A shortened clock cycle causes people to go to sleep and wake up earlier than normal (the "morning lark" effect), while a longer clock cycle makes people stay up late and sleep in (the "night owl" effect).

Most of the mutations known to alter the clock are very rare, Partch said. They are important to scientists as clues to understanding the mechanisms of the clock, but a given mutation may only affect one in a million people. The genetic variant identified in the 2017 study, however, was found in around one in 75 people of European descent.

How often this particular mutation is involved in delayed sleep phase disorder remains unclear, Partch said. Sleep behavior is complex -- people stay up late for many different reasons -- and disorders can be hard to diagnose. So the discovery of a relatively common genetic variation associated with a sleep phase disorder was a striking development.

"This genetic marker is really widespread," Partch said. "We still have a lot to understand about the role of lengthened clock timing in delayed sleep onset, but this one mutation is clearly an important cause of late night behavior in humans."

The mutation affects a protein called cryptochrome, one of four main clock proteins. Two of the clock proteins (CLOCK and BMAL1) form a complex that turns on the genes for the other two (period and cryptochrome), which then combine to repress the activity of the first pair, thus turning themselves off and starting the cycle again. This feedback loop is the central mechanism of the biological clock, driving daily fluctuations in gene activity and protein levels throughout the body.

The cryptochrome mutation causes a small segment on the "tail" of the protein to get left out, and Partch's lab found that this changes how tightly cryptochrome binds to the CLOCK:BMAL1 complex.

"The region that gets snipped out actually controls the activity of cryptochrome in a way that leads to a 24-hour clock," Partch explained. "Without it, cryptochrome binds more tightly and stretches out the length of the clock each day."

The binding of these protein complexes involves a pocket where the missing tail segment normally competes and interferes with the binding of the rest of the complex.

"How tightly the complex partners bind to this pocket determines how quickly the clock runs," Partch explained. "This tells us we should be looking for drugs that bind to that pocket and can serve the same purpose as the cryptochrome tail."

Partch's lab is currently doing just that, conducting screening assays to identify molecules that bind to the pocket in the clock's molecular complex. "We know now that we need to target that pocket to develop therapeutics that could shorten the clock for people with delayed sleep phase disorder," she said.

Partch has been studying the molecular structures and interactions of the clock proteins for years. In a study published earlier this year, her lab showed how certain mutations can shorten clock timing by affecting a molecular switch mechanism, making some people extreme morning larks.

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For vampire bats, social distancing while sick comes naturally

 

Common vampire bats

New research shows that when vampire bats feel sick, they socially distance themselves from groupmates in their roost -- no public health guidance required.

The researchers gave wild vampire bats a substance that activated their immune system and made them feel sick for several hours, and then returned the bats to their roost. A control group of bats received a placebo.

Data on the behavior of these bats was transmitted to scientists by custom-made "backpack" computers that were glued to the animals' backs, recording the vampire bats' social encounters.

Compared to control bats in their hollow-tree home, sick bats interacted with fewer bats, spent less time near others and were overall less interactive with individuals that were well-connected with others in the roost.

Healthy bats were also less likely to associate with a sick bat, the data showed.

"Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, when we feel fine, doesn't feel particularly normal. But when we're sick, it's common to withdraw a bit and stay in bed longer because we're exhausted. And that means we're likely to have fewer social encounters," said Simon Ripperger, co-lead author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in evolution, ecology and organismal biology at The Ohio State University.

"That's the same thing we were observing in this study: In the wild, vampire bats -- which are highly social animals -- keep their distance when they're sick or living with sick groupmates. And it can be expected that they reduce the spread of disease as a result."

The study was published today (Oct. 27, 2020) in the journal Behavioral Ecology.

Ripperger works in the lab of co-lead author Gerald Carter, assistant professor of evolution, ecology and organismal biology at Ohio State. The two scientists and their co-author on this paper, University of Texas at Austin graduate student Sebastian Stockmaier, are also affiliated with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

Carter and Ripperger have partnered on numerous studies of social behavior in vampire bats. Among their previous findings: Vampire bats make friends through a gradual buildup of trust, and vampire bat moms maintained social connections to their offspring even when both felt sick.

For this work, the researchers captured 31 female common vampire bats living inside a hollow tree in Lamanai, Belize. They injected 16 bats with the molecule that induced the immune challenge -- but did not cause disease -- and 15 with saline, a placebo.

After returning the bats to their roost, the scientists analyzed social behaviors in the colony over three days, including a "treatment period" from three to nine hours after the injections during which the researchers attributed behavior changes to the effects of treated bats feeling sick.

"We focused on three measures of the sick bats' behaviors: how many other bats they encountered, how much total time they spent with others, and how well-connected they were to the whole social network," Carter said.

On average, compared to control bats, the sick bats associated with four fewer groupmates over the six-hour treatment period and spent 25 fewer minutes interacting per partner, and the time any two bats spent near each other was shortest if the encounter involved at least one sick bat.

"One reason that the sick vampire bats encountered fewer groupmates is simply because they were lethargic and moved around less," Carter said. "In captivity, we saw that sick bats also groom others less and make fewer contact calls. These simple changes in behavior can create social distance even without any cooperation or avoidance by healthy bats. We had previously studied this in the lab. Our goal here was to measure the outcomes of these sickness behaviors in a natural setting.

"The effects we showed here are probably common in many other animals. But it is important to remember that changes in behavior also depend on the pathogen. We did not use a real virus or bacteria, because we wanted to isolate the effect of sickness behavior. Some real diseases might make interactions more likely, not less, or they might lead to sick bats being avoided."

Although the study did not document the spread of an actual disease, combining the social encounter data with known links between exposure time and pathogen transmission allows researchers to predict how sickness behavior can influence the spread of a pathogen in a social network.

Clearly identifying each bat's behavior in the colony's social network was possible only because the proximity sensors -- miniaturized computers that weigh less than a penny and fall off within a week or two -- took measures every few seconds of associations involving sick or healthy bats or a combination of the two. Visualizations of the proximity sensors' recordings showed growth in the number of connections made in the colony's social network from the treatment period to 48 hours later.

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Tiny moon shadows may harbor hidden stores of ice

 Hidden pockets of water could be much more common on the surface of the moon than scientists once suspected, according to new research led by the University of Colorado Boulder. In some cases, these tiny patches of ice might exist in permanent shadows no bigger than a penny.

"If you can imagine standing on the surface of the moon near one of its poles, you would see shadows all over the place," said Paul Hayne, assistant professor in the Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics at CU Boulder. "Many of those tiny shadows could be full of ice."

In a study published today in the journal Nature Astronomy, Hayne and his colleagues explored phenomena on the moon called "cold traps" -- shadowy regions of the surface that exist in a state of eternal darkness.

Many have gone without a single ray of sunlight for potentially billions of years. And these nooks and crannies may be a lot more numerous than previous data suggest. Drawing on detailed data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the researchers estimate that the moon could harbor roughly 15,000 square miles of permanent shadows in various shapes and sizes -- reservoirs that, according to theory, might also be capable of preserving water via ice.

Future lunar residents, in other words, may be in luck.

"If we're right, water is going to be more accessible for drinking water, for rocket fuel, everything that NASA needs water for," said Hayne, also of the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences.

Visiting a crater

To understand cold traps, first take a trip to Shackleton Crater near the moon's south pole. This humungous impact crater reaches several miles deep and stretches about 13 miles across. Because of the moon's position in relation to the sun, much of the crater's interior is permanently in shadow -- a complete lack of direct sunlight that causes temperatures inside to hover at around minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

"You look down into Shackleton Crater or Shoemaker Crater, you're looking into this vast, dark inaccessible region," Hayne said. "It's very forbidding."

That forbidding nature, however, may also be key to these craters' importance for planned lunar bases. Scientists have long believed that such cold traps could be ideal environments for hosting ice -- a valuable resource that is scarce on the moon but is occasionally delivered in large quantities when water-rich comets or asteroids crash down.

"The temperatures are so low in cold traps that ice would behave like a rock," Hayne said. "If water gets in there, it's not going anywhere for a billion years."

In their latest research, however, Hayne and his colleagues wanted to know how common such traps might be. Do they only exist in big craters, or do they spread over the face of the moon?

To find out, the team pulled data from real-life observations of the moon, then used mathematical tools to recreate what its surface might look like at a very small scale. The answer: a bit like a golf ball.

Based on the team's calculations, the moon's north and south poles could contain a tremendous number of bumps and knicks capable of hosting permanent shadows -- many of them just a centimeter wide. Previous estimates pegged the area of cold traps on the moon at around 7,000 square miles, about half of what Hayne and his colleagues have predicted.

Mining for water

Hayne notes that his team can't prove that these shadows actually hold pockets of ice -- the only way to do that would be to go there in person or with rovers and dig.

But the results are promising, and future missions could shed even more light, literally, on the moon's water resources. Hayne, for example, is leading a NASA effort called the Lunar Compact Infrared Imaging System (L-CIRiS) that will take heat-sensing panoramic images of the moon's surface near its south pole in 2022.

If his team's findings bear out, locating the ingredients for a hot shower on the moon may have just gotten a lot easier.

"Astronauts may not need to go into these deep, dark shadows," Hayne said. "They could walk around and find one that's a meter wide and that might be just as likely to harbor ice."

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Mythbusting: Five common misperceptions surrounding the environmental impacts of single-use plastics

 Stand in the soda pop aisle at the supermarket, surrounded by rows of brightly colored plastic bottles and metal cans, and it's easy to conclude that the main environmental problem here is an overabundance of single-use containers: If we simply recycled more of them, we'd go a long way toward minimizing impacts.

In reality, most of the environmental impacts of many consumer products, including soft drinks, are tied to the products inside, not the packaging, according to University of Michigan environmental engineer Shelie Miller.

And when it comes to single-use plastics in particular, the production and disposal of packaging often represents only a few percent of a product's lifetime environmental impacts, according to Miller, author of an article scheduled for publication Oct. 26 in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

"Consumers tend to focus on the impact of the packaging, rather than the impact of the product itself," said Miller, an associate professor at the School for Environment and Sustainability and director of the U-M Program in the Environment. "But mindful consumption that reduces the need for products and eliminates wastefulness is far more effective at reducing overall environmental impact than recycling.

"Nevertheless, it is fundamentally easier for consumers to recycle the packaging of a product than to voluntarily reduce their demand for that product, which is likely one reason why recycling efforts are so popular."

The mistaken belief about the central role of plastic packaging is one of five myths that Miller attempts to debunk in her conventional wisdom-shattering paper, "Five misperceptions surrounding the environmental impacts of single-use plastic."

The five common misperceptions, along with Miller's insights about them, are:

     Plastic packaging is the largest contributor to a product's environmental impact. In reality, the product inside the package usually has a much greater environmental impact.

    The environmental impacts of plastics are greater than any other packaging material. Actually, plastic generally has lower overall environmental impacts than single-use glass or metal in most impact categories.

    Reusable products are always better than single-use plastics. Actually, reusable products have lower environmental impacts only when they are reused enough times to offset the materials and energy used to make them.

    Recycling and composting should be the highest priority. Truth be told, the environmental benefits associated with recycling and composting tend to be small when compared with efforts to reduce overall consumption.

    "Zero waste" efforts that eliminate single-use plastics minimize the environmental impacts of an event. In reality, the benefits of diverting waste from the landfill are small. Waste reduction and mindful consumption, including a careful consideration of the types and quantities of products consumed, are far larger factors dictating the environmental impact of an event.

In her review article, Miller challenges beliefs unsupported by current scientific knowledge while urging other environmental scientists and engineers to broaden the conversation -- in their own research and in discussions that shape public policy.

"Efforts to reduce the use of single-use plastics and to increase recycling may distract from less visible and often more damaging environmental impacts associated with energy use, manufacturing and resource extraction," she said. "We need to take a much more holistic view that considers larger environmental issues."

Miller stresses that she is not trying to downplay environmental concerns associated with plastics and plastic waste. But to place the plastic-waste problem in proper context, it's critical to examine the environmental impacts that occur at every stage of a product's lifetime -- from the extraction of natural resources and the energy needed to make the item to its ultimate disposal or reuse.

Life-cycle assessment, or LCA, is a tool that researchers like Miller use to quantify lifetime environmental impacts in multiple categories, including climate change and energy use, water and resource depletion, biodiversity loss, solid waste generation, and human and ecological toxicity.

It's easy for consumers to focus on packaging waste because they see boxes, bottles and cans every day, while a wide range of other environmental impacts are largely invisible to them. But LCA analyses systematically evaluate the entire supply chain, measuring impacts that might otherwise be overlooked, Miller said.

Packaged food products, for example, embody largely invisible impacts that can include intensive agricultural production, energy generation, and refrigeration and transportation throughout the supply chain, along with the processing and manufacturing associated with the food and its packaging, she said.

Miller points out that the well-worn adage "reduce, reuse, recycle," commonly known as the 3Rs, was created to provide an easy-to-remember hierarchy of the preferable ways to lessen environmental impact.

Yet most environmental messaging does not emphasize the inherent hierarchy of the 3Rs -- the fact that reducing and reusing are listed ahead of recycling. As a result, consumers often over-emphasize the importance of recycling packaging instead of reducing product consumption to the extent possible and reusing items to extend their lifetime.

"Although the use of single-use plastics has created a number of environmental problems that need to be addressed, there are also numerous upstream consequences of a consumer-oriented society that will not be eliminated, even if plastic waste is drastically reduced," she said.

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How exercise stalls cancer growth through the immune system

 People with cancer who exercise generally have a better prognosis than inactive patients. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have found a likely explanation of why exercise helps slow down cancer growth in mice: Physical activity changes the metabolism of the immune system's cytotoxic T cells and thereby improves their ability to attack cancer cells. The study is published in the journal eLife.

"The biology behind the positive effects of exercise can provide new insights into how the body maintains health as well as help us design and improve treatments against cancer," says Randall Johnson, professor at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Karolinska Institutet, and the study's corresponding author.

Prior research has shown that physical activity can prevent unhealth as well as improve the prognosis of several diseases including various forms of cancer. Exactly how exercise exerts its protective effects against cancer is, however, still unknown, especially when it comes to the biological mechanisms. One plausible explanation is that physical activity activates the immune system and thereby bolsters the body's ability to prevent and inhibit cancer growth.

In this study, researchers at Karolinska Institutet expanded on this hypothesis by examining how the immune system's cytotoxic T cells, that is white blood cells specialized in killing cancer cells, respond to exercise.

They divided mice with cancer into two groups and let one group exercise regularly in a spinning wheel while the other remained inactive. The result showed that cancer growth slowed and mortality decreased in the trained animals compared with the untrained.

Next, the researchers examined the importance of cytotoxic T cells by injecting antibodies that remove these T cells in both trained and untrained mice. The antibodies knocked out the positive effect of exercise on both cancer growth and survival, which according to the researchers demonstrates the significance of these T cells for exercise-induced suppression of cancer.

The researchers also transferred cytotoxic T cells from trained to untrained mice with tumors, which improved their prospects compared with those who got cells from untrained animals.

To examine how exercise influenced cancer growth, the researchers isolated T cells, blood and tissue samples after a training sessions and measured levels of common metabolites that are produced in muscle and excreted into plasma at high levels during exertion. Some of these metabolites, such as lactate, altered the metabolism of the T cells and increased their activity. The researchers also found that T cells isolated from an exercised animal showed an altered metabolism compared to T cells from resting animals.

In addition, the researchers examined how these metabolites change in response to exercise in humans. They took blood samples from eight healthy men after 30 minutes of intense cycling and noticed that the same training-induced metabolites were released in humans.

"Our research shows that exercise affects the production of several molecules and metabolites that activate cancer-fighting immune cells and thereby inhibit cancer growth," says Helene Rundqvist, senior researcher at the Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, and the study's first author. "We hope these results may contribute to a deeper understanding of how our lifestyle impacts our immune system and inform the development of new immunotherapies against cancer."

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NASA's SOFIA discovers water on sunlit surface of Moon

 

Moon

NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has confirmed, for the first time, water on the sunlit surface of the Moon. This discovery indicates that water may be distributed across the lunar surface, and not limited to cold, shadowed places.

SOFIA has detected water molecules (H2O) in Clavius Crater, one of the largest craters visible from Earth, located in the Moon's southern hemisphere. Previous observations of the Moon's surface detected some form of hydrogen, but were unable to distinguish between water and its close chemical relative, hydroxyl (OH). Data from this location reveal water in concentrations of 100 to 412 parts per million -- roughly equivalent to a 12-ounce bottle of water -- trapped in a cubic meter of soil spread across the lunar surface. The results are published in the latest issue of Nature Astronomy.

"We had indications that H2O -- the familiar water we know -- might be present on the sunlit side of the Moon," said Paul Hertz, director of the Astrophysics Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Now we know it is there. This discovery challenges our understanding of the lunar surface and raises intriguing questions about resources relevant for deep space exploration."

As a comparison, the Sahara desert has 100 times the amount of water than what SOFIA detected in the lunar soil. Despite the small amounts, the discovery raises new questions about how water is created and how it persists on the harsh, airless lunar surface.

Water is a precious resource in deep space and a key ingredient of life as we know it. Whether the water SOFIA found is easily accessible for use as a resource remains to be determined. Under NASA's Artemis program, the agency is eager to learn all it can about the presence of water on the Moon in advance of sending the first woman and next man to the lunar surface in 2024 and establishing a sustainable human presence there by the end of the decade.

SOFIA's results build on years of previous research examining the presence of water on the Moon. When the Apollo astronauts first returned from the Moon in 1969, it was thought to be completely dry. Orbital and impactor missions over the past 20 years, such as NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, confirmed ice in permanently shadowed craters around the Moon's poles. Meanwhile, several spacecraft -- including the Cassini mission and Deep Impact comet mission, as well as the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 mission -- and NASA's ground-based Infrared Telescope Facility, looked broadly across the lunar surface and found evidence of hydration in sunnier regions. Yet those missions were unable to definitively distinguish the form in which it was present -- either H2O or OH.

"Prior to the SOFIA observations, we knew there was some kind of hydration," said Casey Honniball, the lead author who published the results from her graduate thesis work at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa in Honolulu. "But we didn't know how much, if any, was actually water molecules -- like we drink every day -- or something more like drain cleaner."

SOFIA offered a new means of looking at the Moon. Flying at altitudes of up to 45,000 feet, this modified Boeing 747SP jetliner with a 106-inch diameter telescope reaches above 99% of the water vapor in Earth's atmosphere to get a clearer view of the infrared universe. Using its Faint Object infraRed CAmera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST), SOFIA was able to pick up the specific wavelength unique to water molecules, at 6.1 microns, and discovered a relatively surprising concentration in sunny Clavius Crater.

"Without a thick atmosphere, water on the sunlit lunar surface should just be lost to space," said Honniball, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Yet somehow we're seeing it. Something is generating the water, and something must be trapping it there."

Several forces could be at play in the delivery or creation of this water. Micrometeorites raining down on the lunar surface, carrying small amounts of water, could deposit the water on the lunar surface upon impact. Another possibility is there could be a two-step process whereby the Sun's solar wind delivers hydrogen to the lunar surface and causes a chemical reaction with oxygen-bearing minerals in the soil to create hydroxyl. Meanwhile, radiation from the bombardment of micrometeorites could be transforming that hydroxyl into water.

How the water then gets stored -- making it possible to accumulate -- also raises some intriguing questions. The water could be trapped into tiny beadlike structures in the soil that form out of the high heat created by micrometeorite impacts. Another possibility is that the water could be hidden between grains of lunar soil and sheltered from the sunlight -- potentially making it a bit more accessible than water trapped in beadlike structures.

For a mission designed to look at distant, dim objects such as black holes, star clusters, and galaxies, SOFIA's spotlight on Earth's nearest and brightest neighbor was a departure from business as usual. The telescope operators typically use a guide camera to track stars, keeping the telescope locked steadily on its observing target. But the Moon is so close and bright that it fills the guide camera's entire field of view. With no stars visible, it was unclear if the telescope could reliably track the Moon. To determine this, in August 2018, the operators decided to try a test observation.

"It was, in fact, the first time SOFIA has looked at the Moon, and we weren't even completely sure if we would get reliable data, but questions about the Moon's water compelled us to try," said Naseem Rangwala, SOFIA's project scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. "It's incredible that this discovery came out of what was essentially a test, and now that we know we can do this, we're planning more flights to do more observations."

SOFIA's follow-up flights will look for water in additional sunlit locations and during different lunar phases to learn more about how the water is produced, stored, and moved across the Moon. The data will add to the work of future Moon missions, such as NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), to create the first water resource maps of the Moon for future human space exploration.

In the same issue of Nature Astronomy, scientists have published a paper using theoretical models and NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data, pointing out that water could be trapped in small shadows, where temperatures stay below freezing, across more of the Moon than currently expected. The results can be found here.

"Water is a valuable resource, for both scientific purposes and for use by our explorers," said Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist for NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. "If we can use the resources at the Moon, then we can carry less water and more equipment to help enable new scientific discoveries."

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Timekeeping theory combines quantum clocks and Einstein's relativity

 A phenomenon of quantum mechanics known as superposition can impact timekeeping in high-precision clocks, according to a theoretical study from Dartmouth College, Saint Anselm College and Santa Clara University.

Research describing the effect shows that superposition -- the ability of an atom to exist in more than one state at the same time -- leads to a correction in atomic clocks known as "quantum time dilation."

The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, takes into account quantum effects beyond Albert Einstein's theory of relativity to make a new prediction about the nature of time.

"Whenever we have developed better clocks, we've learned something new about the world," said Alexander Smith, an assistant professor of physics at Saint Anselm College and adjunct assistant professor at Dartmouth College, who led the research as a junior fellow in Dartmouth's Society of Fellows. "Quantum time dilation is a consequence of both quantum mechanics and Einstein's relativity, and thus offers a new possibility to test fundamental physics at their intersection."

In the early 1900s, Albert Einstein presented a revolutionary picture of space and time by showing that the time experienced by a clock depends on how fast it is moving -- as the speed of a clock increases, the rate at which it ticks decreases. This was a radical departure from Sir Isaac Newton's absolute notion of time.

Quantum mechanics, the theory of motion governing the atomic realm, allows for a clock to move as if it were simultaneously traveling at two different speeds: a quantum "superposition" of speeds. The research paper takes this possibility into account and provides a probabilistic theory of timekeeping, which led to the prediction of quantum time dilation.

To develop the new theory, the team combined modern techniques from quantum information science with a theory developed in the 1980s that explains how time might emerge out of a quantum theory of gravity.

"Physicists have sought to accommodate the dynamical nature of time in quantum theory for decades," said Mehdi Ahmadi, a lecturer at Santa Clara University who co-authored the study. "In our work, we predict corrections to relativistic time dilation which stem from the fact that the clocks used to measure this effect are quantum mechanical in nature."

In the same way that carbon dating relies on decaying atoms to determine the age of organic objects, the lifetime of an excited atom acts as a clock. If such an atom moves in a superposition of different speeds, then its lifetime will either increase or decrease depending on the nature of the superposition relative to an atom moving at a definite speed.

The correction to the atom's lifetime is so small that it would be impossible to measure in terms that make sense at the human scale. But the ability to account for this effect could enable a test of quantum time dilation using the most advanced atomic clocks.

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New theory sheds light on how the environment influences human health

 Researchers at Mount Sinai have proposed a groundbreaking new way to study the interaction between complex biological systems in the body and the environment. Their theory suggests the existence of "biodynamic interfaces," an intermediate entity between the two realms, as opposed to conventional approaches that analyze individual aspects of the interaction between the environment and humans in isolation, according to a paper published in BioEssays in October.

The environment impacts human health in profound ways, yet few theories define the form of the relationship between human physiology and the environment. The Mount Sinai scientists believe that such complex systems cannot interact directly, but rather that their interaction requires the formation of an intermediary "interface." The scientists believe that this theory will lead to the establishment of a new field, "environmental biodynamics," that will advance the way the environment and human health are studied.

The basis of their theory arose when they compared the time period when autistic children were exposed to toxins to how the children's brains functioned afterward. At the same time, they found distinct patterns in the intake and metabolism of essential elements and toxins, which were dependent not only on the timing and magnitude of the environmental exposure but also on what was happening within the biological systems of the child's body.

"These rhythms were driven by the properties of both the biological and environmental systems, but exhibited properties independent of either system," said Manish Arora, PhD, the Edith J. Baerwald Professor and Vice Chair of Environmental Medicine and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. "They supported the existence of an interface mediating the interaction of biological and environmental systems. The interface itself, which applies constraints and passes information between interacting systems, must be the subject of inquiry because without refocusing the attention on biodynamic interfaces, how the environment impacts health cannot be discerned."

The study of the interface will allow scientists to better understand how complex systems like the environment and human physiology affect each other. Current methods using plain analysis are incomplete, the scientists say.

"The standard course of inquiry measures some aspect of the environment like lead in the water, and we'd link this to some aspect in human development like IQ," said Paul Curtin, PhD, Assistant Professor of Environmental Medicine and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, an author on the paper. "We've learned a lot from environmental health using this approach, but it has its limits."

This interface also considers social, behavioral, and cultural dynamics to be a particularly fruitful avenue of research. This new theory would allow scientists to assess the interface between income and other processes, including health outcomes using dynamical systems methods. It would also define how human activities could negatively influence the environment and negatively influence their own health outcomes and further environmental impacts over time.

Dr. Arora's work was funded by a Revolutionizing Innovative, Visionary Environmental Health (RIVER) Award from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, totaling $8 million over eight years to complete research on the biodynamic interface. Alessandro Giuliani, PhD, Professor of Environmental Health at the University of Rome, has made a significant contribute to the development of the theory.

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