“Our data support early resistance rehabilitation as a promising treatment to increase bone formation, bone healing strength, and promote full restoration of mechanical properties to pre-injury levels,” said Dr. Bob Guldberg.

How can implantable sensors help patients during their recovery? This is what a recent study published in npj Regenerative Medicine hopes to address as a team of researchers led by the University of Oregon investigated the use of implantable strain sensors to aid bone healing during rehabilitation from bone defect injuries. This study holds the potential to help provide patients with improved options regarding bone defect injuries while significantly reducing their rehabilitation time.

When it comes to rehabilitation, patients and doctors have always tried to find a middle-ground regarding the amount of strain needed to achieve the most desired outcomes, commonly called the “Goldilocks” principle. Therefore, this new study developed implantable sensors designed to monitor bone healing and determine if resistance training is a sufficient rehabilitation tool for patients. The researchers conducted an 8-week trial with laboratory rats split into three groups: resistance-trained, sedentary (inactive), and non-resistance.

In the end, the researchers found that while all three groups exhibited bone healing after the trial, the resistance-trained rats not only exhibited early signs of bone healing, but also exhibited increased tissue density, as well.

Dr. Marta di Forti: “Our study indicates that daily users of high potency cannabis are at increased risk of developing psychosis independently from their polygenic risk score for schizophrenia.”

Is there a connection between cannabis use and developing psychosis? This is what a recent study published in Psychological Medicine hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated how frequent cannabis use combined with a genetic predisposition for schizophrenia could lead to developing psychosis later in life. This study holds the potential to help researchers, medical professionals, and the public better understand how to identify the signs of psychosis in cannabis users and take necessary steps to address them as soon as possible.

For the study, the researchers conducted an observational study by obtaining data records of almost 150,000 individuals registered in United Kingdom and European Union medical databanks, one of which was the European Network of National Schizophrenia Networks Studying Gene-Environment Interactions (EU-GEI), to examine records regarding patients who self-reported use and psychosis diagnoses. In the end, the researchers discovered a connection between individuals who self-reported lifetime frequent cannabis use and psychosis diagnoses, specifically regarding high potency cannabis which contains 10 percent or greater Delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

“These are important findings at a time of increasing use and potency of cannabis worldwide,” said Dr. Marta di Forti, who is a Professor of Drug use, Genetics, and Psychosis at King’s College London and a co-author on the study. “Our study indicates that daily users of high potency cannabis are at increased risk of developing psychosis independently from their polygenic risk score for schizophrenia. Nevertheless, the polygenic risk score for schizophrenia might, in the near future, become useful to identify those at risk for psychosis among less frequent users to enable early preventative measures to be put in place.”

What can solar eclipses teach us about the Sun and how it interacts with the Earth’s atmosphere? This is what a recent press briefing conducted at the American Geophysical Union 2024 Fall Meeting hopes to address as a team of scientists from the Citizen CATE 2024 (Continental-America Telescopic Eclipse) project reported on findings that were obtained during the April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse over North America.

“Scientists and tens of thousands of volunteer observers were stationed throughout the Moon’s shadow,” said Dr. Kelly Korreck, who is the NASA Program Manager for the 2023 and 2024 Solar Eclipses. “Their efforts were a crucial part of the Heliophysics Big Year – helping us to learn more about the Sun and how it affects Earth’s atmosphere when our star’s light temporarily disappears from view.”

Consisting of a combination of both professional and citizen scientists using a combination of images, spectroscopy, and ham radios, the large team comprised of Citizen CATE 2024 made groundbreaking observations of the 2024 solar eclipse, along with ascertaining how radio signals were influenced during the eclipse. In the end, the team of more than 800 individuals discovered that eclipses produce atmospheric gravity waves, or ripples within the Earth’s atmosphere. Additionally, the ham radio operators, comprised of more than 6,350 individuals, discovered that radio communications improved both within and outside the eclipses’ path of totality at frequencies between 1 to 7 Megahertz, whereas communications became worse at frequencies above 10 Megahertz.

What can NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter on Mars teach us about flying on other planets? This is what engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently investigated ever since the robotic pioneer performed its last flight on the Red Planet’s surface on January 18, 2024. The purpose of the investigation was to ascertain the likely causes for Ingenuity’s final flight, as the team found damage to the helicopter’s rotor blades in images sent back to Earth. This investigation holds the potential to help scientists and engineers improve upon Ingenuity’s design for future flying robots on other worlds.

“When running an accident investigation from 100 million miles away, you don’t have any black boxes or eyewitnesses,” said Dr. Håvard Grip, who is a research technologist at NASA JPL and Ingenuity’s first pilot. “While multiple scenarios are viable with the available data, we have one we believe is most likely: Lack of surface texture gave the navigation system too little information to work with.”

The reason for Ingenuity’s “retirement” was due to damage to its rotor blades it sustained during Flight 72, which turned out to be its final flight, due to navigation system failures in identifying a safe landing spot. As a result, engineers hypothesized that Ingenuity experienced a hard landing due to insufficient navigation data, breaking the rotor blades due to higher-than-expected loads. The findings from this investigation will help engineers implement better designs for NASA’s upcoming Mars Sample Return mission, which is currently in the design phase with an anticipated launch date of 2026.

How can tree placement impact urban temperatures? This is what a recent study published in Communications Earth & Environment hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated how tree planting locations plays a vital role in mitigating the effects of climate change on urban environments. This study holds the potential to help researchers, climate scientists, the public, and city planners have the necessary tools and resources to combat climate change while still providing adequate ecology for their surroundings.

For the study, the researchers conducted a literature review on 182 past studies discussing how tree planting can decrease temperatures in urban environments, including 110 cities or regions worldwide and 17 climates, with the goal of quantifying this temperature decrease on a global scale. In the end, the team found that 83 percent of the cities used in the study experienced average monthly peak temperatures below 26 degrees Celsius (79 degrees Fahrenheit) while also noting that tree planting contributes to a decrease of 12 degrees Celsius (54 degrees Fahrenheit) in pedestrian-level temperatures.

“Our study provides context-specific greening guidelines for urban planners to more effectively harness tree cooling in the face of global warming,” said Dr. Ronita Bardhan, who is an Associate Professor of Sustainable Built Environment at the University of Cambridge and a co-author on the study. “Our results emphasize that urban planners not only need to give cities more green spaces, they need to plant the right mix of trees in optimal positions to maximize cooling benefits.”

What processes are responsible for dust storms on Mars? This is what a study presented today at the American Geophysical Union 2024 Fall Meeting hopes to address as a pair of researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) investigated the causes behind the massive dust storms on Mars, which periodically grow large enough to engulf the entire planet. This study holds the potential to help researchers predict dust storms on Mars, which could help current and future robotic missions survive these calamities, along with future human crews to the Red Planet.

“Dust storms have a significant effect on rovers and landers on Mars, not to mention what will happen during future crewed missions to Mars,” said Heshani Pieris, who is a PhD Candidate in planetary science at CU Boulder and lead author of the study. “This dust is very light and sticks to everything.”

For the study, the researchers examined 15 (Earth) years of data obtained from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to ascertain the processes responsible for kickstarting dust storms. After analyzing countless datasets of Martian surface temperatures, the researchers found that 68 percent of large dust storms on Mars resulted from spikes in surface temperatures during periods of increased sunlight through Mars’ thin atmosphere.

How much does sulfur emitted by marine life cool the atmosphere and help mitigate the effects of climate change? This is what a recent study published in Science Advances hopes to address as an international team of researchers conducted a first-time numerical analysis regarding the amount of sulfur is emitted by marine life and how much it cools the climate, with an emphasis on the Southern Ocean. This study holds the potential to help researchers, climate scientists, and the public better understand how the planet cools itself, thus enabling us to work together to protect it.

“This is the climatic element with the greatest cooling capacity, but also the least understood,” said Dr. Charel Wohl, who is a senior research associate at the University of East Anglia and lead author of the study. “We knew methanethiol was coming out of the ocean, but we had no idea about how much and where. We also did not know it had such an impact on climate. Climate models have greatly overestimated the solar radiation actually reaching the Southern Ocean, largely because they are not capable of correctly simulating clouds. The work done here partially closes the longstanding knowledge gap between models and observations.”

For the study, the researchers produced a database of ocean methanethiol concentrations with the goal of estimating their produced emissions and how this contributes to ocean-derived aerosols that are responsible for cooling the planet. In the end, the researchers discovered that methanethiol emissions increase the aerosol amount between 30 to 70 percent over the Southern Ocean while simultaneously decreasing atmospheric oxidants and increasing planetary cooling. The Southern Ocean is located around Antarctica and serves as a staging ground for the world’s oceans, influencing their circulation.

“This is a highly engineered design, but the fundamental concepts are fairly simple,” said Dr. Jie Yin. “And with only a single actuation input, our robot can navigate a complex vertical environment.”

What influence can marine life have on robotics? This is what a recent study published in Science Advances hopes to address as a team of researchers from the University of Virginia and North Carolina State University have developed the fastest swimming soft robot by taking cues from manta ray fins. This study holds the potential to help researchers, engineers, and scientists develop faster and more efficient swimming soft robots that can be used for a variety of purposes worldwide.

This study builds on a 2022 study conducted by this same team of researchers that explored swimming soft robots that exhibited butterfly strokes, achieving a then-record of 3.74 body lengths per second, along with demonstrating high power efficiency, low energy use, and high maneuverability. For this new study, the researchers developed fins used by manta rays with the goal of achieving greater results than before. The fins are flexible when not in use but become rigid when the researchers pumped air into the silicone body that encompasses the soft robot.

In the end, the researchers not only achieved low energy use and maneuverability, but also broke their own record of body lengths per second at 6.8. Additionally, the manta ray-inspired swimming soft robot was able to avoid obstacles, which was an improvement from their 2022 study.

“Kepler-51e has an orbit slightly larger than Venus and is just inside the star’s habitable zone, so a lot more could be going on beyond that distance if we take the time to look,” said Dr. Jessica Libby-Roberts.

How many exoplanets are in the cosmos and what can they tell us about planetary formation and evolution? This is what a recent study published in The Astronomical Journal hopes to address as an international team of more than 50 researchers announced the discovery of Kepler-51e, which is the fourth planet residing in the Kepler-51 system. This discovery holds the potential to expand our knowledge of exoplanets, specifically regarding their formation and evolution, as Kepler-51e challenges previous notions about low-density exoplanets, also called “puff planets” or “Super-Puffs”

“Super puff planets are very unusual in that they have very low mass and low density,” said Dr. Jessica Libby-Roberts, who is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State University and second author of the study. “The three previously known planets that orbit the star, Kepler-51, are about the size of Saturn but only a few times the mass of Earth, resulting in a density like cotton candy.”

For the discovery, the researchers used NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) using a method called transit timing variations, which are caused by other planets in the system tugging on each other, resulting in very slight changes in their orbits. For example, the team noticed that the third planet in the system, Kepler-51d, transited its star two hours earlier than anticipated, indicating the gravity of an unknown fourth planet was tugging on it.

“Discovering liquid water oceans inside the moons of Uranus would transform our thinking about the range of possibilities for where life could exist,” said Dr. Douglas Hemingway.

Do the moons of Uranus have interior liquid oceans like the moons of Jupiter and Saturn? This is what a recent study published in Geophysical Research Letters hopes to address as a pair of researchers investigated the likelihood of five Uranus moons, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon possessing interior oceans. This study holds the potential to not only help researchers better understand the compositions of these moons, but also establish a framework for sending a spacecraft to Uranus for the first time since NASA’s Voyager 2 in 1986.

For the study, the researchers used computer models to simulate changes in each moon’s wobble with the goal of estimating the potential amount of liquid water that each moon could be harboring. This technique could be used to detect liquid oceans within these moons, thus increasing the feasibility of a future spacecraft mission to Uranus.

In the end, the researchers found that oceans greater than 40 kilometers (25 miles) thick could be detectable, but ocean thickness less than that could prove difficult to detect without better resolution of the wobble calculations. Using these wobble calculations, the researchers estimate that a wobble of 300 feet could indicate an ocean 100 miles thick with an ice shell of 20 miles, using Ariel as an example.