In the weeks since it began beaming back images, NASA's new Webb Space Telescope continues to provide a stunning peak into the universe.

On Tuesday, NASA released another impressive image of the Cartwheel Galaxy.

The Cartwheel Galaxy is located 500 million light years from Earth in the Sculptor constellation.

NASA

NASA said its appearance is due to "an intense event – a high-speed collision between a large spiral galaxy and a smaller galaxy not visible in this image. Collisions of galactic proportions cause a cascade of different, smaller events between the galaxies involved; the Cartwheel is no exception."

The Hubble Telescope previously took an image of the galaxy, but its picture lacked the fidelity the Webb Space Telescope provided.

"Other telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, have previously examined the Cartwheel," NASA said. "But the dramatic galaxy has been shrouded in mystery – perhaps literally, given the amount of dust that obscures the view. Webb, with its ability to detect infrared light, now uncovers new insights into the nature of the Cartwheel."

The telescope has allowed scientists to examine galaxies up to 13.1 billion light-years away. The telescope's spectrograph permits NASA to explore galaxies' chemical composition.

The Webb telescope will replace the Hubble telescope as NASA's primary view of deep space.

NASA released the first set of images from the telescope on July 12.

Researchers with the company Cortical Labs say they believe they've grown the first "sentient" brain in a lab.

The "mini-brain," as researchers have cautiously termed it, is being hailed as an "exciting" project by experts, but some say it might be going too far.

Cortical Labs

Dr. Brett Kagan, who was part of the project, made the "sentient" claims in the journal Neuron saying, "We could find no better term to describe the device.'

Kagan said, "It is able to take in information from an external source, process it, and then respond to it in real time."

The BBC reported that "mini-brains" were first created or produced in 2013 so researchers could examine and study brain development and microcephaly (a genetic issue involving tiny brains.)

The Cortical Labs research is the first time these "mini-brains" have interacted with an external environmental force.

The researchers plugged it into a video game from the 1970s called "Pong," which is a rudimentary game that is played by batting a digital ball shape on the screen back and forth in the style of tennis. The cells were connected using electrodes.

Researchers grew 800,000 human brain cells from stem cells and mouse embryos.

Researchers said after some trial and error, the cells "learned" to play the game in just a few minutes or more.

Researchers hope the study data can be used for future projects to try and treat neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's.

A science, technology, engineering and math program at a Maryland high school is helping a student pursue her dream of one day becoming an astronaut.

Freshman Sarah Gerst walks the hallways of Mercy High School, keeping her inspiration close for a career that might one day lead to her dream job.

"I would love to be an astronaut," Sarah said.

Sarah is already on her way. Since the summer before fifth grade, she has been going to space and aviation camps at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

"Honestly, everything just speaks to me about it. I love these camps with my whole heart. I've always been interested in space and space exploration since I was very young," Sarah said.

She hopes to get some flight hours soon as part of the Civil Air Patrol. Mercy is helping young women pursue careers in the STEM field with Project Lead the Way, a nationally recognized science and engineering program that focuses on biomedical sciences.

Freshmen students, like Sarah, are learning about forensics.

"Solving a crime, they've been doing DNA analysis, they've been working through it, they've been looking at hair follicles, fingerprints," said Rena Collector, coordinator of Project Lead the Way.

It's classwork that keeps her grounded now, but Sarah is looking ahead at NASA's next mission, thinking about the Artemis crew.

"I think it's really great that they are sending women and also people of color to the moon. At Mercy, we are all about empowering women, and that's a beautiful thing," Sarah said.

Watch the video above for the full story.

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S., but researchers hope to improve that statistic through a new treatment undergoing human clinical trials right now. The method is called precision nutrition and it involves starving a tumor. It has researchers very optimistic about the future of cancer patients.

Anand Parikh is a co-founder of Faeth Therapeutics, a company born from three leading cancer research teams.

"So, essentially, what I like to say is we're developing an entirely new way to attack tumors beyond the typical radiation, surgery and drugs," Parikh said. "We are one of the first companies and one of the first groups to be exploring this. There's been a lot of academic research, but unfortunately, not much done in patients in the clinic."

The idea is that tumors can be starved of the nutrients they need to grow if cancer patients follow a specific diet. So, Faeth Therapeutics is developing meals for cancer patients to eat. Christopher Graham is the culinary lead.

"I look to see, how many colors of the rainbow can I incorporate in terms of produce or vegetables or plant foods?" Graham said. "If there's an animal protein involved, we look for the most sustainable sources of animal protein that we can find, preferably animals who eat a natural diet."

Then he uses software to break down exact amounts and ingredients to build meals that are shipped out twice a week to patients across the country. Right now, they're providing food for a dozen patients, but the company hopes to support more than a hundred patients in just a couple of months.

"Long-term goal is to make this available for anyone who has cancer," Graham said.

According to Duke University cancer researcher Jason Locasale, who is not affiliated with Faeth Therapeutics, the concept of using food to starve tumors has been around for a century, but it wasn't until the past two decades that the research really started to come together.

Multiple peer-reviewed studies between 2012 and 2018 have been published to support the science behind precision nutrition.

"Basically, it started from looking at cancer cells in petri dishes and observing that if you change the nutrient composition of what's in the petri dish, cancer grows very differently," Locasale said.

Considering each tumor is unique like fingerprints, it's not a simple science. However, when asked to break it down, Parikh gives an example involving pancreatic cancer.

"So, typically, a protein will be comprised of any number of 20 amino acids," Parikh said. "I think we all remember this from high school biology, that amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. So for example, we looked to starve tumors in one of our programs in pancreatic cancer of three particular amino acids. So we say out of the 20, we think these three are really, really important for a tumor to grow and spread which is what a tumor wants to do. And so we take away those three."

Locasale says there's still lots of research and testing needed.

"Some of these diets we're looking at while they, you know, they may be great for cancer, they may be bad for other things," Locasale said.

However, considering cancer therapies have remained largely unchanged for decades, Parikh says he's hopeful this science will prevent more cancer deaths in the future.

"Ten years from now, you're not just asking your doctor what chemotherapy should I be on, but you're asking, 'Well, what's the precision nutrition that I should be taking alongside this chemotherapy to maximize its efficacy?'" Parikh said.

Faeth Therapeutics is currently focusing on four cancers: pancreatic, ovarian, endometrial, and colorectal. If you would like to participate in the precision nutrition program, you can apply at faeththerapeutics.com

 

Astronomers say they've found another black hole and it's now the closest known space entity of its kind to planet Earth.

Scientist announced on Friday that the black hole is ten times the mass of Earth's sun and three times closer to Earth than the previously closest known black hole.

It is located in space just 1,600 light-years away from our planet.

It was found as astronomers were watching the motion of a companion star to the black hole which orbits it at around the same distance that our sun orbits Earth.

As Science News reported, it was found by astronomers using the European Space Agency's Gaia craft, according to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

A team from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center working with the International Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, confirming their discovery. The data was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

It is unclear how it has formed in the Milky Way. Scientists have labeled it Gaia BH1, and it is situated in the serpent-bearer constellation Ophiuchus.

Red light therapy has been rising in popularity, but with a lot of posts about it on social media, it's hard to know if what's being promised is backed by science. Physician and board-certified anesthesiologist Dr. Azza Halim, who works at the Sanctuary Medical Center, says red light therapy isn't new.

"Because of social media, TikTok, more people are trying it, getting on that bandwagon," Dr. Halim said.

An article published on NASA explains research funded by NASA used red light therapy to grow plants in space in the mid-1990s. Pretty soon, NASA scientists working under the lights discovered that abrasions on their hands were healing faster than normal. Dr. Rich Joseph is a chief medical officer for Restore Hyper Wellness, which offers red light therapy at more than 125 locations nationwide.

"Red light, in particular, we're learning, might have more advantageous properties for healing because of its ability to penetrate the skin because of its longer wavelengths," Dr. Joseph said.

Both he and Dr. Halim say there are a few medical studies regarding red light therapy.

One study suggests an increase in collagen density. Collagen provides structure and strength to your skin, muscles, bones and connective tissues. Another study suggests there are potential psychological benefits for people facing depression and anxiety.

However, Dr. Joseph cautions someone facing mental health issues should also seek out treatment from mainstream medicine like the use of anti-depressants. Dr. Halim says red light therapy should always be considered as an addition to your wellness practice.

"It needs to be used in conjunction with other therapies because there's been controversy with people trying to upsell red light therapy," Dr. Halim said.

Dr. Joseph says more clinical trials are needed to confirm its effectiveness as a treatment. What he can confirm is that red light therapy is safe because it won't cause skin damage like UV rays from the sun. Before you decide to spend your money on this growing trend, Dr. Halim suggests you talk with your physician to see what makes the most sense for you.

 

A Maryland researcher has close ties with colleagues who made a breakthrough scientific discovery that could change the world and the reliance on fossil fuels.

Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Library in California produced a reaction replicating the same fusion that powers the sun. This signals the possibility of not only a carbon-free energy source but an infinite clean energy source. The Biden administration wants the U.S. to lead the world in this technology.

Researchers at the University of Maryland are working on their own magnetic confinement fusion project. Carlos Romero-Talamas is an associate professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and visiting professor with the University of Maryland who is actively involved with College Park's energy research facility.

"Just the fact that they achieved it is a very important milestone," Romero-Talamas said.

Romero-Talamas said he was very excited to hear that his colleagues at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory were able to produce a net-energy gain through fusion.

"It is very exciting because they finally solved or demonstrated that they can compress a capsule with laser energy, which is something that wasn't out for many years," Romero-Talamas said.

Romero-Talamas has a special tie to the laboratory having studied there as a graduate student and scholar.

"We've been talking about that for years, and so it's gratifying to see my colleagues at Livermore finally achieved that milestone," Romero-Talamas said.

While the Livermore experiment used lasers to achieve its goal, Romero-Talamas has a similar project in the works in College Park that uses magnets.

Experts said real-world use of fusion is still decades away, but it's certainly a step in the right direction toward clean, carbon and virtually waste-free energy.

As an example, Romero-Talamas said powerplants could run on minimal amounts of lithium instead of coal.

"For a powerplant that produces, say, a megawatt of power, you will need something like 9,000 tons of coal to power the powerplant. With fusion energy, you will need about 2 kilogram of or 4 kilogram, more or less, of lithium," Romero-Talamas said.

Watch the video above for the full story.

SpaceX is a big step closer to sending its giant Starship spacecraft into orbit, completing an engine-firing test at the launch pad on Thursday.

Thirty-one of the 33 first-stage booster engines ignited simultaneously for about 10 seconds in south Texas. The team turned off one engine before sending the firing command and another engine shut down — “but still enough engines to reach orbit!” tweeted SpaceX's Elon Musk.

Musk estimates Starship’s first orbital test flight could occur as soon as March, if the test analyses and remaining preparations go well.

The booster remained anchored to the pad as planned during the test. There were no signs of major damage to the launch tower.

NASA is counting on Starship to ferry astronauts to the surface of the moon in a few years, linking up with its Orion capsule in lunar orbit. Further down the road, Musk wants to use the mammoth Starships to send crowds to Mars.

Only the first-stage Super Heavy booster, standing 230 feet (69 meters) tall, was used for Thursday's test. The futuristic second stage — the part that will actually land on the moon and Mars — was in the hangar being prepped for flight.

Altogether, Starship towers 394 feet (120 meters), making it the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built. It's capable of generating 17 million pounds of liftoff thrust, almost double that of NASA's moon rocket that sent an empty capsule to the moon and back late last year.

SpaceX fired up to 14 Starship engines last fall and completed a fueling test at the pad last month.

Flocks of birds scattered as Starship's engines came alive and sent thick dark plumes of smoke across the Starship launch complex, dubbed Starbase. It's located at the southernmost tip of Texas near the village of Boca Chica, close to the Mexican border.

In a TikTok video with more than 30 million views and 7 million likes, a chipmunk is paying for groceries at the cashier.

The rabbit cashier asks, "Paper or plastic?"

The chipmunk ominously replies — and repeats, at the rabbit's confusion, "Mouth."

In the next frame, the groceries (a pile of nuts) and the rabbit's hand are engulfed by the chipmunk in one mouthful.

This points audiences to the punchline, and an animal fact — chipmunks' cheeks can expand to a size three times larger than their heads.

By animating the chipmunk's elastic cheeks (and morbid tendencies), the creators with Natural Habitat Shorts say they're experimenting with "animals in human situations" — allowing the creatures to turn the tables for entertainment and drop some knowledge in the process.

"To animals, everything they do is very mundane. It's just survival to them," said Nicole Low, one of the creators behind the account. "This is how we must look to them filming their lives."

The brains behind the videos — college classmates-turned-roommates Low, Brennan Brinkley and Tyler Kula — saw TikTok as an opportunity to reimagine nature documentaries from the perspectives of animals. Their videos feature bats drinking coffee upside down at a cafe (and spilling the scalding drink on other customers) and crows dressing up as scarecrows for Halloween, using Cartoon-Network-style animations and voiceovers.

Like most animal videos on the internet, there's an audience for that. Since starting in August, the account has amassed over a million followers and nearly 20 million likes.

Less than a minute long each and averaging well over millions of views, videos from creators like Natural Habitat Shorts aren't going viral just for laughs. The TikToks are based on science and history — subjects that elementary school teachers dream of making their students excited for.

The concepts explored by Natural Habitat Shorts are all anchored around a fun fact about the animals. But nature — and its absurdity — lends itself to humor, which can help make complex concepts easier to understand, Brinkley said.

"There's so much irony in comedy," Brinkley said. "Finding the irony in the interesting things about these animals is really important."

The science of humor

There's a humor to science, and a science to humor.

Science and history as comedic entertainment isn't a new phenomenon. Comedy Central's "Drunk History," which featured historical reenactments based on inebriated narration, tackled topics like former U.S. presidents and famous inventions for six seasons.

Researchers like Stephen Hupp, a psychology professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, have studied the use of humor in engaging students and found that consistently entertaining students with humorous facts or visuals can help them retain information.

TikTok videos, while not nearly as extensive as the content covered in a full class period, can help pique interest in topics of natural history, Hupp said.

"It's a good tool to get engagement," Hupp said.

TikTok creator Adrian Bliss said he's always enjoyed museums and history. He converged his affinity for these subjects with his deadpan humor, garnering more than 3.5 million followers over the past year. His sketches are live-action reenactments, inspired by funny, strange scenarios that he said pop into his head — like an audience of crickets at a comedy show, or a dinosaur trying to sneak onto Noah's Ark.

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Bliss said the all-knowing algorithms of TikTok have helped him reach niche "corners" of the platform. His video on Henry the VIII found its way to "Tudor-Tok," as fans of the House of the Tudor informed him.

"It has to be entertaining and funny — that's the most important thing," Bliss said. "If it ends up being educational or inspires anyone to take interest in certain subjects, that's the perfect thing to make."

Bliss didn't expect the popularity — or for educators and scientists to reach out in the way they have. Bliss said he's seen comments from teachers saying they showed the videos to their class. Brinkley said a bat sanctuary reached out after seeing Natural Habitat Shorts' videos on bats.

"A teacher thinks your comment is interesting enough to be shown in their class," Bliss said. "It's quite cool ... a really nice feeling."

Christine Greenhow, an associate professor of educational psychology and technology at Michigan State University, researches the use of social media in the classroom. She said engaging students with funny videos can be "very powerful."

"Educators would benefit from greater understanding of how students are using social media for learning purposes outside of school and building on those practices within classrooms," Greenhow said.

Putting joke to fact

Bliss has a wardrobe of costumes for nearly every historical occasion. He's been Noah and all the animals on the ark in the same TikTok sketch. He's played both Romeo and Juliet, a cast of biblical figures and a Mona Lisa painting. (Yes, there's a costume for her.)

All the one-man show needs is a green screen, costume, tripod and a fact -- which he gets from places like the Natural History Museum in London and National Geographic articles. Sometimes his account's bio, "Down with the fourth wall" (which alludes to his characters making eye contact with the camera and breaking that invisible barrier between actor and audience), applies a little too well in real life.

"It's a strange — very strange — experience filming stuff on your own in a costume," Bliss said. "It's only bad when the doorbell goes, and you're dressed as a bumblebee or an egg."

Natural Habitat Shorts is also a lean operation. The trio met studying film at Florida State University, and they cite memories of the children's television show "Zoboomafoo" and educational videos from the Crash Course YouTube channel as inspirations. (Hank Green, one of the brothers behind Crash Course, now follows the Natural Habitat Shorts account.)

The three of them handle everything, including storyboards, animations, voiceovers and editing.

"Anyone can do it," Brinkley said. "You just need people around you that you trust their sense of humor."

TikTok, with its infinite feed and loops of videos under three minutes, is a platform for concise content and instant punchlines — Bliss and Natural Habitat Shorts' videos have never surpassed one minute. Brinkley said the limited timeframe is just long enough to introduce an idea and deliver a punchline.

Bliss said the intent for his videos was never to supplant a lecture or even be used in a classroom. But he hopes he can pique interest in topics he thinks are amusing.

"If you can access an interesting fact ... in a humorous way, I think it just makes it much more accessible," Bliss said. "You can't necessarily teach everything about the subject, of course, but it's a good entry point."

Bliss and Natural Habitat Shorts both said the key to their videos is to make content they find intriguing and entertaining. As the old saying goes — where there's a fact, there's a gag.

"I can't see us ever running out," Kula said. "There's too many animals."

BOSTON —

Edward O. Wilson, the pioneering Harvard biologist who argued for a new vision of human nature in "Sociobiology" and warned against the decline of ecosystems, has died. He was 92.

Wilson died on Dec. 26 in Burlington, Massachusetts, according to an announcement posted Monday on the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation's website.

"It would be hard to understate Ed's scientific achievements, but his impact extends to every facet of society. He was a true visionary with a unique ability to inspire and galvanize. He articulated, perhaps better than anyone, what it means to be human," David J. Prend, chairman of the board of E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, said in a statement.

The professor and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author first gained widespread attention for his 1975 book, "Sociobiology: The New Synthesis," in which he spelled out the evidence suggesting a link between human behavior and genetics. The work created a storm of controversy among activists and fellow academics who equated sociobiology's groundbreaking theories with sexism, racism and Nazism.

More recently, Wilson has championed the importance of preserving diverse species and ecosystems.

"The diversity of life on Earth is far greater than even most biologists recognize," he said in 1993.

Less than 10% of the Earth's species have scientific names, he said, making it "a still mostly unexplored planet."

In 1979, "On Human Nature" — the third volume in a series including "The Insect Societies" and "Sociobiology" — earned Wilson his first Pulitzer Prize. His second Pulitzer came in 1991 with "The Ants," which Wilson co-wrote with Harvard colleague Bert Holldobler.

Among his other honors was the 1990 Crafoord Prize in biosciences from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the highest scientific award in the field. Time magazine named him one of America's 25 most influential people in 1996.

Wilson's sociobiology theories transformed the field of biology and reignited the nature vs. nurture debate among scientists. Based on data about many species, Wilson argued that social behaviors from warfare to altruism had a genetic basis, an idea that contradicted the prevailing view that cultural and environmental factors determined human behavior.

Critics argued that such a theory bolstered social injustice, including discrimination against women, by saying that the inequality is written in human genes. Fifteen Boston-area scholars joined in a letter denouncing it, and in one case protesters dumped a pitcher of ice water on Wilson's head while he was speaking at a scientific meeting in 1978.

He didn't think genes determine all human behavior, but "in roughterms ... maybe 10 percent" of it.

COVID-19 proved that mRNA vaccines can work. Now, researchers are applying the technology to other diseases.

More than half of Americans are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Many of them received an mRNA vaccine that was developed by Pfizer or Moderna.

“mRNA is a blueprint to tell your cells what protein to make,” Dr. Scott Joy, an internal medicine specialist and Chief Medical Officer for HCA Healthcare Physician Services group, said.

“It’s either a protein that builds the cells, it’s a protein that fights an infection, or it’s a protein that has some other role in your body,” he added.

Though the COVID vaccines are new, research on mRNA and mRNA-based vaccines has been happening for decades.

“It’s interesting to look at the data from the late 90s from when the mRNA vaccines were being studied. The issue was not behind the basic science of why an mRNA vaccine would be effective, it was really how do you create a vehicle to get it into the cell to allow it to do what it needs to do. And that's what the last 20 years have really been about,” Dr. Joy said.

He said this technology can be applied to more than just COVID.

“We’re dedicating hundreds of employees, both in the U.S. and in Europe, to working on mRNA as one of the foundations for new vaccines,” Dr. Michael Greenberg, the vice president and medical head of Sanofi Pasteur North America, said. The company has been developing vaccines for decades.

“mRNA vaccines have been some of the ones that have gotten a lot of attention the past couple years because of their success that have been really shown during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Dr. Greenberg said.

Their efforts with mRNA started before the pandemic.

“We are the first ever to create, to start a clinical trial for seasonal flu vaccine using mRNA and so far the results are very promising,” he said.

The mRNA vaccines can be used to prevent illness in multiple ways.

“The idea was, can we develop a vaccine which is...not just focusing on one pathogen,” Dr. Gunjan Arora, a research scientist at the Yale School of Medicine, said.

Arora is part of a team working on an mRNA vaccine for Lyme disease – a tick-borne illness caused by a specific bacteria.

“The idea is if he can develop a technology where we can deliver multiple candidate antigens, can we stop ticks from feeding and eventually that would block the Lyme disease in humans,” he said.

Essentially, the vaccine would target antigens found in tick saliva, preventing it from feeding on people and reducing transmission.

Researchers say the advancement of mRNA COVID vaccines shows a lot of potential for mRNA use.

“Acceptability of any new technology requires a breakthrough, a validation process. Which I think COVID-19 has done in this case,” Arora said.

“With the success of these out of the gate, we're pretty excited about future opportunities as well,” Joy said.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL — Smartphones and GPS have made paper maps virtually obsolete and put the power of navigation in our pockets. But now, engineers are working on a high-tech update for another directional tool that could revolutionize how we find our way around.

The first street signs date back hundreds of years. They help you figure out where you are and where you’re going.

But what if they could be updated throughout the day, hour by hour to keep you informed about what’s happening around you?

“This is a fully-functioning street sign that allows you to essentially market, advertise and communicate out to the public,” Michael Ottoman said, showing off a hi-tech version of the old street sign.

Ottoman is the president of Points Lab, LLC., the makers of a hi-tech smart sign known as the Points Sign, and it could be the future of street signs.

It looks simple enough from the outside, but it’s actually very complex.

“It allows municipalities to speak to the community,” said Ottoman. “It allows the local shops to speak to the community and allows the community to come in and get directions for information itself.”

The smart sign is essentially a stationary robot driven by artificial intelligence that can provide real-time, up-to-date directional information to help you get to where you want to be.

Three fins rotate about the pole as information is fed into the Points Sign.

“If you're at an amusement park and you want to go on a ride, it can tell you what direction the right is, but also can tell you what the wait time for that right is as well,” said Sajid Patel, CEO and co-founder of Optimal Design.

The project is a collaboration between the Points Lab and Patel’s award-winning engineering team Optimal Design, a technology innovation firm that develops everything from wearables and virtual reality gear to smart city products like the Points Sign.

“Our specialty is being able to develop outdoor electronics that have a lot of ruggedization built into them. So, everything from making sure it's earthquake-proof to hurricane, wind resistance-proof. And then there's always the use and abuse factor as well,” said Patel.

The street sign features a touchscreen display panel as well.

“It's interactive, meaning you can go up to the display itself,” said Ottoman. “You can say, ‘What's going on for dining?’ It drops down some dining locations for what you're interested in.”

The display menu updates as everything around it does. As more appropriate, popular, or timely events approach, the menu refreshes its options.

“You might want to have a lightning detector out in the park so that it can pick up and send information at lightning struck and then sound an alarm, saying ‘Everybody off the ball field,’” said Ottoman.

From an advertising standpoint, it can detect how many people are around it and point them to a sale at a local café.

If there’s a local emergency, it can adjust its message or change directions to point crowds to safety shelters during a storm.

“If there's, for example, an Amber Alert or if there is a tornado warning, that type of messaging, that emergency messaging will take precedent over everything else,” said Ottoman.

The smart street sign can be made permanent, semi-permanent, and even temporary for short-term events like conventions and outdoor concerts.

Touted as the most advanced directional smart sign on Earth, the Points Sign will begin rolling out in smart cities, convention centers, and even airports in the coming year.

Related video above: Here’s Why Jupiter Never Became a StarA spacecraft orbiting Jupiter discovered an FM radio signal from Ganymede, one of the gas giant's moons. The discovery marks the first time a signal has been detected from Ganymede.Patrick Wiggins, a NASA Utah ambassador, cautioned it's probably not aliens, according to KDFW.“It’s not E.T.,” Wiggins said. “It’s more of a natural function.”The spacecraft, called Juno, was moving across a region of Jupiter were magnetic field lines can connect with the Ganymede moon. That's when Juno picked up the radio source. Juno was sent out to study how Jupiter formed and evolved over time.“Juno's primary goal is to reveal the story of Jupiter's formation and evolution. Using long-proven technologies on a spinning spacecraft placed in an elliptical polar orbit, Juno will observe Jupiter's gravity and magnetic fields, atmospheric dynamics and composition, and evolution,” according to NASA.It was electrons, not extra terrestrials, responsible for the radio emissions form the moon.Through a process called cyclotron maser instability, electrons oscillate at a lower rate than they spin which causes them to amplify radio waves rapidly. Though a significant discovery, the orbiting spacecraft was only able to pick up the radio emissions for just five seconds. Juno hurtled by at a blinding speed of 111,847 mph. That's fast enough to cross the entire United States coast to coast in just under two minutes.

A rare fish, which much is unknown about, was captured by Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) cameras in Monterey Bay. According to MBARI, whalefishes have rarely been collected alive and much of their biology remains a mystery to this day. Even MBARI's deep-see remote-operated vehicles have only spotted this species 18 times in 34 years. According to MBARI scientists, "Whalefishes (order Cetomimiformes) lack external scales and pelvic fins, and in adults, the eyes are very primitive and small. The eyes’ lenses are lost after they transform from the larval stage, and with it, they lose the ability to form images."But instead of relying on sight to survive, they have an incredible ability to feel their surroundings. They have a highly sensitive lateral line system, with sensory pores that run over the head and down the length of the body to help them feel vibrations in the water around them."Watch the video above to see the fish.

The packing and shipping of a third COVID-19 vaccine approved for use in the U.S. is underway. Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose shot will start going into Americans’ arms in a matter of days.

Nearly 4 million doses are going out just this week. That's all of the current supply.

The number of doses states are getting is proportional to population, like with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

Johnson & Johnson’s CEO says he's confident the company will be able to deliver on its promise of 100 million doses by June, and up to 1 billion by the end of the year.

“Johnson &Johnson built its vaccine from a virus that causes the common cold, known as adenovirus,” said Dr. Leo Nissola, a COVID Act Now medical advisor.

The science behind Johnson & Johnson's single-dose COVID-19 vaccine and the Moderna and Pfizer two-shot vaccines is different, but not new.

Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine takes a small amount of genetic material from the coronavirus and combines it with a weakened version of a common cold virus called adenovirus. That combination doesn't make us sick.

Adenovirus technology was also used to make Ebola and tuberculosis vaccines.

Pfizer and moderna use mRNA technology, which uses a genetic code to make the antigen protein specific to COVID-19. This code tells our body to make the antigen itself, prompting an immune response.

“The messenger RNA platform allows for scientists and drug makers to update the coding on these vaccines sooner, faster and at a different pace than adenovirus vectored vaccine, so in that sense, should we need a boost, our immune shot very likely will come from those mRNA based platforms,” said Dr. Nissola.

Pfizer and Moderna are already testing a third, booster shot to protect against COVID-19 variants.

Meanwhile, Johnson & Johnson may have the advantage of one and done for now, since it only requires a single dose. It can be stored for months in a refrigerator.

All three were found to be highly effective in preventing severe disease and death.

“It makes me hopeful that by summer, we will be able to vaccinate millions and millions of people and have a little bit more normalcy back,” said Dr. Nissola.

The J&J vaccine is also expected to boost vaccination equity since it's only one dose and is easier to store.

High school sophomore Jadyn Lewis is seeking answers to questions concerning her community, like how climate change impacts the food we eat and why COVID-19 affects some groups more than others.

“Especially with this pandemic, people are wanting to know what’s happening exactly and the details and science behind that,” she said.

Lewis and other students across the country are now learning how science impacts everyday life through a national educational effort led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

This innovative way of studying science focuses on students’ experiences and their challenges.

“That means for Black, Latinx and indigenous students who might encounter science as a white endeavor, we want to privilege and center the experiences and work of Black scientists for example,” said Bill Penuel, Ph.D., a professor of learning science at CU Boulder, who is leading this program with help from educators at some of the most prestigious universities in the United States.

Penuel says the goal is getting students interested in science by having them ask questions about the world around them.

“By the end, they’ve learned the science ideas that are in the traditional curriculum not instead of teaching and then trying to find an application, they’re learning it really through the application,” he said.

This deeper understanding of sciences does come with a $7 million price tag, but it’s free for all students, like Lewis.

“Putting in the effort and the time and the money and the resources in order to create a curriculum for students for diverse backgrounds is crucial,” she said.

Materials taught in this program meet the Next Generation Science Standards, which is a research-based vision for science learning being put in place in classrooms across the country and allows students to get answers to the questions impacting them the most.

Everyone likes a good belly laugh from time to time, and science supports that feeling.

Studies have shown that laughing is linked to our physical, emotional and mental well-being — even our relationships.

Here are some things you might not know about laughter.

Laughter was a survival tool

Laughter is thought to have evolved as a form of social bonding in animals and as a way to express playful intention. Many mammals laugh when they are tickled and when they engage in physical play.

But humans don't need a physical trigger to laugh — though generally we can't help but laugh if we're tickled.

Janet Gibson, a professor emerita of cognitive psychology at Grinnell College in Iowa, said that laughter evolved in humans as a communication signal.

Hundreds of years ago, "laughter was the glue that kept the group together," she told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta on his Chasing Life podcast.

"The idea was that laughter was an external signal that can tell the group everything is OK, we can relax. (There is) no need to be anxious or threatened by what's happening around us. And so this would really be a great survival tool for groups of humans," she explained.

"And the belief is, is that over the centuries, the brain kept these connections so that we now laugh when ... we hear things that are relaxing, funny, surprising, amusing."

Anthropologists think that laughter is universal, but that doesn't mean every culture finds the same things funny.

Laughing is a primitive noise

Laughter is a surprisingly complicated process, engaging multiple regions of the brain and the body.

The frontal lobe is thought to help you interpret the various bits of information you receive — the sounds and images — and then it decides whether they are funny. That triggers an emotional response in the limbic system, which controls feelings like pleasure and fear and that in turn stimulates your motor cortex, explained Gupta in the podcast.

This controls your physical response -—the guffaws, snorts and chuckles we recognize as laughter.

"When you start to laugh you get a fairly large contraction in the rib cage — very large and very fast. Those contractions push air — ha, ha, ha. It's a very primitive way of making noise. At the brain level, it's associated with a change in the circulating endorphins," said Sophie Scott, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London.

This can give you a pain-killing sensation. As you laugh, it lowers your adrenaline levels and over a longer time frame your levels of the stress hormone cortisol, she explained. As such, laughter can improve your mood and make your physical and emotional response to stress less intense.

"You're more relaxed, less stressed, and you have a pleasant buzzy feeling," she said.

Couples who laugh together stay together

A long-running study of couples at the University of California, Berkeley, of more than 150 long-term relationships that started in 1989 has suggested that laughter is the glue that keeps people together.

Satisfied couples laugh more than unsatisfied ones, found the study team, led by Robert Levenson, professor of psychology. In one experiment, the couples were asked to discuss a problem or conflict in their relationship while they were videotaped, and a polygraph measured different physiological and emotional signs.

Laughter during stressful conversations was associated with emotions becoming more positive.

"You see people starting to get stressed, and what you find is that couples who deal with increased feeling of stress, the ones who react to that with laughter not only get less stressed immediately but they are couples that tend to be happier in their relationships and tend to stay together longer," said Scott, who was not involved in the study.

"It's not that the laughter is magic dust. It's more like laughter is a sign of a relationship where people can use laughter to negotiate a better way together," she added.

In defusing tense situations, she said that laughter can make it easier for couples to communicate and maintain relationship bonds — important planks of relationship satisfaction.

It's very hard to explain why something is funny

While psychologists and comedians have tried to come up with one, there is no universal theory for what makes something funny.

People sometimes find amusement in the misfortunes of others, in the expression of otherwise forbidden emotions, or in violating a norm but in a nonthreatening way, Scott said.

But sometimes sounds or words can just be inherently funny.

"Any theory of humor always falls down because we can't explain all the things that are funny, and it can't be used to generate jokes. Laughter is a really important part of play, and maybe that's where a lot of adult human play behavior goes, it feeds into humor."

Laughter can also have a dark side.

Inappropriate laughter can sometimes be a sign that something is cognitively amiss. An early sign of dementia is an altered sense of humor and laughing at inappropriate moments, one study found.

What's more, laughter doesn't always accompany genuinely felt emotions — it can also be for social display. People will use laughter to defuse a stressful situation or a joke to break the ice. However, whether it works or not depends on whether the other person joins in and laughs with you, as anyone who has had a punch line fall flat knows.

Laughter is about people, not jokes

Laughter is 30 times more likely to occur in the company of others than when one is alone. It's also contagious. You're much more likely to laugh if you hear someone else laughing.

"When you have endorphins circulating through the brain, you feel good. When you laugh, you're inhaling more oxygen. So, all the cells of your brain are getting more oxygen, as well as the cells of your body," Gibson said.

"It's just a tool in your medicine cabinet to help you feel better. And I'd say it's free, and it brings in all these other benefits that it's a great tool to use and not to be dismissed as silly or worthless. "

It's hard to separate the benefits of laughter and the context in which you would laugh. As such, if you want to harness the healing power of laughter, a funny movie might help — but it's really the connections laughter builds with other people that count.

Related video: Glaciers all over the world are melting at a more rapid pace

The National Geographic knows a thing or two about maps: They've been making them since 1915.

Over those 106 years, the famed publication has listed four oceans on Earth — the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic. Those maps are now being redrawn.

A fifth ocean has been designated by the magazine: the icy waters surrounding Antarctica below the Earth's southern 60th parallel is officially being named the Southern Ocean.

The move is significant beyond adding one more name for grade school students to remember. The Southern Ocean is fenced from the the northern oceans by a fast current that circles the Earth from west to east around Antarctica in a band centered around a latitude of 60 degrees south.

The waters south of that Antarctic Circumpolar Current are colder and ecologically distinct, the magazine says, making a home for thousands of species that can live nowhere else on Earth.

"The Southern Ocean encompasses unique and fragile marine ecosystems that are home to wonderful marine life such as whales, penguins, and seals," said National Geographic Explorer in Residence Enric Sala said in the announcement.

"Anyone who has been there will struggle to explain what's so mesmerizing about it," Seth Sykora-Bodie, a marine scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) added, "but they'll all agree that the glaciers are bluer, the air colder, the mountains more intimidating, and the landscapes more captivating than anywhere else you can go."

The recognition of the world's fifth ocean, made official on June 8, World Oceans Day, aims to promote conservation in a region where industrial fishing has blighted populations of krill and Patagonian toothfish over the years.

The waters around Antarctica (the Earth's seventh continent) have also been known as the Antarctic Ocean or the Austral Ocean, though the use of Southern Ocean is the most popular in the media and scientific community, and is used by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and the International Hydrographic Organization and NOAA.

Find the full National Geographic announcement here.