Opioid prescriptions to teens, young adults still common

(HealthDay)—Even amid an epidemic of abuse, opioid painkillers are still commonly prescribed to teenagers and young adults for conditions like tooth and back pain, a new study finds.

* This article was originally published here

Evidence of new magnetic transitions in late-type dwarfs from Gaia DR2

Since the second Gaia data release on the 25th April 2018, astrophysicists have had at their disposal an unprecedented wealth of information not only on distances and motions of stars in the galaxy, but also on many other stellar parameters that came along by exploiting the instrumentation aboard the satellite and the unique characteristics of the mission. Multiple observations of the same star, required to derive its distance and motion, also produced parameters related to stellar variability. Data for stars with spots on the surface similar to those on our Sun, in particular, provide information on their rotation period and on their surface magnetic fields. Stellar spots generated by magnetic fields at the surface modulate the stellar brightness as it rotates, making it possible to derive the star's rotation period and to provide an indication of its magnetic activity. The large number of stars observed made it possible to produce, with just the first 22 months of Gaia observations, the largest dataset on rotation to date, with rotation period and modulation amplitude of some 150,000 solar-like stars.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers demonstrate constraints on symmetries from holography

A pair of researchers, one at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and another at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of Tokyo, have recently investigated a set of old conjectures about symmetries in quantum gravity. The specific conjectures of focus: (1) Quantum gravity does not allow for global symmetries; (2) For gauge symmetry, all possible charges must be realized; (3) Internal gauge groups must be compact. Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, shows that these old assumptions hold within the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory (AdS-CFT) correspondence.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers find more evidence of 14th-century tsunami that wiped out Sumatran villages

A team of researchers with members from Singapore, Indonesia, Ireland and the U.K. has found more evidence of a tsunami approximately 600 years ago that destroyed communities in the same part of Sumatra as the 2004 tsunami. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their study of gravestones and pottery in the area and what they found.

* This article was originally published here

Sydney imposes first water restrictions in decade

Sydney on Tuesday announced its first major water restrictions in a decade, putting limits on homes and businesses amid a record-breaking drought.

* This article was originally published here