Best Citation Awards

­­Jars holding the innards of an ancient Egyptian noblewoman from roughly 3,500 years ago contain hints of one of the most complex mummification balms of that era, a new study shows. About 120 years ago, the remains of a woman named Senetnay were found entombed among pharaohs and esteemed nobles in Egypt’s Valley of Kings. Such an honored burial was rare. Inscriptions on vessels in the tomb indicate she not only was a wet nurse to the pharaoh Amenhotep II, but also remarkably close to him. An analysis of the jars that held her remains seem to confirm her importance and hint at the extent of ancient trade routes and the intricacies of mummification practices, researchers report August 31 in Scientific Reports .  In ancient Egyptian mummification, the viscera would be removed from the body and placed in separate jars along with a balm meant to preserve the organs. To find out exactly how Senetnay’s innards were preserved, archaeological chemist Barbara Huber and colleagues conduc...

A single molecule may play a central role in rejuvenating aging brains, albeit in different ways, new research suggests. Studies of three different techniques for combating the cognitive decline that accompanies aging found that they all increase levels of a protein called platelet factor four, or PF4, in mice. This in turn improved the animals’ cognitive performance and improved biological signs of brain health, three research groups report August 16 in Nature Aging, Nature and Nature Communications . “PF4 may be an effective factor, and this kind of work will help bring it toward a therapeutic agent” for age-related cognitive decline, says bioengineer Michael Conboy, of the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the work. One of the research groups, led by neuroscientist Dena Dubal, of the University of California, San Francisco, was studying klotho, a hormone linked to longevity. The group’s previous studies showed that injecting the hormone into mice booste...

Susana López Charretón is among Mexico’s leading virologists. She has been awarded the UNESCO–Carlos J. Finlay Prize for Microbiology and the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science award. She’s the only female Mexican scientist to have edited the Journal of Virology . But winning prizes isn’t what inspires her science and her career. “Prizes and recognition are just a consequence,” she says. “Actually, I’m mostly embarrassed by them.” Instead, it’s curiosity and a thirst for understanding and solving problems that drive her. “To me science is a way of living, something that fulfills me completely,” López Charretón says. For four decades, she has devoted her life to studying how rotaviruses infect human cells. These double-stranded RNA viruses were described in 1973 by Australian virologist Ruth Bishop and colleagues, when those researchers discovered a virus particle present in the intestinal tissue of children with diarrhea. Known to cause severe gastroenteritis, including acute diar...

A diabetes-turned-weight-loss medication could be on the verge of scoring a hat trick: It may also be a cardiovascular wonder drug. But limited results from a new and closely watched clinical trial have raised a flurry of questions. Who benefited from the drug and how long did they need to be treated? What were the side effects? And are the newly reported cardiovascular effects driven by weight loss, or is the medication working in some other way? [ Skip down to: Semaglutide FAQ ] First approved as a diabetes drug, the molecule semaglutide mimics the gut hormone GLP-1. This hormone typically suffuses into our bloodstreams after we eat and makes us feel full, among other actions. Semaglutide essentially gives people an extra dose of that full-feeling hormone. Taking the drug can lead to dramatic weight loss — and now, it appears, better cardiovascular health, even in people without diabetes. At least, that’s the take-home message of early clinical trial results released by Novo Nord...

The time may be coming to wash our hands of plastic trash. Literally. About 60 percent of all plastic ever made ends up in landfills or littering the environment. Only about one-tenth of plastic waste is ever recycled, and much of that ends up being low-quality material reused in things like park benches ( SN: 1/27/21 ). So chemists are searching for ways to “upcycle” plastic into more valuable raw materials. Now, there’s a way to turn old plastic into surfactants , researchers report in the Aug. 10 Science. Surfactants make up the key ingredients in dozens of products like lubricants, ski wax, detergents and soap. “To me, plastic waste basically [is] aboveground crude oil,” says chemist Guoliang Liu of Viginia Tech in Blacksburg. “We don’t have to go deep into the ocean or underground to mine [it] anymore” to make valuable chemicals.  Surfactants and the two most used kinds of plastic, polyethylene and polypropylene, are made of molecular chains of carbon atoms. But surfacta...

When Christopher Mazurek realizes he’s dreaming, it’s always the small stuff that tips him off. The first time it happened, Mazurek was a freshman at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. In the dream, he found himself in a campus dining hall. It was winter, but Mazurek wasn’t wearing his favorite coat. “I realized that, OK, if I don’t have the coat, I must be dreaming,” Mazurek says. That epiphany rocked the dream like an earthquake. “Gravity shifted, and I was flung down a hallway that seemed to go on for miles,” he says. “My left arm disappeared, and then I woke up.” Most people rarely if ever realize that they’re dreaming while it’s happening, what’s known as lucid dreaming. But some enthusiasts have cultivated techniques to become self-aware in their sleep and even wrest some control over their dream selves and settings. Mazurek, 24, says that he’s gotten better at molding his lucid dreams since that first whirlwind experience, sometimes taking them as opportunities to try ...

The fuzzy, ghostly figures typically seen in thermal images might become a thing of the past. By pairing artificial intelligence and thermal vision, scientists can make crisp, detailed images — even in the dark. The technique could one day help improve self-driving vehicles’ ability to navigate at night. Thermal imaging, which is often used in night vision systems, works by detecting heat sources. The infrared images are blurry because of a phenomenon called ghosting. Heat from an object overwhelms any details about the object’s texture, much like turning on a light makes it difficult to decipher any etching on a lightbulb. Theoretical physicist Fanglin Bao of Purdue University in West Lafeyette, Ind., and colleagues used a thermal camera that can distinguish between different wavelengths of infrared light. The researchers paired that camera with a computer program that uses AI to untangle information from the device to reveal the temperature, texture and type of material of objects...

From Colorado to Washington, from Ohio to Pennsylvania, coal-fired power plants are shutting down. The United States is on track to retire half of its capacity to generate electricity from coal by 2026. That’s a remarkably fast decline from coal’s peak in 2011 — and a major step in the shift to clean energy and the fight against climate change . But there’s a surprising downside to retiring big, old power plants. These plants help maintain the power grid’s stability. As more of them go offline, something else must step up to do that job. An electrical grid is a complex network involving systems that produce power, like a nuclear power plant or a wind turbine, and systems that store and transmit power, like batteries and transmission lines. A grid can stop functioning for any number of reasons, such as a tree falling on a power line or a heat wave overwhelming the system’s capacity. In the United States, electricity pulses through the grid like a heartbeat at a standard frequency of 6...

"Scientific research" refers to the systematic and organized process of investigating and studying various phenomena, questions, or problems using scientific methods. It's a way of acquiring new knowledge, understanding, and insights about the natural world and its underlying principles. Here are some key aspects of scientific research: Purpose: Scientific research aims to expand our understanding of the world around us, uncover new knowledge, and contribute to the advancement of various fields of study. Methodology: Researchers follow a structured approach, which includes formulating hypotheses, designing experiments or studies, collecting and analyzing data, and drawing conclusions based on the evidence gathered. Empirical Evidence: Scientific research relies on empirical evidence, which is data collected through observation, measurement, and experimentation. This evidence is used to support or reject hypotheses. Peer Review: The results and methods of scientific resea...