1/1/2021 8:00 AMWhen it comes to the semiconductor industry, silicon has reigned as king in the electronics field, but it is coming to the end of its physical limits. To more effectively power the electrical grid, locomotives and even electric cars, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists are turning to diamond as an ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor.https://phys.org/news/2020-12-diamonds-jewelry-anymore.html
1/1/2021 10:00 AMA controversial new study suggests that it may be possible to bend the laws of the universe — but just a little bit.https://futurism.com/the-byte/laws-physics-break-down-edge-universe
1/1/2021 12:00 PMThe moons of Uranus could be sloshing with oceans hiding just below the surface.https://www.space.com/uranus-moons-hiding-secret-oceans
1/1/2021 2:00 PMPeople around the world are currently isolating themselves or in a formal quarantine to prevent the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. But for decades, astronauts have been quarantined to ensure that they were virus-free and ready to fly (or, in the case of Apollo, to make sure they didn’t bring home any “moon bugs.”) This quarantine period “ensures that they aren’t sick or incubating an illness when they get to the space station,” NASA spokesperson Brandi Dean told Space.com. So what is quarantine really like for an astronaut?https://www.space.com/what-is-quarantine-like-for-astronauts-coronavirus.html
1/1/2021 4:00 PMDragonflies can catch prey with near perfect accuracy, the best among all predators. But how does something with so few neurons achieve such prowess? Our intrepid neuroscientists explore how a dragonfly unerringly locks onto its preys and captures it within milliseconds using just sensors and a fake fly.https://www.ted.com/talks/greg_gage_how_a_dragonfly_s_brain_is_designed_to_kill
1/1/2021 6:00 PMWadi Al Hitan, the Valley of the Whales, is a site that’s yielded dozens of skeletons of the early predatory whales Basilosaurus and Dorudon over the last hundred years. Newly uncovered specimens support the idea that it was a calving ground for the dolphin-sized Dorudon, and that those calves were hunted by the much larger Basilosaurus. (yes, the article is 2 years old – still fascinating)http://www.eartharchives.org/articles/giant-early-whale-basilosaurus-hunted-the-calves-of-other-whales/
1/2/2021 8:00 AMHydrogen is a sustainable source of clean energy that avoids toxic emissions and can add value to multiple sectors in the economy including transportation, power generation, metals manufacturing, among others. Technologies for storing and transporting hydrogen bridge the gap between sustainable energy production and fuel use, and therefore are an essential component of a viable hydrogen economy. But traditional means of storage and transportation are expensive and susceptible to contamination. As a result, researchers are searching for alternative techniques that are reliable, low-cost and simple. More-efficient hydrogen delivery systems would benefit many applications such as stationary power, portable power, and mobile vehicle industries.https://phys.org/news/2020-12-nanomaterial-hydrogen-liquid-energy-carrier.html
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1/2/2021 12:00 PMThe intricate arrangement of base pairs in our DNA encodes just about everything about us. Now, DNA contains the entirety of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” as well. A team of University of Texas Austin scientists just vastly improved the storage capacity of DNA and managed to encode the entire novel — translated into the geek-friendly language of Esperanto — in a double strand of DNA far more efficiently than has been done before. DNA storage isn’t new, but this work could help finally make it practical.https://futurism.com/the-byte/stored-wizard-oz-strand-dna
1/2/2021 2:00 PMA Japanese company and Kyoto University have joined forces to develop what they hope will be the world’s first satellites made out of wood by 2023. The partnership will begin experimenting with different types of wood in extreme environments on Earth. Space junk is becoming an increasing problem as more satellites are launched into the atmosphere. Wooden satellites would burn up without releasing harmful substances into the atmosphere or raining debris on the ground when they plunge back to Earth.https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55463366
1/2/2021 4:00 PMThe moon has many more craters than we thought, a new study finds. More than 109,000 new craters were discovered in the low- and mid-latitude regions of the moon using artificial intelligence (AI) that was fed data collected by Chinese lunar orbiters.https://www.space.com/new-moon-craters-discovered
1/2/2021 6:00 PMBuying a telescope is a big step, especially if you’re not sure what all those terms — f/ratio, magnification, go-to — mean. So, to eliminate confusion and make sure you understand what you’re buying, here’s what to check out before you write the check out.https://astronomy.com/observing/equipment-use/2014/04/telescopes-101
1/3/2021 8:00 AMCapella Space’s first fully operational satellite has snapped some breathtaking images of Earth during its first few months in orbit. The Capella-2 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite, previously known as Sequoia, launched atop a Rocket Lab Electron booster on Aug. 30. Because Capella-2 captures imagery using radio waves rather than visible light, the spacecraft can both peer through clouds and study swaths of our planet that are cloaked in darkness.https://www.space.com/capella-space-radar-imagery-earth
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1/3/2021 12:00 PMAfter living with quadriplegia for 30 years — meaning that all four of his limbs are paralyzed — Robert “Buz” Chmielewski was able to feed himself with a fork and knife thanks to a pair of sophisticated robotic prosthetic limbs and a series of electrodes implanted onto his brain.https://futurism.com/neoscope/watch-quadriplegic-man-feed-himself-two-bionic-arms
1/3/2021 2:00 PMDNA is the basis of life on earth. The function of DNA is to store all the genetic information an organism needs to develop, function and reproduce. It is essentially a biological instruction manual found in every cell. Biochemists at the University of Münster have now developed a strategy for controlling the biological functions of DNA with the aid of light. This enables researchers to better understand and control the processes that take place in the cell—for example, epigenetics, the key chemical change and regulatory lever in DNA.https://phys.org/news/2020-12-dna-functions.html
1/3/2021 4:00 PMUntil recently, scientists believed that only very massive nuclei could have excited zero-spin states of increased stability with a significantly deformed shape. Meanwhile, an international team of researchers from Romania, France, Italy, the USA and Poland showed in their latest article that such states also exist in much lighter nickel nuclei. Positive verification of the theoretical model used in these experiments allows describing the properties of nuclei unavailable in Earth laboratories.https://phys.org/news/2020-12-nuclear-deformation-mountain-landscape.html
1/3/2021 6:00 PMIf you left Earth now, travelling at the speed of light, you would get to the moon before reaching the end of this sentence. Getting to the sun itself would take 8 minutes at this speed. The furthest tendrils of human activity, Voyagers 1 and 2, which launched in 1977 and are only now reaching the outer edge of the solar system, would be overtaken by this time tomorrow. But getting to Proxima Centauri, our solar system’s nearest star, would take four years and three months.https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24232250-300-prepare-to-jump-to-light-speed-inside-the-mission-to-go-interstellar/
1/4/2021 8:00 AMA well-preserved Ice Age woolly rhino with many of its internal organs still intact has been recovered from permafrost in Russia’s extreme north.https://phys.org/news/2020-12-well-preserved-ice-age-woolly-rhino.html
1/4/2021 10:00 AMT 10
1/4/2021 12:00 PMThroughout human history, scientists have struggled to understand what they see in the night sky. Famous astronomers — many of them great scientists who mastered many fields — explained the heavens with varying degrees of accuracy. Over the centuries, a geocentric view of the universe — with Earth at the center of everything — gave way to the proper understanding we have today of an expanding universe in which our galaxy is but one of billions. On this list are some of the most famous scientists from the early days of astronomy through the modern era, and a summary of some of their achievements.https://www.space.com/16095-famous-astronomers.html
1/4/2021 2:00 PMThe search for habitable exoplanets spans far and wide, pushing the limits of what our modern telescopes are capable of. But rest assured that we aren’t ignoring what’s in our own backyard. Researchers have kept diligent eyes on Alpha Centauri, the closest system to Earth that happens to house Sun-like stars. And now, a comprehensive study published in Research Notes of the AAS clears Alpha Centauri’s two brightest stars of a crucial habitability factor: dangerous X-ray radiation.https://astronomy.com/news/2018/06/alpha-centauri-system-could-have-favorable-conditions-for-life
1/4/2021 4:00 PMCosmic rays constantly bombard the upper atmosphere, and they might help astronomers understand the universe’s most powerful events. But, despite a century of investigation, much mystery still surrounds them.https://astronomy.com/news/2020/10/high-energy-cosmic-rays-solving-a-century-old-mystery
1/4/2021 6:00 PMDiamond is the hardest material in nature. But out of many expectations, it also has great potential as an excellent electronic material. A joint research team led by City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has demonstrated for the first time the large, uniform tensile elastic straining of microfabricated diamond arrays through the nanomechanical approach. Their findings have shown the potential of strained diamonds as prime candidates for advanced functional devices in microelectronics, photonics, and quantum information technologies.https://phys.org/news/2020-12-diamond-next-generation-microelectronics.html
1/5/2021 8:00 AMA desalination membrane acts as a filter for salty water: push the water through the membrane, get clean water suitable for agriculture, energy production and even drinking. The process seems simple enough, but it contains complex intricacies that have baffled scientists for decades—until now.https://phys.org/news/2020-12-nanoscale-membranes-key.html
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1/5/2021 12:00 PMChemists at Scripps Research have made a discovery that supports a surprising new view of how life originated on our planet. In a study published in the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie, they demonstrated that a simple compound called diamidophosphate (DAP), which was plausibly present on Earth before life arose, could have chemically knitted together tiny DNA building blocks called deoxynucleosides into strands of primordial DNA.https://phys.org/news/2020-12-discovery-boosts-theory-life-earth.html
1/5/2021 2:00 PMIn one of the most complex cosmic dances astronomers have yet spotted, three rings of gas and dust circle a trio of stars. The star system GW Orionis, located about 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Orion, includes a pair of young stars locked in a close do-si-do with a third star making loops around both. Around all three stars is a broken-apart disk of dust and gas where planets could one day form. Unlike the flat disk that gave rise to the planets in our solar system, GW Orionis’ disk consists of three loops, with a warped middle ring and an inner ring even more twisted at a jaunty angle to the other two.https://www.sciencenews.org/article/weird-warped-planet-forming-disk-orbits-three-stars
1/5/2021 4:00 PMhttps://www.thevintagenews.com/2020/11/12/arizona/
1/5/2021 6:00 PMA research team, led by astronomers from National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), has discovered 591 high velocity stars based on data from the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) and Gaia, and 43 of them can even escape from the Galaxy.https://phys.org/news/2020-12-chinese-astronomers-high-velocity-stars-lamost.html
1/6/2021 8:00 AMIn seafloor trenches around the world, slabs of old ocean crust fall in slow motion into the mantle, while fresh slabs are built at midocean ridges, where magma emerges at the seams between separating tectonic plates. The engine is relentless—but maybe not so steady: Beginning about 15 million years ago, in the late Miocene epoch, ocean crust production declined by one-third over 10 million years to a slow pace that pretty much continues to today, says Colleen Dalton, a geophysicist at Brown University who presented the work this month at a virtual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. “It’s a global phenomenon.”https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/12/slowdown-plate-tectonics-may-have-led-earth-s-ice-sheets
1/6/2021 10:00 AMT 10
1/6/2021 12:00 PMScientists may have just uncovered a new secret to extending the human lifespan: making sure there’s the right amount of iron in our blood.https://futurism.com/the-byte/blood-iron-correlated-long-lifespan
1/6/2021 2:00 PM813 years of annual river discharge at 62 stations, 41 rivers in 16 countries, from 1200 to 2012. That is what researchers at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) produced after two years of research in order to better understand past climate patterns of the Asian Monsoon region.https://phys.org/news/2020-12-largest-asia-rivers-unearths-years.html
1/6/2021 4:00 PMRecently, researchers from the Optical Remote Sensing Center of the Anhui Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (AIOFM), Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) have successfully improved the accuracy of directional polarimetric camera (DPC) laboratory polarization calibration via new methods.https://phys.org/news/2020-12-scientists-accuracy-polarimetric-camera.html
1/6/2021 6:00 PMFormer NASA astronaut Jose Hernandez spent most of his youth working the fields. As a young boy, Hernandez picked fruits and vegetables alongside his family. Jose couldn’t speak English until he was 12 years old, but STEM subjects spoke to him, “I gravitated towards math because 1 + 3 is 4 in any language.”https://abc30.com/9263483/
1/7/2021 8:00 AMPaleontologists have just uncovered the remarkably pristine cranium of an ancient bird along with three partial skulls. These remains combine modern and primitive features in surprising ways to capture a fascinating moment in avian evolution.https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/unprecedented-fossil-provides-new-understanding-of-bird-evolution/
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1/7/2021 12:00 PMFor the first time, doctors have attempted to cure blindness by gene-hacking a patient with CRISPR technology. A team from Oregon Health & Science Institute injected three droplets of fluid that delivered the CRISPR DNA fragments directly into a patient’s eyeball, in hopes that it will reverse a rare genetic condition called Leber congenital amaurosis, which causes blindness early in childhood.https://futurism.com/neoscope/scientists-attempt-cure-blindness-crispr
1/7/2021 2:00 PMRome is renowned for its landmarks, from the grand Colosseum to the palatial Pantheon. But these famed attractions aren’t all that the city has to offer: Just north of Castel Sant’Angelo, along the River Tiber, visitors will find the remains of a lesser-known, but still significant, monument: the Mausoleum of Augustus, the final resting place of the first Roman emperor and the largest circular tomb in the world.https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mausoleum-romes-first-emperor-set-reopen-public-2021-180976645/
1/7/2021 4:00 PMChalk up yet another win for Einstein. A twist in the fabric of spacetime — predicted by the physicist’s theory of general relativity (SN: 10/7/15) — is causing the orbit of one stellar corpse to teeter around another stellar corpse, researchers report. And the relativistic corkscrew is helping astronomers reconstruct the final days of these two long-dead stars.https://www.sciencenews.org/article/wobbling-orbit-pulsar-proves-einstein-right-again-relativity
1/7/2021 6:00 PMEven tough male chimps need their moms. Chimpanzees live in a male-dominated society, where most of their valuable allies are other males. However, as young male chimpanzees become adults, they continue to maintain tight bonds with their mothers, a new study reveals. And for about one-third of them, this mother-son relationship is the closest one they have.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/12/even-young-adults-male-chimps-are-mama-s-boys
1/8/2021 8:00 AMhttps://astronomy.com/magazine/product-reviews/2020/09/we-test-chroma-filters
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1/8/2021 12:00 PMAustralian researchers have found what is thought to be the oldest tropical reef fish ever caught. The fish in question is an 81-year-old midnight snapper caught off the coast of Western Australia.https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/researchers-catch-81-year-old-snapper-australia-180976511/
1/8/2021 2:00 PMIn space, nobody can hear you scream — or explode, or collapse, or slowly collide with a neighboring galaxy. But now, thanks to a new “data sonification” program at NASA, you can at least get a sense of what some of the most extreme phenomena in the universe might sound like when converted to sound played by Earthly instruments.https://www.space.com/nasa-data-sonification-supernova-dark-matter
1/8/2021 4:00 PMScientists have discovered the most ancient and distant “blazar,” a galaxy with a supermassive black hole that spews out mind-boggling amounts of light, at the edge of space and time. The object is roughly 13 billion light years away, but scientists were able to detect it because it is so “radio-loud,” meaning it is incredibly luminous even from afar.https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dmj4x/an-ancient-black-hole-as-heavy-as-a-billion-suns-is-pointed-right-at-us
1/8/2021 6:00 PMA tiny nanoparticle has been chilled to the max. Physicists cooled a nanoparticle to the lowest temperature allowed by quantum mechanics. The particle’s motion reached what’s known as the ground state, or lowest possible energy level.https://www.sciencenews.org/article/scientists-cooled-nanoparticle-quantum-limit-ground-state
1/9/2021 8:00 AMResearchers demonstrate a new technique for suppressing back reflections of light—better signal quality for sensing and information technology. Microresonators are small glass structures in which light can circulate and build up in intensity. Due to material imperfections, some amount of light is reflected backwards, which is disturbing their function.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-trapping-light-without-back-reflections.html
1/9/2021 10:00 AMT 10
1/9/2021 12:00 PMThe China National Space Administration’s Chang’e-5 mission, set to return Moon rocks to Earth next week, has grabbed headlines around the world. But China’s other space agency, the science-focused National Space Science Center (NSSC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), is making news of its own: It launched its Gravitational Wave High-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/12/china-launches-gamma-ray-hunting-satellites-trace-sources-gravitational-waves
1/9/2021 2:00 PMIt started as a speck of a speck, a bundle of nerves and immature tissues curled up inside an egg, bunched up against its siblings. The small clutch of embryonic water bears was immobile, silent, unseeing and possibly unfeeling. Locked away inside their mother’s ovaries, they waited to be born.https://www.space.com/39053-baby-tardigrade-development.html
1/9/2021 4:00 PMUsing a new combination of emitter molecules, researchers in Japan have demonstrated the promise of a novel approach to overcome a major challenge facing displays using organic light-emitting diodes: a blue light source matching the excellent performance of red and green ones.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-approach-bottleneck-blue-emission-oleds.html
1/9/2021 6:00 PMDeforestation dropped by 18 percent in two years in African countries where organizations subscribed to receive warnings from a new service using satellites to detect decreases in forest cover in the tropics.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-subscriptions-satellite-linked-decreased-deforestation.html
1/10/2021 8:00 AMFrom an observatory high above Chile’s Atacama Desert, astronomers have taken a new look at the oldest light in the universe. Their observations, plus a bit of cosmic geometry, suggest that the universe is 13.77 billion years old—give or take 40 million years. A Cornell University researcher co-authored one of two papers about the findings, which add a fresh twist to an ongoing debate in the astrophysics community.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-astronomers-universe-billion-years.html
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1/10/2021 12:00 PMOne of the most unusual speculations in the realm of science and tech is that the universe itself isn’t real. But the idea is almost certainly nonsense, according to mathematician Jonathan Bartlett, director of a STEM research non-profit called The Blythe Institute. Simulation theory, he argues, relies on faulty logic — meaning it’s more likely that we are in fact living in reality.https://futurism.com/the-byte/mathematician-why-simulation-theory-stupid
1/10/2021 2:00 PMIn 1995, Katalin Karikó was at her lowest ebb. A biochemist at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), Karikó had dedicated much of the previous two decades to finding a way to turn one of the most fundamental building blocks of life, mRNA, into a whole new category of therapeutics.https://www.wired.co.uk/article/mrna-coronavirus-vaccine-pfizer-biontech
1/10/2021 4:00 PMPolarons are fleeting distortions in a material’s atomic lattice that form around a moving electron in a few trillionths of a second, then quickly disappear. As ephemeral as they are, they affect a material’s behavior, and may even be the reason that solar cells made with lead hybrid perovskites achieve extraordinarily high efficiencies in the lab.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-glimpse-polarons-next-gen-energy-material.html
1/10/2021 6:00 PMIf you’re feeling lonely, take solace in remembering that there are countless tiny living things floating tens of thousands of feet above your head.https://www.space.com/earths-atmosphere-and-potential-for-life-on-venus
1/11/2021 8:00 AMAstronomers think they might be able to detect black holes falling into wormholes using ripples in spacetime known as gravitational waves, but only if wormholes actually exist and such a scenario ever happened, a new study finds.https://www.space.com/black-holes-fall-into-wormholes-gravitational-waves.html
1/11/2021 10:00 AMInasmuch as therapeutic options against coronavirus have been focused mainly on blocking the interaction between its spike protein and the ACE2 receptor on host cells, SARS-CoV-2 has several additional critical proteins that could potentially be targeted with drugs that have already been approved for use against other viruses. One of these viral proteins is the main protease (Mpro) that is needed to separate newly minted polypeptides into their functional component parts.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-sars-cov-tracks-blocking-main-protease.html
1/11/2021 12:00 PMAn enormous black hole keeps slipping through astronomers’ nets. Supermassive black holes are thought to lurk at the hearts of most, if not all, galaxies. Our own Milky Way has one as massive as 4 million suns, for example, and M87’s — the only black hole ever imaged directly — tips the scales at a whopping 2.4 billion solar masses.https://www.space.com/abell-2261-supermassive-black-hole-missing
1/11/2021 2:00 PMIn a new study, researchers from the B CUBE—Center for Molecular Bioengineering at TU Dresden and European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble describe, for the first time, that structural defects in self-assembling nacre attract and cancel each other out, eventually leading to a perfect periodic structure.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-scientists-mother-of-pearl-self-assembles.html
1/11/2021 4:00 PMSea ice is a critical indicator of changes in the Earth’s climate. A new discovery by Brown University researchers could provide scientists a new way to reconstruct sea ice abundance and distribution information from the ancient past, which could aid in understanding human-induced climate change happening now.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-tool-reconstructing-ancient-sea-ice.html
1/11/2021 6:00 PMWe don’t know what’s behind dark energy, the name we give to the current era of accelerated expansion in the universe. Many theorists favor some sort of quantum field as the driver of dark energy, but these ideas are hard to reconcile with insights from string theory. But new research proposes a radical solution: What if there is more than one cosmological agent for dark energy? This mixture would have strange effects in our universe, making it potentially detectable with upcoming surveys.https://www.space.com/multiple-dark-energies-universe-string-theory
1/12/2021 8:00 AMThe next generation of genetic medicine may be inspired by a bizarre genetic trick that a small squid species uses to edit its own genome on the fly. The longfin inshore squid can edit the RNA inside its nerve cells, Wired reports, meaning that it can drastically alter the behavior of its biological machinery as needed — perhaps to help the animal rapidly adapt to new environments. It’s a bizarre discovery, and one that could potentially lead to better genetic treatments for humans.https://futurism.com/the-byte/squid-edit-own-genetic-code
1/12/2021 10:00 AMOn Hawaii’s Big Island, Kilauea volcano erupted Dec. 20 for the first time in more than two years. Lava spewed from a fissure in the northwest wall of Halemaʻumaʻu crater and cascaded into the deepest part of the crater, boiling away a water lake. There’s now a growing lava lake, nearly 600 feet deep.https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2020/12/31/951512509/hawaiis-kilauea-volcano-eruption-creates-600-foot-deep-lava-lake
1/12/2021 12:00 PMPhosphorous, calcium and charcoal in spotty patches of fertile soil in the Amazon rainforest suggest that natural processes such as fires and river flooding, not the ingenuity of indigenous populations, created rare sites suitable for agriculture, according to new research.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-settlement-amazon-rare-patches-fertility.html
1/12/2021 2:00 PMInsofar as variants for mitochondrial disease are supposed to be rare in the genome, don’t think for even a minute that it can’t happen to you. In fact, the closer one looks at the full mitonuclear genomes of normal folks, the more one realizes that no one is actually normal—we are all, shall we say, temporarily asymptomatic.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-full-mitochondrial-ultimate-anticancer-biohack.html
1/12/2021 4:00 PMBeginning in the 1990s, astronomers noticed a disturbing lack of red giant stars in the Milky Way’s center. Theories abounded to explain the absence, and now a new theory proposes something truly frightening: a massive jet launched from our galaxy’s supermassive black hole destroyed any red giants that wandered into its path.https://www.space.com/milky-way-supermassive-black-hole-kill-red-giants
1/12/2021 6:00 PMIn a joint collaboration, Danish and German researchers have characterized a cellular activity that protects our cells from potentially toxic by-products of gene expression. This activity is central for the ability of multicellular organisms to uphold a robust evolutionary ‘reservoir’ of gene products.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-guardian-human-transcriptome.html
1/13/2021 8:00 AMThe supermassive black hole hiding in the center of our galaxy is much closer to Earth, about 2,000 light-years closer, than scientists thought, according to new research out of Japan. Not only that but our solar system is moving faster than thought as it orbits this galactic center.https://www.space.com/milky-way-black-hole-closer-to-earth
1/13/2021 10:00 AMDiscovery of liquid glass sheds light on the old scientific problem of the glass transition: An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Konstanz has uncovered a new state of matter, liquid glass, with previously unknown structural elements—new insights into the nature of glass and its transitions.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-state-liquid-glass.html
1/13/2021 12:00 PMA new study led by researchers at the Universities of Bristol, Exeter, and Bath helps to shed light on the winter weather we may soon have in store following a dramatic meteorological event currently unfolding high above the North Pole.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-imminent-sudden-stratospheric-weeks.html
1/13/2021 2:00 PMA team of researchers with members from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Colorado State University reports that approximately a third of the rivers in the U.S. have changed color over the past 34 years. In their paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the group describes their study of thousands of satellite images taken of the U.S. and what they learned from them.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-rivers-blue-green-yellow.html
1/13/2021 4:00 PMPreserving the historic sites where humans first landed on the moon is now not only a good idea, it is also the law. The United States has enacted its first legislation that requires American companies and other entities working with NASA on new missions to the moon to avoid disturbing the U.S. hardware that was left there 50 years ago.https://www.space.com/one-small-step-space-heritage-act.html
1/13/2021 6:00 PMWorldwide, marine megafauna are at risk of extinction due to climate change, habitat loss, pollution, overhunting, population fragmentation, and hybridization with related species in areas disturbed by humans. Genetic studies can help determine the conservation status of marine animals, identifying threats to species conservation and informing interventions and policies, such as the protection of diversity hotspots or corridors for gene flow.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-genetic-diversity-manatee-species-south.html
1/14/2021 8:00 AMA team of researchers claim to have achieved quantum teleportation using individual electrons. Quantum teleportation, or quantum entanglement, allows particles to affect each other even if they aren’t physically connected — a phenomenon predicted by famed physicist Albert Einstein.https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-demonstrate-quantum-teleportation-using-electrons
1/14/2021 10:00 AMIt is estimated that the majority of pregnancies that fail do so within the first seven days after fertilization, before the embryo implants into the uterus. In this time period, a complicated cascade of events occurs with precise timing. One particularly important process is called polarization, when the individual cells that make up the embryo become asymmetrical. Polarization occurs at 2.5 days for mouse embryos and 3.5 days for human embryos.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-embryo.html
1/14/2021 12:00 PMA new class of protein material that interacts with living cells without being absorbed by them can influence cell signaling, a new study shows. The material does this by binding and sequestering cell surface receptors. The discovery could have far-reaching implications for stem cell research and enable the development of new materials designed to modulate the behavior of living systems.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-proteins-honeycomb-block-uptake-receptors.html
1/14/2021 2:00 PMScientists at the University of California, Irvine have developed a new deep-learning framework that predicts gene regulation at the single-cell level. Deep learning, a family of machine-learning methods based on artificial neural networks, has revolutionized applications such as image interpretation, natural language processing and autonomous driving.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-deep-gene-single-cell.html
1/14/2021 4:00 PMUltra-small integrated circuits have revolutionized mobile phones, home appliances, cars, and other everyday technologies. To further miniaturize electronics and enable advanced functions, circuits must be reliably fabricated in three dimensions. Achieving ultrafine 3-D shape control by etching into silicon is difficult, because even atomic-scale damage reduces device performance. Researchers at Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) have published a new study in Crystal Growth and Design in which they etched silicon to adopt the shape of atomically smooth pyramids. Coating these silicon pyramids with a thin layer of iron imparted magnetic properties that until now were only theoretical.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-fabricate-arrays-atomically-smooth-iron-coated.html
1/14/2021 6:00 PMStarting as a single cell, organisms undergo millions of generations of divisions to ultimately generate the bones, heart, brain and other components that make up a living being. The mainspring within this intricate process is the transfer of DNA through each subsequent cell split within discrete packets called chromosomes.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-cell-biologists-decipher-chromosome-left.html
1/15/2021 8:00 AMFor the first time, scientists have tested an experimental rocket engine that they say could change the way we launch spacecraft. The engine, called a rotating detonation rocket engine, propels itself through a continuous series of powerful explosions, according to a University of Central Florida press release. Based on what the researchers found, they say it could make rockets both lighter and more environmentally-friendly.https://futurism.com/the-byte/rocket-engine-powered-spiraling-explosions
1/15/2021 10:00 AMKnown from just a single location, a new species of mineral has been described from the UK. A sample of rock that was collected from a mine in Cornwall some 220 years ago has turned out to be an entirely new species of mineral. While most new minerals are so small that their colour isn’t easy to appreciate, this latest addition forms large emerald-green crystals.http://www.geologyin.com/2020/12/kernowite-new-green-mineral-discovered.html
1/15/2021 12:00 PMChinese scientists have established the world’s first integrated quantum communication network, combining over 700 optical fibers on the ground with two ground-to-satellite links to achieve quantum key distribution over a total distance of 4,600 kilometers for users across the country. The team, led by Jianwei Pan, Yuao Chen, Chengzhi Peng from the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, reported in Nature their latest advances towards the global, practical application of such a network for future communications.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-world-quantum-network.html
1/15/2021 2:00 PMOften considered the world’s oddest mammal, Australia’s beaver-like, duck-billed platypus exhibits an array of bizarre characteristics: it lays eggs instead of giving birth to live babies, sweats milk, has venomous spurs and is even equipped with 10 sex chromosomes. Now, an international team of researchers led by University of Copenhagen has conducted a unique mapping of the platypus genome and found answers regarding the origins of a few of its stranger features.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-earth-oddest-mammal-bizarre.html
1/15/2021 4:00 PMUsing copper foil, glass containers and a conventional household microwave oven, University of Wyoming researchers have demonstrated that pulverized coal powder can be converted into higher-value nano-graphite.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-coal-powder-graphite-microwave-oven.html
1/15/2021 6:00 PMStep into your new, microscopic time machine. Scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder have discovered that a type of single-celled organism living in modern-day oceans may have a lot in common with life forms that existed billions of years ago—and that fundamentally transformed the planet.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-modern-microbes-window-ancient-ocean.html
1/16/2021 8:00 AMAntiferromagnetism is a type of magnetism in which parallel but opposing spins occur spontaneously within a material. Antiferromagnets, materials that exhibit antiferromagnetism, have advantageous characteristics that make them particularly promising for fabricating spintronic devices.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-quenching-antiferromagnet-high-resistivity-states.html
1/16/2021 10:00 AMThey are as thin as a hair, only a hundred thousand times thinner—so-called two-dimensional materials, consisting of a single layer of atoms, have been booming in research for years. They became known to a wider audience when two Russian-British scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 for the discovery of graphene, a building block of graphite. The special feature of such materials is that they possess novel properties that can only be explained with the help of the laws of quantum mechanics and that may be relevant for enhanced technologies. Researchers at the University of Bonn (Germany) have now used ultracold atoms to gain new insights into previously unknown quantum phenomena. They found out that the magnetic orders between two coupled thin films of atoms compete with each other.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-physicists-competition-magnetic.html
1/16/2021 12:00 PMSupersymmetry is the idea that the fundamental particles of nature are connected through a deep relationship. This theory predicts the existence of brand-new particles in the world’s largest collider experiments. But according to a recent report, there have been no signs of supersymmetry, and the theory is looking a little shaky.https://www.space.com/no-signs-supersymmetry-large-hadron-collider
1/16/2021 2:00 PMResearchers at the University of Chicago have created the first usable computational model of the entire virus responsible for COVID-19—and they are making this model widely available to help advance research during the pandemic.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-scientists-entire-virus-responsible-covid-.html
1/16/2021 4:00 PMAbout 87 million miles (140 million kilometers) above the Grand Canyon, an even larger, grander abyss cuts through the gut of the Red Planet. Known as Valles Marineris, this system of deep, vast canyons runs more than 2,500 miles (4,000 km) along the Martian equator, spanning nearly a quarter of the planet’s circumference. This gash in the bedrock of Mars is nearly 10 times as long as Earth’s Grand Canyon and three times deeper, making it the single largest canyon in the solar system — and, according to ongoing research from the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson, one of the most mysterious.https://www.space.com/mars-deepest-canyon-in-solar-system
1/16/2021 6:00 PMThe nucleus of a cell is well-shielded by a double membrane to protect its most sensitive possession—its DNA. Anything that enters or exits must pass through the nuclear pores, cylindrical structures made of hundreds of proteins. Scientists have made great advances in figuring out the architecture of the pore by reconstructing each of its parts in the lab. But they have struggled to understand how those parts work together—whether the pore is a passive drain or a dynamic, flexible structure.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-scientists-capture-portal-cell-nucleus.html
1/17/2021 8:00 AMScientists around the world have noted that the Earth has been spinning on its axis faster lately—the fastest ever recorded. Several scientists have spoken to the press about the unusual phenomenon, with some pointing out that this past year saw some of the shortest days ever recorded.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-earth-faster.html
1/17/2021 10:00 AMNASA’s InSight lander, which is currently on the surface of Mars, has faced some unexpected problems during its mission to explore and study the planet. Namely, a digging probe that was built to burrow beneath the surface like a jackhammer got stuck because Mars’ soil is clumpier than scientists expected.https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-mars-lander-hit-itself-shovel
1/17/2021 12:00 PMPhotos from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope show the stunning Stingray nebula fading at an unprecedented rate. The Stingray nebula, formally known as Hen 3-1357, is the youngest known planetary nebula in our sky. However, Hubble images taken 20 years apart show a dramatic change in the nebula’s shape and brightness: Its once robust, bright blue clouds of interstellar dust and gas have nearly disappeared, according to a statement from NASA.https://www.space.com/stingray-nebula-fading-fast-hubble-photos
1/17/2021 2:00 PMWhen the 60-year-old Arecibo Observatory collapsed in 2020, the crash didn’t just take down one of the world’s preeminent radio telescopes, it also dealt a massive blow to the future of radio astronomy. Arecibo may have been old, but it also had unique capabilities that made it ideal for studying things like gravitational waves, as well as mapping the surfaces of asteroids as they slip by Earth.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/01/arecibo-is-dead-should-we-build-its-replacement-on-the-moon
1/17/2021 4:00 PMThe milestones are coming fast and furious for China’s space program. The robotic Chang’e 5 mission successfully returned pristine moon samples to Earth in mid-December, something that hadn’t been done since 1976. China’s first fully homegrown Mars mission, Tianwen-1, is scheduled to arrive at the Red Planet on Feb. 10. And shortly after that, the nation plans to begin assembling its space station in Earth orbit.https://www.space.com/china-space-station-core-module-launch-spring-2021
1/17/2021 6:00 PMNew probes allow scientists to see four-stranded DNA interacting with molecules inside living human cells, unraveling its role in cellular processes. DNA usually forms the classic double helix shape of two strands wound around each other. While DNA can form some more exotic shapes in test tubes, few are seen in real living cells.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-rare-quadruple-helix-dna-human-cells.html
1/18/2021 8:00 AMCarbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere will this year reach levels 50 percent higher than before the industrial revolution because of manmade emissions, Britain’s Met Office predicted.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-co2-year-percent-higher-18th.html
1/18/2021 10:00 AMFrom an observatory high above Chile’s Atacama Desert, astronomers have taken a new look at the oldest light in the universe. Their observations, plus a bit of cosmic geometry, suggest that the universe is 13.77 billion years old—give or take 40 million years. A Cornell University researcher co-authored one of two papers about the findings, which add a fresh twist to an ongoing debate in the astrophysics community.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-astronomers-universe-billion-years.html
1/18/2021 12:00 PMA new study shows that the gigantic Megalodon or megatooth shark, which lived nearly worldwide roughly 15-3.6 million years ago and reached at least 50 feet (15 meters) in length, gave birth to babies larger than most adult humans.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-megalodons-gave-birth-large-newborns.html
1/18/2021 2:00 PMTo date, planetary scientists have built spacecraft and astrophysicists have built space telescopes. But the time has come to change that, some solar system researchers say.https://www.space.com/solar-system-science-dedicated-telescope
1/18/2021 4:00 PMThe gut plays a central role in the regulation of the body’s metabolism and its dysfunction is associated with a variety of diseases such as obesity, diabetes, colitis and colorectal cancer that affect millions of people worldwide. Targeting endocrine dysfunction at an early stage by stimulating the formation of specific enteroendocrine cells from intestinal stem cells could be a promising regenerative approach for diabetes therapy. For this, however, a detailed understanding of the intestinal stem cell lineage hierarchy and the signals regulating the recruitment of the different intestinal cell types is critical.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-uncovering-basic-mechanisms-intestinal-stem.html
1/18/2021 6:00 PMAstronomers have looked nine billion years into the past to find evidence that galaxy mergers in the early universe could shut down star formation and affect galaxy growth.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-galaxy-mergers-limit-star-formation.html
1/19/2021 8:00 AMEngineers at MIT and Imperial College London have developed a new way to generate tough, functional materials using a mixture of bacteria and yeast similar to the “kombucha mother” used to ferment tea.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-kombucha-tea-materials.html
1/19/2021 10:00 AMThe Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter has discovered an FM radio signal coming from the moon Ganymede. The find is a first-time detection from the moon. “It’s not E.T.,” said Patrick Wiggins, one of NASA’s Ambassadors to Utah. “It’s more of a natural function.”https://wgntv.com/news/space-discovery-fm-radio-signal-found-coming-from-jupiter-moon/
1/19/2021 12:00 PMThe brown tree snake is an ecological menace on the island of Guam, where it has gobbled up nearly all the native birds since its accidental introduction more than 70 years ago. To save the U.S. territory’s remaining birds, researchers placed nests on top of smooth poles they were sure no snake could climb. But they were in for a nasty surprise: In 2016, video captured the snakes climbing the cylinders, with a never-before-seen lassolike gripping technique.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/guam-s-invasive-tree-snakes-loop-themselves-lassos-reach-their-feathered-prey
1/19/2021 2:00 PMNeutrinos spit out by the main processes that power the sun are finally accounted for, physicists report.https://www.sciencenews.org/article/neutrinos-sun-core-nuclear-fusion-reactions-borexino
1/19/2021 4:00 PMStimuli-responsive, self-folding, two-dimensional (2-D) layered materials have interesting functions for flexible electronics, wearables, biosensors, and photonics applications. However, limits with scalability and a lack of design tools can prevent high integration and their reliable function. In a new report, Qi Huang, and a team of scientists in chemical and biomolecular engineering and electrical and computer engineering at Johns Hopkins University, U.S., proposed a mass-production strategy to create monolayer graphene-based reversible self-folding structures.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-selffolding-d-photosensitive-graphene-architectures.html
1/19/2021 6:00 PMThe large mollusk known as the California mussel makes its home in the rocky shoreline along the Pacific Coast from Mexico to Alaska. Considered a “foundational” animal, Mytilus californianus provides homes for hundreds of other species and offers a rich food source for species ranging from spiny lobsters to humans.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-ocean-acidification-california-mussel-shells.html
1/20/2021 8:00 AMA team led by University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers has discovered a groundbreaking one-step process for creating materials with unique properties, called metamaterials. Their results show the realistic possibility of designing similar self-assembled structures with the potential of creating “built-to-order” nanostructures for wide application in electronics and optical devices.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-one-step-self-assembled-metamaterials.html
1/20/2021 10:00 AMA sweet new process is making sour more practical. Rice University engineers are turning carbon monoxide directly into acetic acid—the widely used chemical agent that gives vinegar its tang—with a continuous catalytic reactor that can use renewable electricity efficiently to turn out a highly purified product.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-reactor-gas-acetic-acid.html
1/20/2021 12:00 PMBiotechnologists at Delft University of Technology have built an artificial chromosome in yeast. The chromosome can exist alongside natural yeast chromosomes, and serves as a platform to safely and easily add new functions to the micro-organism. Researchers can use the artificial chromosome to convert yeast cells into living factories capable of producing useful chemicals and even medicines.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-artificial-chromosome.html
1/20/2021 2:00 PMWhen Michigan State University’s Gemma Reguera first proposed her new research project to the National Science Foundation, one grant reviewer responded that the idea was not “environmentally relevant.”https://phys.org/news/2021-01-iron-bacteria-environment.html
1/20/2021 4:00 PMIt is well known that the expansion of the universe is accelerating due to a mysterious dark energy. Within galaxies, stars also experience an acceleration, though this is due to some combination of dark matter and the stellar density. In a new study researchers have now obtained the first direct measurement of the average acceleration taking place within our home galaxy, the Milky Way.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-pulsar-reveal-milky-dark-side.html
1/20/2021 6:00 PMNASA has announced that it will extend the missions for two of its interplanetary explorers launching during the last decade—the Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter and the InSight lander on the surface of Mars. The Juno extension means the spacecraft will now operate in the Jovian system through 2025. This will effectively transform the spacecraft from a mission to study Jupiter into a full-fledged Jovian system explorer, complete with close flybys of several of Jupiter’s moons as well as its system of rings.https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/01/nasa-extends-missions-to-jupiter-and-mars-expect-lots-of-jovian-moon-flybys/
1/21/2021 8:00 AMA newfound exoplanet is a real blast from the past. Astronomers just confirmed the existence of KOI-5Ab, which was first flagged as a potential planet by NASA’s pioneering Kepler space telescope way back in 2009.https://www.space.com/kepler-space-telescope-2nd-exoplanet-candidate-confirmed
1/21/2021 10:00 AMA new “transforming” rover in development at NASA will be able to explore rough terrain unlike any rover before it.https://www.space.com/nasa-transforming-rover-planetary-exploration
1/21/2021 12:00 PMFrom health concerns to funding, there’s no shortage of obstacles preventing humans from traveling beyond our solar system. But the main obstacle is propulsion: Our spacecraft are simply too slow and too reliant on fuel to realistically make a voyage to Alpha Centauri, the closest star to our Sun. So, what do we need? Something like a reactionless drive — an engine that moves a spacecraft without exhausting a finite stock of propellant. So far, such a device only exists in science fiction. But for the past few decades, physicist Jim Woodward has been trying to change that.https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/mach-effect-thruster
1/21/2021 2:00 PMA major risk of being hospitalised is catching a bacterial infection. Hospitals, especially areas including intensive care units and surgical wards, are teeming with bacteria, some of which are resistant to antibiotics—they are infamously known as ‘superbugs’.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-scientists-phages-world-superbug-acinetobacter.html
1/21/2021 4:00 PMA team of astronomers led by the University of Arizona has observed a luminous quasar 13.03 billion light-years from Earth—the most distant quasar discovered to date. Dating back to 670 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was only 5% its current age, the quasar hosts a supermassive black hole equivalent to the combined mass of 1.6 billion suns.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-distant-quasar-black-holes.html
1/21/2021 6:00 PMResearchers in the Oregon State University College of Engineering have developed a battery anode based on a new nanostructured alloy that could revolutionize the way energy storage devices are designed and manufactured.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-nanostructured-alloy-anode-big-revolutionizing.html
1/22/2021 8:00 AMWhile many research teams worldwide are trying to develop highly performing quantum computers, some are working on tools to control the flow of heat inside of them. Just like conventional computers, in fact, quantum computers can heat up significantly as they are operating, which can ultimately damage both the devices and their surroundings.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-single-quantum-dot-valve.html
1/22/2021 10:00 AMScientists have used gene-editing advances to achieve a tenfold increase in the production of super-bug targeting formicamycin antibiotics. The John Innes Centre researchers used the technology to create a new strain of Streptomyces formicae bacteria which over-produces the medically promising molecules.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-gene-editing-tenfold-superbug-antibiotics.html
1/22/2021 12:00 PMResearchers have found a simple way to eliminate almost all sequencing errors produced by a widely used portable DNA sequencer, potentially enabling scientists working outside the lab to study and track microorganisms like the SARS-CoV-2 virus more efficiently.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-method-pocket-sized-dna-sequencer-near-perfect.html
1/22/2021 2:00 PMA pioneering study by University of Bristol researchers finds that the evolution of teeth in the giant prehistoric shark Megalodon and its relatives was a by-product of becoming huge, rather than an adaptation to new feeding habits.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-reveals-teeth-functioned-evolved-giant.html
1/22/2021 4:00 PMResearchers at Columbia Engineering report today that they have developed the first nanomaterial that demonstrates “photon avalanching,” a process that is unrivaled in its combination of extreme nonlinear optical behavior and efficiency. The realization of photon avalanching in nanoparticle form opens up a host of sought-after applications, from real-time super-resolution optical microscopy, precise temperature and environmental sensing, and infrared light detection, to optical analog-to-digital conversion and quantum sensing.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-avalanches-nanoparticles.html
1/22/2021 6:00 PMOne of the oldest stars in the Milky Way galaxy hosts an unusually hot, rocky “super-Earth” planet, a new study reports. Known as TOI-561b, this exoplanet is about 50% larger and three times more massive than Earth, researchers said. It whips around its host star in a very close orbit, taking less than 12 hours to complete one lap.https://www.space.com/super-earth-exoplanet-old-star-milky-way
1/23/2021 8:00 AMEarth’s ability to absorb nearly a third of human-caused carbon emissions through plants could be halved within the next two decades at the current rate of warming, according to a new study, researchers at Northern Arizona University, the Woodwell Climate Research Center and the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Using more than two decades of data from measurement towers in every major biome across the globe, the team identified a critical temperature tipping point beyond which plants’ ability to capture and store atmospheric carbon—a cumulative effect referred to as the “land carbon sink”—decreases as temperatures continue to rise.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-earth-temperature-years.html
1/23/2021 10:00 AMWormholes, or theoretical bridges connecting distant points in spacetime, are quickly being plucked from the realm of science fiction and brought into scientific reality.https://futurism.com/the-byte/astrophysicist-travel-through-wormholes
1/23/2021 12:00 PMWorking with theorists in the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, researchers in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have achieved a scientific control that is a first of its kind. They demonstrated a novel approach that allows real-time control of the interactions between microwave photons and magnons, potentially leading to advances in electronic devices and quantum signal processing.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-pivotal-discovery-quantum-classical.html
1/23/2021 2:00 PMSpacebit’s creepy-crawly robots could soon help explore the mysterious caves and lava tubes on the moon, according to the company’s CEO. And the first test mission is expected to fly in 2021.https://www.space.com/spacebit-spider-robots-launching-to-moon-2021.html
1/23/2021 4:00 PMResearchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania have identified ionizable lipid nanoparticles that could be used to deliver mRNA as part of fetal therapy. The proof-of-concept study, published today in Science Advances, engineered and screened a number of lipid nanoparticle formulations for targeting mouse fetal organs and has laid the groundwork for testing potential therapies to treat genetic diseases before birth.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-nanoparticles-therapeutic-mrna-birth.html
1/23/2021 6:00 PMA prehistoric artist’s realistic portrayal of a wild pig, warts and all, might just be the oldest known example of a painting that depicts the animal world.https://www.smithsonianmag.com/articles/45000-year-old-pig-painting-indonesia-may-be-oldest-known-animal-art-180976748/
1/24/2021 8:00 AMScientists claim to have found the ‘missing link’ in the process that leads to an ice age on Earth. Melting icebergs in the Antarctic are the key, say the team from Cardiff University, triggering a series of chain reactions that plunges Earth into a prolonged period of cold temperatures.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-icebergs-key-sequence-ice-age.html
1/24/2021 10:00 AMA team of researchers led by engineers at Tufts University’s School of Engineering and Stanford University’s Program on Water, Health and Development have developed a novel and inexpensive chlorine dispensing device that can improve the safety of drinking water in regions of the world that lack financial resources and adequate infrastructure. With no moving parts, no need for electricity, and little need for maintenance, the device releases measured quantities of chlorine into the water just before it exits the tap. It provides a quick and easy way to eliminate water-borne pathogens and reduce the spread of high mortality diseases such as cholera, typhoid fever and diarrhea.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-chlorine-device-safety-low-resource-regions.html
1/24/2021 12:00 PMWhat’s fueling the massive ejection of gas and dust out of the Cigar galaxy, otherwise known as Messier 82? We know that thousands of stars bursting into existence are driving a powerful super-wind that’s blowing matter into intergalactic space. New research shows that magnetic fields are also contributing to the expulsion of material from Messier 82, a well-known example of a starburst galaxy with a distinctive, elongated shape.https://www.nasa.gov/feature/magnetic-highway-channels-material-out-of-cigar-galaxy
1/24/2021 2:00 PMAs the story goes, the Greek mathematician and tinkerer Archimedes came across an invention while traveling through ancient Egypt that would later bear his name. It was a machine consisting of a screw housed inside a hollow tube that trapped and drew water upon rotation. Now, researchers led by Stanford University physicist Benjamin Lev have developed a quantum version of Archimedes’ screw that, instead of water, hauls fragile collections of gas atoms to higher and higher energy states without collapsing.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-state-one-dimensional-quantum-gas.html
1/24/2021 4:00 PMFar-off in the Milky Way galaxy, 21,000 light-years from Earth, astronomers have spotted the fastest-spinning magnetar (and possibly youngest, too) ever seen. And that’s just the start of what makes this star strange.https://www.space.com/fastest-youngest-magnetar-discovery
1/24/2021 6:00 PMAs one wise pundit recently observed, “everybody is a virologist now.” For the many people whose interest in biology formerly began and ended with “the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell,” a second axiom can now be offered, namely, that the virus is the thief of power. In other words, what the mitochondria giveth, the virus taketh away.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-intimate-associations-sars-cov-mitochondria-angles.html
1/25/2021 8:00 AMIn 2015, scientists snagged the first detection of a gravitational wave, a ripple in the fabric of spacetime. The achievement marked the beginning of an entirely new field of astronomy and earned the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. Now, emerging research suggests that we may be on the cusp of yet another major milestone for gravitational wave astronomy: the detection of the so-called “gravitational wave background.”https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjpep5/scientists-may-have-detected-a-signal-that-could-change-astronomy-forever
1/25/2021 10:00 AMA new Northwestern University-led study is unfolding the mystery of how RNA molecules fold themselves to fit inside cells and perform specific functions. The findings could potentially break down a barrier to understanding and developing treatments for RNA-related diseases, including spinal muscular atrophy and perhaps even the novel coronavirus.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-videos-rna.html
1/25/2021 12:00 PMA team of biophysicists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Penn State College of Medicine set out to tackle the long-standing question about the nature of force generation by myosin, the molecular motor responsible for muscle contraction and many other cellular processes. The key question they addressed—one of the most controversial topics in the field—was: how does myosin convert chemical energy, in the form of ATP, into mechanical work?https://phys.org/news/2021-01-ground-molecular-motor.html
1/25/2021 2:00 PMScientists studying the body’s natural defenses against bacterial infection have identified a nutrient—taurine—that helps the gut recall prior infections and kill invading bacteria, such as Klebsiella pneumoniae (Kpn). The finding, published in the journal Cell by scientists from five institutes of the National Institutes of Health, could aid efforts seeking alternatives to antibiotics.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-scientists-nutrient-bacterial-infection.html
1/25/2021 4:00 PMWhen darkness comes, electric eels emerge from South American river bottoms to attack their prey with up to 860 volts of electricity—enough to kill a person. Now, scientists have revealed the snakelike fish don’t always go it alone: They hunt in packs, similar to wolves, orcas, and some species of tuna. The finding, a first among electric fishes, may open the way for new studies to investigate when social predation evolved among fishes.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/shocking-discovery-electric-eels-hunt-packs-amazon-rivers
1/25/2021 6:00 PMThe Milky Way houses 8,292 recently discovered stellar streams—all named Theia. But Theia 456 is special. A stellar stream is a rare linear pattern—rather than a cluster—of stars. After combining multiple datasets captured by the Gaia space telescope, a team of astrophysicists found that all of Theia 456’s 468 stars were born at the same time and are traveling in the same direction across the sky.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-theia-stars-born.html
1/26/2021 8:00 AMSo there you are, about to leap into a black hole. What could possibly await should — against all odds — you somehow survive? Where would you end up and what tantalising tales would you be able to regale if you managed to clamber your way back?https://www.space.com/where-do-black-holes-lead.html
1/26/2021 10:00 AMPut a particle in a box. According to classical physics (and common sense), that particle should stay in that box forever. But under quantum mechanics, that particle can simply be outside the box the next time you look. In classical thinking, you can measure the momentum and position of something to an arbitrary degree of precision. Not so in the quantum world — the more you know about one, the less you know about the other. Is something a wave or a particle? According to the classical viewpoint, you can pick one and only one. But ask your friendly neighborhood quantum mechanic, and they’ll tell you something can be both.https://www.space.com/do-we-live-in-quantum-world.html
1/26/2021 12:00 PMScientists have figured out a way to create and cancel magnetic fields from afar. The method involves running electric current through a special arrangement of wires to create a magnetic field that looks as if it came from another source. This illusion has real applications: Imagine a cancer drug that could be delivered directly to a tumor deep in the body by capsules made of magnetic nanoparticles. It’s not possible to stick a magnet in the tumor to guide the nanoparticles on their journey, but if you could create a magnetic field from outside the body that centered right on that tumor, you could deliver the drug without an invasive procedure.https://www.space.com/magnetic-fields-created-from-afar
1/26/2021 2:00 PMA team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in China has used drones to create a prototype of a small airborne quantum network. In their paper, the researchers describe sending entangled particles from one drone to another and from a drone to the ground.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-drones-local-quantum-networks.html
1/26/2021 4:00 PMThe haze shrouding Pluto might be made up of ice crystals possessing cyanide hearts, a new study finds. Hazes, which are made of tiny motes of dust, smoke, ice and other substances, are not unique to Earth — scientists have detected hazes enveloping Mars, Venus, Saturn and Jupiter.https://www.space.com/pluto-blue-haze-organic-compounds
1/26/2021 6:00 PMSynthetic cannabidiol, better known as CBD, has been shown for the first time to kill the bacteria responsible for gonorrhea, meningitis and legionnaires disease. The research collaboration between The University of Queensland and Botanix Pharmaceuticals Limited could lead to the first new class of antibiotics for resistant bacteria in 60 years.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-antibiotic-potential-cannabis-molecule.html
1/27/2021 8:00 AMMcMaster researchers have developed a new form of cultivated meat using a method that promises more natural flavor and texture than other alternatives to traditional meat from animals.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-cultivated-meat.html
1/27/2021 10:00 AMAstronomers have discovered black widows and redbacks in space. While these cosmic objects don’t kill and eat their mates, the stars share their eight-legged counterparts’ violent behavior toward companions. In addition to the run-of-the-mill spider stars, the researchers also discovered a bizarre black widow-redback crossbreed. The scientists used the now-destroyed Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico to discover the weirdo stars.https://www.space.com/venemous-spider-hybrid-stars-discovered
1/27/2021 12:00 PMAn “Old Faithful”-like event in space may shed light on the nature of stars near supermassive black holes embedded in galaxies. Researchers saw repeated outbursts — every 114 days, on average — in a galaxy some 570 million light-years away from Earth. (For perspective, the nearest star system to Earth is roughly 4 light-years away.) The event, known as ASASSN-14ko, is flaring vehemently and in several wavelengths of light.https://www.space.com/old-faithful-galaxy-outbursts-114-days
1/27/2021 2:00 PMIn roughly 5 billion years, the Sun will run out of energy and drastically alter the solar system. Oceans will be baked dry. Entire planets will be consumed. And long-icy worlds will finally enjoy their day in the Sun.https://astronomy.com/news/2020/02/the-suns-death-could-mean-new-life-in-the-outer-solar-system
1/27/2021 4:00 PMEven if you weren’t a physics major, you’ve probably heard something about the Higgs boson. There was the title of a 1993 book by Nobel laureate Leon Lederman that dubbed the Higgs “The God Particle.” There was the search for the Higgs particle that launched after 2009’s first collisions inside the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. There was the 2013 announcement that Peter Higgs and Francois Englert won the Nobel Prize in Physics for independently theorizing in 1964 that a fundamental particle—the Higgs—is the source of mass in subatomic particles, making the universe as we know it possible. Now Jigang Wang, a professor of physics and astronomy at Iowa State and a senior scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory, and a team of researchers have discovered a form of the famous particle within a superconductor, a material capable of conducting electricity without resistance, generally at very cold temperatures.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-light-controlled-higgs-modes-superconductors-potential.html
1/27/2021 6:00 PMNASA’s Parker Solar Probe spacecraft kicked off the new year with another close approach to the sun on January 17th as the sun’s activity picks up from a lull when the probe launched. 2021 will mark a busy year for the spacecraft, which will conduct a total of four close approaches to the sun, plus two Venus flybys, necessary steering maneuvers that will also allow the spacecraft to collect some bonus science observations.https://www.space.com/parker-solar-probe-approach-sun-cycle-january-2021
1/28/2021 8:00 AMFor the first time, astronomers have definitively spotted a flaring magnetar in another galaxy. These ultra-magnetic stellar corpses were thought to be responsible for some of the highest-energy explosions in the nearby universe. But until this burst, no one could prove it.https://www.sciencenews.org/article/magnetar-flare-first-home-galaxy-star-fast-radio-burst
1/28/2021 10:00 AMCountries where massive natural hazard events occur frequently are not more likely than others to make changes to reduce risks from future disastershttps://phys.org/news/2021-01-natural-hazard-events-national-reduction.html
1/28/2021 12:00 PMNow more than ever, space agencies and starry-eyed billionaires have their minds fixed on finding a new home for humanity beyond Earth’s orbit. Mars is an obvious candidate, given its relatively close proximity, 24-hour day/night cycle and CO2-rich atmosphere. However, there’s a school of spacefaring thought that suggests colonizing the surface of another planet — any planet — is more trouble than it’s worth.https://www.space.com/megasatellite-colony-ceres-oneill-cylinder
1/28/2021 2:00 PMIf you look toward the constellation Andromeda on a clear night far from city lights, you can barely make out a long, fuzzy blob called the Andromeda Galaxy. The Andromeda Galaxy, or M31, is the nearest large neighbor of our Milky Way, though it sits some 2.5 million light-years away. That makes it the most distant object regularly visible with the naked eye.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/01/meet-the-milky-ways-neighbor-the-andromeda-galaxy
1/28/2021 4:00 PMhttps://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/01/21/science.abe6959
1/28/2021 6:00 PMMore than 60 years ago, astronomers realized about 10 percent of massive stars have powerful magnetic fields bursting from their surfaces. But the exact origins of these magnetic fields —which can reach hundreds to thousands of times the strength of the Sun’s — has so far remained a mystery.https://astronomy.com/news/2019/10/merging-stars-may-create-the-universes-most-powerful-magnets
1/29/2021 8:00 AMThe Milky Way is the galaxy in which the Earth resides. Part of it is visible on a clear night from Earth, as a thick band of stars stretching across the sky. We can see thousands of these stars with the naked eye, and many more in a telescope. But how many stars are in the Milky Way?https://www.space.com/25959-how-many-stars-are-in-the-milky-way.html
1/29/2021 10:00 AMDark clouds, the smell of rain on a hot sidewalk, the flashes of intense light followed by a loud crackling and then a low, rolling thunder—who doesn’t love a good summer thunderstorm? We’ve all seen one, heard one, or been completely soaked by one. But how much do we really know about this weather phenomenon?https://phys.org/news/2021-01-genesis-blue-lightning-stratosphere-iss.html
1/29/2021 12:00 PMWant to start a space colony? Even if you don’t, space agencies across the globe do. Whether it’s a moon base now, à la the Trump administration’s plans for NASA, or a Mars landing later, such a colony will need a lot of power. And given the possibility of light-obscuring dust storms on the Red Planet and the moon seeing an uneven amount of sunlight, solar panels may not cut it. But don’t worry — Los Alamos National Lab has a plan.https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/nasas-new-nuclear-reactor-could-change-space-exploration
1/29/2021 2:00 PMLake heatwaves—periods of extreme warm surface water temperature in lakes—may become hotter and longer by the end of the 21st century, according to a study, increasing the link between climate change and extreme events.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-lake-heatwaves-hotter-longer.html
1/29/2021 4:00 PMIn 1987, a giant star exploded right next to our own Milky Way galaxy. It was the brightest and closest supernova since the invention of the telescope some four centuries earlier, and just about every observatory turned to take a look. Perhaps most excitingly, specialized observatories buried deep underground captured shy subatomic particles called neutrinos streaming out of the blast.https://www.quantamagazine.org/supercomputer-simulations-reveal-the-power-inside-a-supernova-20210121/
1/29/2021 6:00 PMHot on the heels of successfully snagging hunks of space rock in October, the scientists behind NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample-return mission are contemplating sending the spacecraft to study a second asteroid in 2029, this time the infamous Apophis.https://www.space.com/osiris-rex-asteroid-probe-could-visit-apophis-2029
1/30/2021 8:00 AMLess than two days of water quality sampling at local beaches may be all that’s needed to reduce illnesses among millions of beachgoers every year due to contaminated water, according to new Stanford research. The study, published in Environmental Science & Technology, presents a modeling framework that dependably predicts water quality at beaches after only a day or two of frequent water sampling. The approach, tested in California, could be used to keep tabs on otherwise unmonitored coastal areas, which is key to protecting the well-being of beachgoers and thriving ocean economies worldwide.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-beach-quality.html
1/30/2021 10:00 AMIn June 1991, Mount Pinatubo, a volcanic peak on the Philippine Island of Luzon, literally blew its top. It was the second-most powerful volcanic eruption of the 20th century, ten times stronger than Mount Saint Helens, and its effects were devastating. Lava and ash spewed into the surrounding environment in the Zambales Mountains, pooling in layers up to 600 feet thick in the valleys. Following the eruption, powerful typhoons and monsoon rains triggered landslides and ash flows that continued for many months. Eight hundred people lost their lives, and the lush forests that covered the mountain prior to the eruption were destroyed or severely damaged. In recent years, scientists returned to the region to survey the surviving mammal populations, and in a new paper in the Philippine Journal of Science, the team announced the rediscovery of a species of mouse that had long been feared to be extinct.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-rediscovery-extinct-pinatubo-volcano-mouse.html
1/30/2021 12:00 PMMars was a very different place as a young planet. Liquid water dotted the Red Planet’s landscape with lakes and rivers. But the planet’s climate changed drastically in the past few billion years. Today, scientists see the remains of the planet’s bodies of water in dried-up river channels and salts left in its rocks.https://astronomy.com/news/2019/10/this-lake-on-mars-was-drying-up-billions-of-years-ago
1/30/2021 2:00 PMMore than 400 light-years from Earth, there is a cluster of young neutron stars that are too hot for their age. These stars, known as the “Magnificent Seven,” emit a stream of ultra-high-energy X-rays that scientists haven’t been able to explain.https://www.space.com/neutron-star-axion-particles.html
1/30/2021 4:00 PMAn astronaut wakes up in a spaceship, with no memory of how she got there. Sitting alone in a chair, she wonders: “Where in the universe am I?” The ship has no windows. Its instruments are dead. The only clue is the push of the chair against her body. Phew, there’s gravity, she thinks. Her vessel must still be on Earth.https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/how-to-understand-einsteins-theory-of-gravity
1/30/2021 6:00 PMNASA’s epic Cassini mission at Saturn is still generating valuable scientific data more than three years after its demise. Data from one of the spacecraft’s last flybys of Titan, a large moon with the precursors of life’s chemistry, reveals that a huge lake on the surface called Kraken Mare is more than 1,000 feet ( 300 meters) deep — that’s roughly the equivalent of the height of New York City’s Chrysler Building. In fact, the lake is so deep that Cassini’s radar couldn’t probe all the way to the bottom.https://www.space.com/saturn-moon-titan-sea-1000-feet-deep
1/31/2021 8:00 AMOn Earth, there is life virtually everywhere there is liquid water. As such, the hunt for extraterrestrial life has focused on so-called habitable or “Goldilocks” zones — areas around stars temperate enough for planets to possess liquid water on their surfaces.https://www.space.com/alien-plants-more-habitable-than-earth
1/31/2021 10:00 AMQuantum computers only are useful to us when we know how the states of electrons relate to each other. But getting to a state where this relationship is known – ‘quantum coherence’ – is extremely difficult and costly. That may soon change thanks to a new discovery.https://futurism.com/quantum-computer-system-operational
1/31/2021 12:00 PMResearchers perform experiments that can add or subtract a single quantum of sound—with surprising results when applied to noisy sound fields. Quantum mechanics tells us that physical objects can have both wave and particle properties. For instance, a single particle—or quantum—of light is known as a photon, and, in a similar fashion, a single quantum of sound is known as a phonon, which can be thought of as the smallest unit of sound energy.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-adding-quanta.html
1/31/2021 2:00 PMThe planets around a star called TOI-178 know how to keep a beat — so smoothly, in fact, that scientists were able to discover new alien worlds by deciphering the system’s music.https://www.space.com/six-alien-planets-orbit-strange-harmony-toi-178
1/31/2021 4:00 PMThe first people to settle in the Americas likely brought their own canine companions with them, according to new research which sheds more light on the origin of dogs.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-people-americas-dogs.html
1/31/2021 6:00 PMQuantum key distribution (QKD) is a technique that enables secure communications between devices using a cryptographic protocol that is partly based on quantum mechanics. This communication method ultimately allows two parties to encrypt and decrypt messages they send to each other using a unique key that is unknown to other parties.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-long-distance-quantum-key-qkd-free-space.html
2/1/2021 8:00 AMNews travels fast — at the lickety-split speed of light, potentially. Back in December, great attention was paid to a report that a mysterious radio signal appeared to have come from the vicinity of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to Earth.https://www.space.com/proxima-centauri-signal-breakthrough-listen-pete-worden-interview
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2/1/2021 12:00 PMScientists have shown where bird species would exist in the absence of human activity under research that could provide a new approach to setting conservation priorities.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-scientists-impact-human-bird-species.html
2/1/2021 2:00 PMThe positions of air inlets and outlets in confined spaces, such as elevators, greatly affect airborne virus transmission. In Physics of Fluids, researchers from University of Nicosia in Cyprus show while air purifiers would be expected to help, they may actually increase the spread.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-air-purifiers-good-confined-spaces.html
2/1/2021 4:00 PMUtilizing a newly developed state-of-the-art synchrotron technique, a group of scientists led by Dr. Ho-kwang Mao, Director of HPSTAR, conducted the first-ever high-pressure study of the electronic band and gap information of solid hydrogen up to 90 GPa. Their innovative high pressure inelastic X-ray scattering result serves as a test for direct measurement of the process of hydrogen metallization and opens a possibility to resolve the electronic dispersions of dense hydrogen.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-band-gap-wide-gap-hydrogen-inelastic.html
2/1/2021 6:00 PMTransport processes are ubiquitous in nature, but still raise many questions. The research team around Florian Meinert from the Fifth Institute of Physics at the University of Stuttgart has now developed a new method to observe a single charged particle on its path through a dense cloud of ultracold atoms.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-ion-bose-einstein-condensate.html
2/2/2021 8:00 AMAs galaxies evolve, they undergo several changes. One of the most significant is the cessation of star formation. Once a galaxy stops creating stars, it becomes old and quiescent, losing the youthful shine that comes with giving birth to new stellar life. Astronomers aren’t entirely sure, however, exactly what shuts down a galaxy’s star formation, or even whether all galaxies grow old in the same way.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/01/this-distant-galaxy-is-signing-its-own-death-warrant
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2/2/2021 12:00 PMLaser beams can be used to change the properties of materials in an extremely precise way. This principle is already widely used in technologies such as rewritable DVDs. However, the underlying processes generally take place at such unimaginably fast speeds and at such a small scale that they have so far eluded direct observation. Researchers at the University of Göttingen and the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen have now managed to film, for the first time, the laser transformation of a crystal structure with nanometre resolution and in slow motion in an electron microscope.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-physicists-phase-transition-extremely-high.html
2/2/2021 2:00 PMThe rate at which ice is disappearing across the planet is speeding up, according to new research. And the findings also reveal that the Earth lost 28 trillion tonnes of ice between 1994 and 2017—equivalent to a sheet of ice 100 metres thick covering the whole of the UK.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-global-ice-loss.html
2/2/2021 4:00 PMAustralian scientists have discovered a new way to analyze microscopic cells, tissues and other transparent specimens, through the improvement of an almost 100-year-old imaging technique.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-discovery-invisible-visible.html
2/2/2021 6:00 PMTheories were introduced as far back as the 1960s about the possible existence of superheavy elements. Their most long-lived nuclei could give rise to a so-called “island of stability” far beyond the element uranium. However, a new study, led by nuclear physicists at Lund University, shows that a 50-year-old nuclear physics manifesto must now be revised.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-nuclear-physicist-voyage-mythical-island.html
2/3/2021 8:00 AMUsing a combination of telescopes, including the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO’s VLT), astronomers have revealed a system consisting of six exoplanets, five of which are locked in a rare rhythm around their central star. The researchers believe the system could provide important clues about how planets, including those in the Solar System, form and evolve.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-puzzling-six-exoplanet-rhythmic-movement-theories.html
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2/3/2021 12:00 PMSverdrup Glacier in northwest Greenland is pretty average. It is a textbook example of the many coastal glaciers around the island that flow into deep fjords. But Sverdrup also represents a large class of Greenland glaciers that are undergoing rapid retreat in response to warm ocean water. This image, acquired by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8, shows Sverdrup Glacier on September 21, 2020. Lines indicate the retreating position of the glacier front since 2000.https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147776/undercutting-sverdrup-glacier
2/3/2021 2:00 PMRoughly 212 light years away in the Virgo constellation lies a super-large exoplanet that has astronomers revising their theory of how giant gas planets form. The exoplanet, called WASP-107b, was discovered in 2017. At the time, it was difficult to accurately pinpoint its mass. But what astronomers did know is that it was already unusual.https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/wasp107b-puffy-exoplanet-1.5884203
2/3/2021 4:00 PMWhile vaccines may help slow the COVID-19 pandemic over the next months, drug company Eli Lilly announced Tuesday that its treatments can help save lives in the meantime.https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/01/26/eli-lilly-monoclonal-antibodies-high-risk-covid-19-patients-coronavirus/4263087001/
2/3/2021 6:00 PMThe moon’s mysterious far side is so much different than its near side, which we see in the night sky, and now scientists think they know why.https://www.space.com/moon-far-side-mystery-may-be-solved.html
2/4/2021 8:00 AMResearchers from The University of Western Australia have uncovered evidence of an important genetic step in the evolution of the brain. The finding highlights how genetic events that took place in our fish-like ancestors play crucial roles in human brain biology today.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-insight-brain-evolved.html
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2/4/2021 12:00 PMHow cells develop and the diseases that arise when development goes wrong have been a decades-long research focus in the laboratory of Distinguished Professor of Biology Ellen Rothenberg. In particular, the lab studies the development of immune cells known as T cells, which act as “intelligence agents”—they circulate throughout the body, detect threats, and determine what kind of response the immune system should make. However, when the many stages of T cell development do not occur perfectly, leukemia occurs.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-behavior-transcription-factors-theories-gene.html
2/4/2021 2:00 PMWould it be surprising to find a rocky planet that dates back to the very early Universe? It should be. The early Universe lacked the heavier elements necessary to form rocky planets. But astronomers have found one, right here in the Milky Way.https://www.universetoday.com/149802/one-of-the-oldest-stars-in-the-galaxy-has-a-planet-rocky-planets-were-forming-at-nearly-the-beginning-of-the-universe/
2/4/2021 4:00 PMResearchers from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKSUST) and the University of Hong Kong (HKU) recently demonstrated that the selectivity determinant of Origin Recognition Complex (ORC) for DNA binding lies in a 19-amino acid insertion helix in the Orc4 subunit, which is present in yeast but absent in human. Removal of this motif from Orc4 transforms the yeast ORC, which selects origins based on base-specific binding at defined locations, into one whose selectivity is dictated by chromatin landscape (genomic nucleosome profile), a characteristic feature shared by human ORC.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-humanizing-yeast-orc-cancer-therapy.html
2/4/2021 6:00 PMSelf-assembly is ubiquitous in the natural world, serving as a route to form organized structures in every living organism. This phenomenon can be seen, for instance, when two strands of DNA—without any external prodding or guidance—join to form a double helix, or when large numbers of molecules combine to create membranes or other vital cellular structures. Everything goes to its rightful place without an unseen builder having to put all the pieces together, one at a time.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-molecular-nanofibers-stronger-steel.html
2/5/2021 8:00 AMScientists have calculated the mass range for Dark Matter—and it’s tighter than the science world thought. Their findings radically narrow the range of potential masses for Dark Matter particles, and help to focus the search for future Dark Matter-hunters. The University of Sussex researchers used the established fact that gravity acts on Dark Matter just as it acts on the visible universe to work out the lower and upper limits of Dark Matter’s mass.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-heavy-dark-scientists-radically-narrow.html
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2/5/2021 12:00 PMA new type of stem cell—that is, a cell with regenerative abilities—could be closer on the horizon, a new study led by UNSW Sydney shows. The stem cells (called induced multipotent stem cells, or iMS) can be made from easily accessible human cells—in this case, fat—and reprogrammed to act as stem cells.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-scientists-closer-smart-stem-cells.html
2/5/2021 2:00 PMFor the first time, an international team of researchers has visualized the light-sensitive protein archaerhodopsin-3 (AR3) at unprecedented resolution using the I24 and B23 beamlines at Diamond Light Source. The photoreceptor is expressed by Halorubrum sodomense, an organism that grows in the Dead Sea, but is best known for its applications in optogenetics experiments, in which it is used to silence individual neurons and to detect changes in cell membrane voltage. These new structures open the way for the development of new tools and methodologies in the fields of neuroscience, cell biology and beyond.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-high-resolution-archaerhodopsin-protein-receptor-desensitization.html
2/5/2021 4:00 PMFor centuries, humans have blamed the moon for our moods, accidents and even natural disasters. But new research indicates that our planet’s celestial companion impacts something else entirely—our sleep.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-nights-full-moon-people-bed.html
2/5/2021 6:00 PMOrganelles continue to thrive after the cells within which they exist die, a team of University of Bristol scientists have found, overturning previous assumptions that organelles decay too quickly to be fossilized.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-cell-death-complex-life.html
2/6/2021 8:00 AMScientists have resolved a key climate change mystery, showing that the annual global temperature today is the warmest of the past 10,000 years—contrary to recent research, according to a Rutgers-led study.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-holocene-temperature-affirms-role-greenhouse.html
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2/6/2021 12:00 PMAstronomers report the finding of a new candidate redback millisecond pulsar (MSP) binary associated with a gamma-ray source known as 4FGL J0940.3–7610. The newly found object is a short-period compact binary exhibiting X-ray emission that consists of a low-mass neutron star and a companion star with a mass most likely over 0.4 solar masses. The discovery is detailed in a paper published January 21 on the arXiv pre-print server.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-astronomers-candidate-redback-millisecond-pulsar.html
2/6/2021 2:00 PMDespite all the advances in consumer technology over the past decades, one component has remained frustratingly stagnant: the optical lens. Unlike electronic devices, which have gotten smaller and more efficient over the years, the design and underlying physics of today’s optical lenses haven’t changed much in about 3,000 years.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-millimeter-size-flat-lens-vr-ar.html
2/6/2021 4:00 PMBefore the Apollo era, the moon was thought to be dry as a desert due to the extreme temperatures and harshness of the space environment. Many studies have since discovered lunar water: ice in shadowed polar craters, water bound in volcanic rocks, and unexpected rusty iron deposits in the lunar soil. Despite these findings, there is still no true confirmation of the extent or origin of lunar surface water.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-evidence-lunar-surface-earth-magnetosphere.html
2/6/2021 6:00 PMIn the next years, increasing use of electronic devices in consumables and new technologies for the internet of things will increase the amount of electronic scrap. To save resources and minimize waste volumes, an eco-friendlier production and more sustainable lifecycle will be needed. Scientists of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now been the first to produce displays, whose biodegradability has been checked and certified by an independent office.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-biodegradable.html
2/7/2021 8:00 AMA team of physicists and computer scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory performed one of the five largest cosmological simulations ever. Data from the simulation will inform sky maps to aid leading large-scale cosmological experiments.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-mira-journey-exploring-dark-universe.html
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2/7/2021 12:00 PMA study has revealed for the first time the ancient origins of one of the world’s most important ecosystems by unlocking the mechanism which determined the evolution of its mountains and how they shaped the weather there as well as its flora and fauna.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-unravels-hidden-eastern-asia-honey.html
2/7/2021 2:00 PMNew research suggests the Australian lungfish has the largest genome of any animal ever sequenced, reports Donna Lu for New Scientist. The study also reveals lungfishes are most closely related fish to humans and other land-loving vertebrates.https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/australian-lungfish-has-biggest-genome-ever-sequenced-180976837/
2/7/2021 4:00 PMEarlier this year an announcement raised a tantalizing possibility: a ninth planet lurking in the outer reaches of our solar system. The announcement turned the astronomy and planetary science world upside down.https://astronomy.com/news/2016/10/planet-nine-tilting-the-sun
2/7/2021 6:00 PMIf warp drives didn’t exist in science fiction, the Enterprise’s mission statement would have been “slowly going where no one has gone before.” And never getting there, at least in a single Generation. The spaces between places in space are, in the real universe, so vast that the ability to jump from planet to planet would have to exceed the speed of light. In sci-fi, “Warp 5” means five times that speed. As far as we know, faster-than-light (FTL) travel is impossible. But maybe there’s another way, according to a presentation at August’s American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Propulsion and Energy Forum by Joseph Agnew of University of Alabama in Huntsville’s Propulsion Research Center.https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/alcubierre-drive
2/8/2021 8:00 AMUsing X-ray tomography, a research team has observed the internal evolution of the materials inside solid-state lithium batteries as they were charged and discharged. Detailed three-dimensional information from the research could help improve the reliability and performance of the batteries, which use solid materials to replace the flammable liquid electrolytes in existing lithium-ion batteries.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-x-ray-tomography-solid-state-batteries-discharge.html
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2/8/2021 12:00 PMA combination of observational data and sophisticated computer simulations have yielded advances in a field of astrophysics that has languished for half a century. The Dark Energy Survey, which is hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, has published a burst of new results on what’s called intracluster light, or ICL, a faint type of light found inside galaxy clusters.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-precision-intracluster-link-dark.html
2/8/2021 2:00 PMResearchers at the University of Basel and Ruhr University Bochum have developed a source of single photons that can produce billions of these quantum particles per second. With its record-breaking efficiency, the photon source represents a new and powerful building-block for quantum technologies.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-physicists-record-breaking-source-photons.html
2/8/2021 4:00 PMhttps://phys.org/news/2021-01-zapping-quantum-materials-lasers-atoms.html
2/8/2021 6:00 PMScientists with NASA’s Oceans Melting Greenland mission are probing deep below the island’s warming coastal waters to help us better predict the rising seas of the future.https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/warming-seas-are-accelerating-greenlands-glacier-retreat/
2/9/2021 8:00 AMThe world’s frozen places are shrinking—and they’re disappearing at faster rates as time goes by. In the 1990s, the world was losing around 800 billion metric tons of ice each year. Today, that number has risen to around 1.2 trillion tons.https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-has-lost-28-trillion-tons-of-ice-since-the-mid-1990s/
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2/9/2021 12:00 PMNatural History Museum Senior Curator of Insects Max Barclay has discovered that a pair of perfectly preserved beetles, donated to its collection in the 1970s, are almost 4,000 years old—and a species never known to have existed in the UK.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-pair-perfectly-intact-mystery-beetles-years.html
2/9/2021 2:00 PMFor more than 15 years, researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas and their collaborators in the U.S., Australia, South Korea and China have fabricated artificial muscles by twisting and coiling carbon nanotube or polymer yarns. When thermally powered, these muscles actuate by contracting their length when heated and returning to their initial length when cooled. Such thermally driven artificial muscles, however, have limitations.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-powerful-unipolar-carbon-nanotube-muscles.html
2/9/2021 4:00 PMBefore the Apollo era, the moon was thought to be dry as a desert due to the extreme temperatures and harshness of the space environment. Many studies have since discovered lunar water: ice in shadowed polar craters, water bound in volcanic rocks, and unexpected rusty iron deposits in the lunar soil. Despite these findings, there is still no true confirmation of the extent or origin of lunar surface water.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-evidence-lunar-surface-earth-magnetosphere.html
2/9/2021 6:00 PMCarbon, the fourth most abundant element in the universe, is a building block for all known life and a material that sits in the interior of carbon-rich exoplanets.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-carbon-pressures-earth-core-crystal.html
2/10/2021 8:00 AMCities are not all the same, or at least their evolution isn’t, according to new research from the University of Colorado Boulder.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-scholars-reveal-nature-cities.html
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2/10/2021 12:00 PMScientists have created a new way to detect the proteins that make up the pandemic coronavirus, as well as antibodies against it. They designed protein-based biosensors that glow when mixed with components of the virus or specific COVID-19 antibodies. This breakthrough could enable faster and more widespread testing in the near future.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-biosensors-quickly-coronavirus-proteins-antibodies.html
2/10/2021 2:00 PMNew research led by Carnegie Mellon University Assistant Professor of Physics Shiladitya Banerjee demonstrates how certain types of bacteria can adapt to long-term exposure to antibiotics by changing their shape.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-bacteria-resilient-antibiotics.html
2/10/2021 4:00 PMAn international team of researchers has located the source of recently discovered ozone damaging HCFCs in the atmosphere. In their paper, the group describes using new tools in addition to those used by members of the Montreal Protocol to discover and trace ozone-damaging chemicals emitted into the atmosphere.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-sources-ozone-damaging-hcfcs.html
2/10/2021 6:00 PMDr Fatima Ebrahimi has invented a new fusion rocket thruster concept which could power humans to Mars and beyond. The physicist who works for the US Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) designed the rocket which will use magnetic fields to shoot plasma particles – electrically charged gas – into the vacuum of space.https://news.sky.com/story/new-concept-for-rocket-thruster-exploits-the-mechanism-behind-solar-flares-12202285
2/11/2021 8:00 AMAs scientists learn more about the microorganisms that colonize the body—collectively called the microbiota—one area of intense interest is the effect that these microbes can have on the brain. A new study led by Salk Institute scientists has identified a strain of E. coli bacteria that, when living in the guts of female mice, causes them to neglect their offspring.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-specific-bacteria-gut-prompt-mother.html
2/11/2021 10:00 AMTurns out sungazing is not the only thing NASA’s solar spacecraft do. Three missions that focus on the activities of our nearest star — Parker Solar Probe, the Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) and Solar Orbiter (a partnership with the European Space Agency) — have captured some incredible images showing several worlds in our solar system.https://www.space.com/sun-spacecraft-photograph-string-of-planets
2/11/2021 12:00 PMThe researchers of the Institute for Atmospheric and Earth system research at the University of Helsinki have investigated how atmospheric particles are formed in the Arctic. Until recent studies, the molecular processes of particle formation in the high Arctic remained a mystery.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-arctic-diminishing-sea-ice-atmosphere.html
2/11/2021 2:00 PMAstronomers have long wondered where high-energy cosmic rays come from within our galaxy. And now, new observations with the High Altitude Water Cherenkov Experiment (HAWC) observatory reveal an unlikely candidate: an otherwise mundane giant molecular cloud.https://www.space.com/powerful-particle-accelerator-molecular-cloud
2/11/2021 4:00 PMHumans may be fascinated by cubes, but only one animal poops them: the bare-nosed wombat. This furry Australian marsupial squeezes out nearly 100 six-sided turds every day—an ability that has long mystified scientists. Now, researchers say they have uncovered how the wombat intestine creates this exceptional excrement.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/how-do-wombats-poop-cubes-scientists-get-bottom-mystery
2/11/2021 6:00 PMOne of the grand scientific projects of the 21st Century is ‘Go!’. The first council meeting of the Square Kilometre Array Observatory has actioned plans that will lead to the biggest telescope on Earth being assembled over the coming decade. Member states approved a thousand pages of documents covering everything from the power to open a bank account to engaging with industrial contractors. The SKA telescope will comprise a vast formation of radio receivers. These will be positioned across South Africa and Australia.https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55933958
2/12/2021 8:00 AMAn international team of researchers has found evidence of the mineral jarosite in ice cores extracted from Antarctica. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers describe how the discovery came about and why they believe it could bolster theories regarding the presence of the same mineral on the surface of Mars.https://phys.org/news/2021-01-mineral-mars-deep-antarctic-ice.html
2/12/2021 10:00 AMWhen two sheets of graphene are stacked atop each other at just the right angle, the layered structure morphs into an unconventional superconductor, allowing electric currents to pass through without resistance or wasted energy.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-physicists-tunable-superconductivity-graphene-nanosandwich.html
2/12/2021 12:00 PMWhen two sheets of graphene are stacked atop each other at just the right angle, the layered structure morphs into an unconventional superconductor, allowing electric currents to pass through without resistance or wasted energy.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-physicists-tunable-superconductivity-graphene-nanosandwich.html
2/12/2021 2:00 PMNew research from North Carolina State University reveals that probiotic Lactobacillus bacteria use enzymes situationally to manipulate bile acids and promote their own survival in the gut. These findings further elucidate the complicated relationship between bile acids and gut bacteria and could eventually enable researchers to design lactobacilli with therapeutic properties, thereby engineering a healthier human gut environment.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-lactobacillus-bile-acids-favorable-gut.html
2/12/2021 4:00 PMThe temperature of a planet is linked with the diversity of life that it can support. MIT geologists have now reconstructed a timeline of the Earth’s temperature during the early Paleozoic era, between 510 and 440 million years ago—a pivotal period when animals became abundant in a previously microbe-dominated world.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-geologists-timeline-earth-paleozoic-climate.html
2/12/2021 6:00 PMA team of researchers at the University of Maryland, has found a new way to make wood transparent. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes their process and why they believe it is better than the old process.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-wood-transparent-stronger-lighter-glass.html
2/13/2021 8:00 AMThe ‘second wave’ of the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in much blame placed on a lack of appropriate safety measures. However, due to the impacts of weather, research suggests two outbreaks per year during a pandemic are inevitable.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-temperature-humidity-pandemic.html
2/13/2021 10:00 AMTeaching children in a way that encourages them to empathise with others measurably improves their creativity, and could potentially lead to several other beneficial learning outcomes, new research suggests.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-pupils-empathy-creative-abilities.html
2/13/2021 12:00 PMThe Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) just sent a robot into one of the reactors of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which was destroyed by a tsunami back in 2011. The robot made contact with the melted fuel, picking it up and putting it back down to determine whether it was solid enough to cart away during a future mission.https://futurism.com/robot-nuclear-hellscape-fukushima-reactor
2/13/2021 2:00 PMPurdue University innovators have created technology aimed at replacing Morse code with colored “digital characters” to modernize optical storage. They are confident the advancement will help with the explosion of remote data storage during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-goodbye-dots-dashes-optical-storage.html
2/13/2021 4:00 PMScientists at Bielefeld University’s Faculty of Physics have succeeded for the first time in imaging the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus with a helium ion microscope. In contrast to the more conventional electron microscopy, the samples do not need a thin metal coating in helium ion microscopy. This allows interactions between the coronaviruses and their host cell to be observed particularly clearly. The scientists have published their findings, obtained in collaboration with researchers from the Bielefeld University’s Medical School OWL and Justus Liebig University Giessen.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-cell-virus-sars-cov-helium-ion.html
2/13/2021 6:00 PMThe Arctic Ocean was covered by up to 900-meter-thick shelf ice and was filled entirely with freshwater at least twice in the last 150,000 years. This surprising finding, reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature, is the result of long-term research by scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute and the MARUM. With a detailed analysis of the composition of marine deposits, the scientists could demonstrate that the Arctic Ocean as well as the Nordic Seas did not contain sea-salt in at least two glacial periods. Instead, these oceans were filled with large amounts of freshwater under a thick ice shield. This water could then be released into the North Atlantic in very short periods of time. Such sudden freshwater inputs could explain rapid climate oscillations for which no satisfying explanation had been previously found.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-arctic-ocean-shelf-ice-freshwater.html
2/14/2021 8:00 AMMars Global Surveyor of NASA was really ′′feeling′′ the love of the Red Planet when they took this photo of a heart-shaped well in 1999. The space agency says this is ′′actually a well formed by the collapse of the interior of a straight wall depression known in geologically as engraved”.https://www.facebook.com/Glaretum/posts/1394757044220102
2/14/2021 10:00 AMIn the early morning of June 30, 1908, a massive explosion flattened entire forests in a remote region of Eastern Siberia along the Tunguska River. Curiously, the explosion left no crater, creating a mystery that has puzzled scientists ever since — what could have caused such a huge blast without leaving any remnants of itself?https://astronomy.com/news/2020/10/tunguska-explosion-in-1908-caused-by-asteroid-grazing-earth
2/14/2021 12:00 PMAntimicrobial packaging is being developed to extend the shelf life and safety of foods and beverages. However, there is concern about the transfer of potentially harmful materials, such as silver nanoparticles, from these types of containers to consumables. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces illustrate that silver embedded in an antimicrobial plastic can leave the material and form nanoparticles in foods and beverages, particularly in sweet and sugary ones.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-nanotech-plastic-packaging-leach-silver.html
2/14/2021 2:00 PMAstronomers discovered the youngest member of a bizarre group of stars, known as magnetars, using NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Telescope in March of 2020. And now, further observations shed even more light on the exotic beast.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/01/astronomers-find-the-youngest-fastest-spinning-magnetar-yet
2/14/2021 4:00 PMA new study found that electrons can reach ultra-relativistic energies for very special conditions in the magnetosphere when space is devoid of plasma.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-electrons-earth.html
2/14/2021 6:00 PMA warmer global climate can cause mutations to have more severe consequences for the health of organisms through their detrimental effect on protein function. This may have major repercussions on organisms’ ability to adapt to, and survive in, the altered habitats of the future.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-warmer-climate-mutations.html
2/15/2021 8:00 AMScientists have successfully studied einsteinium — one of the most elusive and heaviest elements on the periodic table — for the first time in decades. The achievement brings chemists closer to discovering the so-called “island of stability,” where some of the heftiest and shortest-lived elements are thought to reside.https://www.livescience.com/einsteinium-experiments-uncover-chemical-properties.html
2/15/2021 10:00 AMFirefly Aerospace, Inc., a leading provider of economical and dependable launch vehicles, spacecraft, and in-space services, announced that NASA has awarded Firefly $93.3 million to deliver a suite of ten NASA-sponsored science and technology demonstration payloads to Mare Crisium in the Moon’s Crisium basin. Firefly’s ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander will deliver the payloads to the lunar surface in 2023 in fulfillment of Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) task order 19D, managed by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210204006105/en/NASA-Awards-Firefly-Aerospace-93.3M-to-Deliver-Suite-of-Payloads-to-the-Moon-in-2023
2/15/2021 12:00 PMFin-to-limb transition is an icon of key evolutionary transformations. Many studies focus on understanding the evolution of the simple fin into a complicated limb skeleton by examining the fossil record. In a paper published February 4 in Cell, researchers at Harvard and Boston Children’s Hospital examined what’s occurring at the genetic level to drive different patterns in the fin skeleton versus the limb skeleton.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-fin-limb-mutations-zebrafish-fins.html
2/15/2021 2:00 PMIn 2018, the physics world was set ablaze with the discovery that when an ultrathin layer of carbon, called graphene, is stacked and twisted to a “magic angle,” that new double layered structure converts into a superconductor, allowing electricity to flow without resistance or energy waste. Now, in a literal twist, Harvard scientists have expanded on that superconducting system by adding a third layer and rotating it, opening the door for continued advancements in graphene-based superconductivity.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-scientists-trilayer-graphene-robust-superconductivity.html
2/15/2021 4:00 PMMIT researchers and colleagues have discovered an important—and unexpected—electronic property of graphene, a material discovered only about 17 years ago that continues to surprise scientists with its interesting physics. The work, which involves structures composed of atomically thin layers of materials that are also biocompatible, could usher in new, faster information-processing paradigms. One potential application is in neuromorphic computing, which aims to replicate the neuronal cells in the body responsible for everything from behavior to memories.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-newly-graphene-property-impact-next-generation.html
2/15/2021 6:00 PMGenes that determine the shape of a person’s facial profile have been discovered by a UCL-led research team. The researchers identified 32 gene regions that influenced facial features such as nose, lip, jaw, and brow shape, nine of which were entirely new discoveries while the others validated genes with prior limited evidence.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-genes.html
2/16/2021 8:00 AMNASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS) has released a stunning video that shows Earth in a way you may have never seen before. The video is a timelapse simulation that depicts seven days in 2005 when a category-4 typhoon developed off the coast of China. The seven-day period is repeated several times during the course of the visualization.https://futurism.com/earth-looks-like-a-living-creature-in-this-amazing-nasa-video
2/16/2021 10:00 AMGlobal greenhouse gas emissions over the last century have made southern China a hotspot for bat-borne coronaviruses, by driving growth of forest habitat favoured by bats. A new study provides the first evidence of a mechanism by which climate change could have played a direct role in the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-climate-driven-emergence-sars-cov-.html
2/16/2021 12:00 PMMobile-phone chargers and other devices could become much smaller after an all-RIKEN team of physicists successfully shrunk an electrical component known as an inductor to microscale dimensions using a quantum effect.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-inductance-based-quantum-effect-potential.html
2/16/2021 2:00 PMTo solve the mysteries of black holes, a human should just venture into one. However, there is a rather complicated catch: A human can do this only if the respective black hole is supermassive and isolated, and if the person entering the black hole does not expect to report the findings to anyone in the entire universe.https://www.space.com/could-a-human-enter-a-black-hole-to-study-it
2/16/2021 4:00 PMIn a recent paper, researchers show that mitochondria translocate their key RNA methyltransferase enzyme, TRMT1, into host cell nuclei in response to neural activity. This subcellular relocalization of key RNA modifiers suggests a new understanding of how neurons plastically reconfigure their nuclei as network dynamics change.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-neural-mitochondrial-rna-nucleus.html
2/16/2021 6:00 PMThe modern world is powered by electrical circuitry on a “chip”—the semiconductor chip underpinning computers, cell phones, the internet, and other applications. In the year 2025, humans are expected to be creating 175 zettabytes (175 trillion gigabytes) of new data. How can we ensure the security of sensitive data at such a high volume? And how can we address grand-challenge-like problems, from privacy and security to climate change, leveraging this data, especially given the limited capability of current computers?https://phys.org/news/2021-02-breakthrough-quantum-photonics-era-optical.html
2/17/2021 8:00 AMPiezoelectric materials hold great promise as sensors and as energy harvesters but are normally much less effective at high temperatures, limiting their use in environments such as engines or space exploration. However, a new piezoelectric device developed by a team of researchers from Penn State and QorTek remains highly effective at elevated temperatures.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-piezoelectric-material-effective-high-temperatures.html
2/17/2021 10:00 AMNASA’s push to land humans on the moon in 2024, along with the agency’s ongoing research on the International Space Station (ISS), could serve as excellent analog environments for a mission to Mars, several researchers said at the Humans to Mars Summit in Washington.https://www.space.com/space-station-and-moon-prep-mars-astronauts.html
2/17/2021 12:00 PMA new study focused on the clouds of Venus may dash hopes for finding life on Earth’s hellish neighbor.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/02/life-in-the-clouds-of-venus-maybe-not
2/17/2021 2:00 PMSuperconductivity—the ability of a material to transmit an electric current without loss—is a quantum effect that, despite years of research, is still limited to very low temperatures. Now a team of scientists at the MPSD has succeeded in creating a metastable state with vanishing electrical resistance in a molecular solid by exposing it to finely tuned pulses of intense laser light. This effect had already been demonstrated in 2016 for only a very short time, but in a new study the authors of the paper have shown a far longer lifetime, nearly 10.000 times longer than before. The long lifetimes for light-induced superconductivity hold promise for applications in integrated electronics.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-superconductivity-short-sustaining-impact.html
2/17/2021 4:00 PMA new type of quantum holography which uses entangled photons to overcome the limitations of conventional holographic approaches could lead to improved medical imaging and speed the advance of quantum information science.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-holography-quantum-revolutionise-imaging.html
2/17/2021 6:00 PMAn international team led by researchers of Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) has managed to manipulate the magnetic state of a magnetic material by optically shaking it. The whole process happens within an extremely short time frame of less than a few picoseconds. In times of stalling efficiency trends of current technology, such atomically-driven ultrafast control of magnetism opens broad new vistas for information technology. The results could eventually lead to fast and energy-efficient data processing technologies, which are essential to keep up with our data hunger.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-magnet-state-optically-atomic-lattice.html
2/18/2021 8:00 AMResearchers have identified a new form of magnetism in so-called magnetic graphene, which could point the way toward understanding superconductivity in this unusual type of material.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-magnetic-graphene-kind-magnetism.html
2/18/2021 10:00 AMScientists captured this striking image of the Apollo 15 landing site by shooting a powerful radar signal from Earth into space and bouncing it off the lunar surface.https://www.space.com/apollo-15-landing-radar-image
2/18/2021 12:00 PMUsing AI and computer automation, Technion researchers have developed a ‘conjecture generator’ that creates mathematical conjectures, which are considered to be the starting point for developing mathematical theorems. They have already used it to generate a number of previously unknown formulas. The study, which was published in the journal Nature, was carried out by undergraduates from different faculties under the tutelage of Assistant Professor Ido Kaminer of the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-ramanujan-machine-conjecture-mathematical-conjectures.html
2/18/2021 2:00 PMUncrackable quantum messages can now be sent through the air and will soon be beamed into space.https://www.space.com/super-secure-quantum-messages-headed-to-space
2/18/2021 4:00 PMEgg cells start out as round blobs. After fertilization, they begin transforming into people, dogs, fish, or other animals by orienting head to tail, back to belly, and left to right. Exactly what sets these body orientation directions has been guessed at but not seen. Now researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) have imaged the very beginning of this cellular rearrangement, and their findings help answer a fundamental question.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-imaging-moments-body-emerging-embryo.html
2/18/2021 6:00 PMOn Feb 5th, Seoul National University, College of Engineering (Dean Kookheon Char) announced that Professor Sang Woo Seo’s research team (Dr. Jina Yang and Mr. Yong Hee Han) at the School of Chemical and Biological Engineering has developed a synthetic protein quality control system to enhance full-length translation in bacteria. This technology is expected to increase the efficiency of the production of biopharmaceuticals, industrial enzymes, and bio-based chemicals.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-synthetic-protein-quality-bacteria.html
2/19/2021 8:00 AMThe human cellular kinome contains over 500 kinases, accounting for almost 2% of all our genes. It is currently impossible to gauge the phosphorylation status, or even phosphorylation potential, of the entire proteome of any cell. Mitochondria, on the other hand, use just 25 kinases. Moreover, their entire proteome contains only 1,136 proteins, at least according to the latest version of the Mitocarta Database.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-characterization-full-mitochondrial-kinome.html
2/19/2021 10:00 AMWater doesn’t currently exist on Mars’ surface, but it used to. We know this from dramatic dry canyons and river channels seen from orbit, as well as minerals on the surface that only form in liquid water. Around 3 billion years ago, something happened to Mars’ atmosphere, and most of the liquid water evaporated. But some of it may still be underground, safely shielded from harmful solar radiation that bombards the planet’s surface. Could those ancient pockets of water contain life?https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/tianwen-1
2/19/2021 12:00 PMAt 2 a.m. one night last April, Michael Schoof triple-checked the numbers on his screen, took a deep breath, and fired off an email he’d been waiting all day to send. “I think it’s working” was the cautious wording of his message.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-tiny-antibody-capable-neutralizing-coronavirus.html
2/19/2021 2:00 PMBy analyzing archival radial velocity data, astronomers have detected a new warm-Neptune alien world. The newfound exoplanet, designated HD 183579b (or TOI-1055b) is about three and a half times larger and almost 20 times more massive than the Earth. The finding is detailed in a paper published January 28 on the arXiv. pre-print repository.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-warm-neptune-exoplanet.html
2/19/2021 4:00 PMA team of astronomers found a “large excess of mass” under the Moon’s largest crater, the Aitken basin — likely a relic from an ancient asteroid impact event, but perhaps something much stranger.https://futurism.com/the-byte/deep-structure-mass-moon-crater
2/19/2021 6:00 PMUpsalite absorbs water better than the much more expensive materials that are currently on the market. And, most of its absorbed water is retained when Upsalite is transferred from a humid to a very dry environment.https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/accidental-experiment-solves-century-old-chemistry-problem/
2/20/2021 8:00 AMhttps://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=saved&v=906019086837786
2/20/2021 10:00 AMNASA and its international partners have assigned crew members for Crew-2, which will be the second operational SpaceX Crew Dragon flight to the International Space Station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur will serve as spacecraft commander and pilot, respectively, for the mission. JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet will join as mission specialists. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission will launch no earlier than April 20.https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-announces-astronauts-to-fly-on-spacex-crew-2-mission-to-space-station/
2/20/2021 12:00 PMAs COVID-19 spreads via respiratory droplets, researchers have become increasingly interested in the drying of droplets on impermeable and porous surfaces. Surfaces that accelerate evaporation can decelerate the spread of the COVID-19 virus.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-porous-materials-unfavorable-coronavirus-survival.html
2/20/2021 2:00 PMAbout half of our genome is made up of transposable elements (TEs), also known as transposons. These ‘jumping genes’ are short stretches of DNA that have the unique ability to duplicate themselves and change their position within our code. While these philanderings play an essential role in the evolution of the species, if unchecked, transposons can wreak havoc on the genome.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-virally-derived-transposons-domesticated-evolve.html
2/20/2021 4:00 PMEinstein’s field equations describe gravity not as a force, but rather a property of space-time — the fabric of the universe. Earth travels around the Sun in a circular orbit because the Sun’s mass deforms the space-time around it like a bowling ball on a trampoline.https://astronomy.com/magazine/news/2021/02/the-beginning-to-the-end-of-the-universe-exploring-the-shape-of-space-time
2/20/2021 6:00 PMA multi-institutional team became the first to generate accurate results from materials science simulations on a quantum computer that can be verified with neutron scattering experiments and other practical techniques.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-quantum-enables-simulations-unravel-mysteries.html
2/21/2021 8:00 AMThe nearest solar system to our own may actually host two potentially life-supporting planets, a new study reports.https://www.space.com/exoplanet-candidate-spotted-alpha-centauri-a
2/21/2021 10:00 AMThe capture of the first living Coelacanth, a mighty ocean predator, off the coast of South Africa caused quite a stir in 1938, 65 million years after its supposed extinction. It became known as a “living fossil” owing to its anatomy looking almost identical to the fossil record. But while the Coelacanth’s body may have changed little, its genome tells another story.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-fossil-coelacanth-evolved-dozens-genes.html
2/21/2021 12:00 PMA giant antenna constructed in north China is now ready to support the Tianwen-1 Mars mission and future deep space endeavors.https://www.space.com/china-tianwen-1-ground-antenna-ready
2/21/2021 2:00 PMA team of astronomers, including associate professor Chad Trujillo of Northern Arizona University’s Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, have confirmed a planetoid that is almost four times farther from the Sun than Pluto, making it the most distant object ever observed in our solar system. The planetoid, which has been nicknamed “Farfarout,” was first detected in 2018, and the team has now collected enough observations to pin down its orbit. The Minor Planet Center has now given it the official designation of 2018 AG37.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-astronomers-orbit-distant-solar.html
2/21/2021 4:00 PMNASA’s upcoming mission to the Jupiter ocean moon Europa is out of rocket limbo. The Europa Clipper spacecraft is scheduled to lift off in October 2024 and arrive in orbit around Jupiter in April 2030, mission project scientist Bob Pappalardo announced Wednesday (Feb. 10) during a presentation at a virtual meeting of NASA’s Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG).https://www.space.com/europa-clipper-mission-launch-private-rocket
2/21/2021 6:00 PMTen years ago, researchers at Aarhus University, Denmark, reported the discovery of centimeter-long cable bacteria, that live by conducting an electric current from one end to the other. Now the researchers document that a few cells operate with extremely high oxygen consumption while the rest of the cells process food and grow without oxygen. An outstanding way of life.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-electric-cable-bacteria-oxygen-unheard.html
2/22/2021 8:00 AMThe Columbia River basin will see an increase in flooding over the next 50 years as a result of climate change, new modeling from Oregon State University indicates. The magnitude of flooding—the term used to describe flooding severity—is expected to increase throughout the basin, which includes the Columbia, Willamette and Snake rivers and hundreds of tributaries. In some areas, the flooding season will expand, as well.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-columbia-river-basin-climate.html
2/22/2021 10:00 AMThe songs of fin whales can be used for seismic imaging of the oceanic crust, providing scientists a novel alternative to conventional surveying.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-songs-fin-whales-avenue-seismic.html
2/22/2021 12:00 PMOn March 5, wave hello to the most infamous asteroid that won’t slam into Earth in 2029. Scientists sure will.https://www.space.com/asteroid-apophis-march-2021-flyby-science-preparations
2/22/2021 2:00 PMIf there’s an advanced extraterrestrial civilization inhabiting a nearby star system, we might be able to detect it using its own atmospheric pollution, according to new NASA research. The study looked at the presence of nitrogen dioxide gas (NO2), which on Earth is produced by burning fossil fuels but can also come from non-industrial sources such as biology, lightning, and volcanoes.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-extraterrestrial-civilization-pollution-solution-nasa.html
2/22/2021 4:00 PMOver the past few years, many physicists worldwide have conducted research investigating chaos in quantum systems composed of strongly interacting particles, also known as many-body chaos. The study of many-body chaos has broadened the current understanding of quantum thermalization (i.e., the process through which quantum particles reach thermal equilibrium by interacting with one another) and revealed surprising connections between microscopic physics and the dynamics of black holes.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-numerical-evidence-quantum-chaos-sachdev-ye-kitaev.html
2/22/2021 6:00 PMNASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has far exceeded its planned mission duration, revealing that the Moon holds surprises: ice deposits that could be used to support future lunar exploration, the coldest places in the solar system in permanently shadowed regions at the lunar poles, and that it is an active world that is shrinking, generating moonquakes and changing in front of our eyes. LRO has mapped the surface in exquisite detail, returning millions of images of a starkly beautiful lunar landscape and paving the way for future human missions under NASA’s Artemis program.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-spacecraft-exploring-moon.html
2/23/2021 8:00 AMScientists have spotted the first evidence of a rare Higgs boson decay, expanding our understanding of the strange quantum universe.https://www.space.com/higgs-boson-rare-decay-discovered-lhc
2/23/2021 10:00 AMA tetrad of researchers from Peking University, the University of Toronto, Rutgers University and the University of Science and Technology of China has found evidence that suggests the Earth was mostly flat during its middle ages. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their study of europium embedded in zircon crystals and what it revealed about Earth’s ancient past.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-europium-crystals-earth-middle-ages.html
2/23/2021 12:00 PMIn 2012, Cassini revealed that, based on data taken between 2006 and 2011, Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, changes shape due to tides raised on the satellite as it circles the planet. Over the course of its nearly 16-day orbit, Titan’s surface deforms by more than 33 feet (10 meters). (article’s from 2018, still amazing)https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2018/05/the-tides-on-titan
2/23/2021 2:00 PMImagine a planet about 2.5 times the radius of Earth orbiting a distant star. Do you picture something like our own rocky, ocean-strewn world? Or is it something more akin to a small version of a gassy planet like Neptune? Now, two new papers suggest that there may be a third option we’re not taking seriously enough.https://astronomy.com/news/2020/07/mini-neptunes-could-be-super-earths-with-bloated-atmospheres-of-water
2/23/2021 4:00 PMA new study shows that Bantu-speaking communities in the Congo rainforest underwent a major population collapse from 1600 to 1400 years ago, probably due to a prolonged disease epidemic, and that significant resettlement did not restart until around 1000 years ago. These findings revise the population history of no less than seven present-day African countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Angola) and challenges the commonly held belief that the settlement of Central Africa by Bantu-speaking communities was a continuous process from about 4000 years ago until the start of the transatlantic slave trade.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-epidemic-possibly-population-collapse-central.html
2/23/2021 6:00 PMPlanets, stars, and black holes all grow by consuming material from a spinning disk. While these disks may differ in size, they’re all mostly dependent on the mighty force of gravity, which keeps them spinning around the central mass. Gravity lets small clumps grow into bigger clumps. But it’s not enough to pull the whole disk into the middle in one giant clump, because angular momentum is pulling those clumps away from the center as they spin.https://astronomy.com/news/2019/02/scientists-finally-confirm-a-big-theory-about-solar-system-formation
2/24/2021 8:00 AMScientists have challenged our current understanding of how galaxies form by unveiling pictures of a young galaxy in the early life of the Universe which appears surprisingly mature.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-portrait-young-galaxy-theory-formation.html
2/24/2021 10:00 AMResearchers from the Cluster of Excellence “CUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter” have achieved a breakthrough—creating a completely new type of plasma by combining state-of-the-art technologies using ultrashort laser pulses and ultracold atomic gases.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-electron-refrigerator-ultrafast-cooling-mechanism.html
2/24/2021 12:00 PMAn international team of scientists has determined how harmless E. coli gut bacteria in chickens can easily pick up the genes required to evolve to cause a life-threatening infection. Their study warns that such infections not only affect the poultry industry but could also potentially cross over to infect humans.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-scientists-harmless-gut-bacteria-bad.html
2/24/2021 2:00 PMAstronomers discovered a pulsar, a kind of zombie star, racing across the galaxy so quickly that it could get from Earth to the Moon in six minutes flat. The dead star has a tail pointing back toward the remnant of a supernova that exploded 10,000 years ago. Astronomers suspected this might have provided the kick that sent the pulsar speeding off, but had to wait for 10 years of telescope data to make their case convincing.https://astronomy.com/news/2019/03/this-cannonball-pulsar-is-racing-at-escape-speed-across-the-milky-way
2/24/2021 4:00 PMWhat is blue, witnessed by few human eyes, and zips across the sky in less than a second? The answer, “blue jet,” might sound like some kind of fictional superhero. But these jets—generated during thunderstorms—are real. They are also a challenge to observe.https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147900/bolts-of-blue
2/24/2021 6:00 PMFar underneath the ice shelves of the Antarctic, there’s more life than expected.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-strange-creatures-accidentally-beneath-antarctica.html
2/25/2021 8:00 AMMore than one-third of the Corn Belt in the Midwest—nearly 100 million acres—has completely lost its carbon-rich topsoil, according to University of Massachusetts Amherst research that indicates the U.S. Department of Agricultural has significantly underestimated the true magnitude of farmland erosion.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-corn-belt-farmland-lost-carbon-rich.html
2/25/2021 10:00 AMA team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania has found that it is possible to levitate very thin discs in conditions that mimic the mesosphere using laser light. In their paper the group describes their research involving a possible way to allow flight at very high altitudes and how well it worked.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-explore-levitate-discs-mesosphere.html
2/25/2021 12:00 PMLead researcher UC Civil Engineering Associate Professor Allan Scott, and his team in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand, have found a new low-carbon method to produce the common mineral, magnesium hydroxide or Mg(OH)2.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-common-mineral-key-tackling-climate.html
2/25/2021 2:00 PMThe Chicxulub impactor, as it’s known, left behind a crater off the coast of Mexico that spans 93 miles and runs 12 miles deep. Its devastating impact brought the reign of the dinosaurs to an abrupt and calamitous end by triggering their sudden mass extinction, along with the end of almost three-quarters of the plant and animal species living on Earth.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-comet-asteroid-dinosaurs.html
2/25/2021 4:00 PMNASA, in collaboration with other leading space agencies, aims to send its first human missions to Mars in the early 2030s, while companies like SpaceX may do so even earlier. Astronauts on Mars will need oxygen, water, food, and other consumables. These will need to be sourced from Mars, because importing them from Earth would be impractical in the long term. Scientists show for the first time that Anabaena cyanobacteria can be grown with only local gases, water, and other nutrients and at low pressure. This makes it much easier to develop sustainable biological life support systems.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-biotech-red-planet-method-cyanobacteria.html
2/25/2021 6:00 PMFossilised remains of a fish that grew as big as a great white shark and the largest of its type ever found have been discovered by accident.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-enormous-ancient-fish-fossil-pterodactyl.html
2/26/2021 8:00 AMA tight knot of stars nearly as old as the universe hides a dark secret at its core. The globular cluster NGC 6397, a conglomeration of stars about 7,800 light-years from Earth, likely harbors a clump of small black holes at its heart, a new study reports.https://www.space.com/black-holes-globular-cluster-hubble-telescope
2/26/2021 10:00 AMDeep beneath over a mile of Antarctic ice and sea, hundreds of miles away from the nearest glimpse of sunlight, a bizarre community of creatures is thriving — to the befuddlement of scientists.https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-surprised-strange-creatures-antarctic-ice
2/26/2021 12:00 PMIf we find life on the Red Planet, we’ll have astrobiologists like Dr. Kennda Lynch to thank. Lynch is an astrobiologist and geomicrobiologist studying life in extreme environments on Earth as models for characterizing habitable environments and searching for biosignatures on other planetary bodies in our solar system and elsewhere.https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/astrobiologist-kennda-lynch-uses-analogs-on-earth-to-find-life-on-mars
2/26/2021 2:00 PMRussian state laboratory Vektor on Tuesday announced it was launching research into prehistoric viruses by analysing the remains of animals recovered from melted permafrost.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-russian-scientists-probe-prehistoric-viruses.html
2/26/2021 4:00 PMAstronomers have tested a method for reconstructing the state of the early universe by applying it to 4000 simulated universes using the ATERUI II supercomputer at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). They found that together with new observations, the method can set better constraints on inflation, one of the most enigmatic events in the history of the universe. The method can shorten the observation time required to distinguish between various inflation theories.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-supercomputer-cosmic-clock.html
2/26/2021 6:00 PMImages provide information—what we can observe with our own eyes enables us to understand. Constantly expanding the field of perception into dimensions that are initially hidden from the naked eye, drives science forward. Today, increasingly powerful microscopes let us see into the cells and tissues of living organisms, into the world of microorganisms as well as into inanimate nature.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-sharper-interior-semiconductors.html
2/27/2021 8:00 AMScientists at EPFL have discovered certain enzymes that play a central role in the stress responses that defend mitochondria from stress, and promote health and longevity.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-aging-underlies-mitochondrial-stress-response.html
2/27/2021 10:00 AMFor centuries, mapmakers have agonized over how to accurately display our round planet on anything other than a globe. Now, a fundamental re-imagining of how maps can work has resulted in the most accurate flat map ever made.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-astrophysicists-re-imagine-world-distorted-radically.html
2/27/2021 12:00 PMEarth is home to millions of known species of plants and animals, but by no means are they distributed evenly. For instance, rainforests cover less than 2 percent of Earth’s total surface, yet they are home to 50 percent of Earth’s species. Oceans account for 71 percent of Earth’s total surface but contain only 15 percent of Earth’s species. What drives this uneven distribution of species on Earth is a major question for scientists.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-reveal-biogeographical-patterns-fern-diversity.html
2/27/2021 2:00 PMScientists at the University of Stirling have been able to unpick what determines the size and evolution of disease in a first-of-its-kind study.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-scientists-epidemic-size-evolution-first-of-its-kind.html
2/27/2021 4:00 PMA team of research physicists at Princeton University may have found a new way to control fusion reactions — an incremental step towards making fusion energy, the holy grail of energy production, a reality.https://futurism.com/the-byte/physicists-discover-new-trick-to-stabilize-fusion-reactors
2/27/2021 6:00 PMAs most of us learned in school, plants use sunlight to synthesize carbon dioxide (CO2) and water into carbohydrates in a process called photosynthesis. But nature’s “factories” don’t just provide us with food—they also generate insights into how ecosystems will react to a changing climate and carbon-filled atmosphere.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-photosynthesis-space.html
2/28/2021 8:00 AMGeologists have developed a new theory about the state of Earth billions of years ago after examining the very old rocks formed in the Earth’s mantle below the continents.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-clearer-insight-earth-hidden-crystals.html
2/28/2021 10:00 AMA team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, has found that mice that have been living a commensal life with humans for the longest amount of time are the best at problem-solving. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes experiments they conducted with mice from different regions.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-mice-humans-longest-problem-solving.html
2/28/2021 12:00 PMScientists have used cutting-edge research in quantum computation and quantum technology to pioneer a radical new approach to determining how our Universe works at its most fundamental level.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-quantum-collaboration-gravity-mysteries-universe.html
2/28/2021 2:00 PMSince Wilhelm Röntgen discovered them in 1895, X-rays have become a staple of medical imaging. In fact, barely a month after Röntgen’s famous paper was published, doctors in Connecticut took the first ever radiograph of a boy’s broken wrist.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-d-printing-perovskites-graphene-next-gen-x-ray.html
2/28/2021 4:00 PMResearchers have developed an extremely sensitive miniaturized optical fiber sensor that could one day be used to measure small pressure changes in the body.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-tiny-sensor-subtle-pressure-body.html
2/28/2021 6:00 PMWhen materials reach extremely small size scales, strange things begin to happen. One of those phenomena is the formation of mesocrystals.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-route-complex-crystals.html
3/1/2021 8:00 AMNumerous studies have shown that trained dogs can detect many kinds of disease—including lung, breast, ovarian, bladder, and prostate cancers, and possibly COVID-19—simply through smell. In some cases, involving prostate cancer for example, the dogs had a 99 percent success rate in detecting the disease by sniffing patients’ urine samples.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-disease-sniffing-device-rivals-dog-nose.html
3/1/2021 10:00 AMT 10
3/1/2021 12:00 PMNASA’s Juno probe, which is currently circling Jupiter, has spotted what appears to be the fiery blast of a meteoroid plunging into the planet.https://www.newscientist.com/article/2268199-juno-spacecraft-spots-meteor-fireball-lighting-up-jupiters-skies/
3/1/2021 2:00 PMA new trippy visualization by NASA researchers shows how a black hole distorts its appearance by skewing the matter around it and warping the light itself with its immense gravity.https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-black-hole-visualization
3/1/2021 4:00 PMSomething strange may be lurking in the outer solar system. The odd orbits of distant space rocks suggest there’s a giant, elusive world dubbed Planet Nine waiting out there to be discovered. But now, in a new research paper, a team of scientists suggest something far stranger may be influencing the orbits of these distant worlds. These astronomers say our solar system may be home to one of the earliest black holes in the universe: a primordial black hole.https://astronomy.com/news/2019/10/planet-nine-may-be-a-black-hole-the-size-of-a-baseball
3/1/2021 6:00 PMNorthwestern University synthetic biologist Joshua Leonard used to build devices when he was a child using electronic kits. Now he and his team have developed a design-driven process that uses parts from a very different kind of toolkit to build complex genetic circuits for cellular engineering.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-technology-enables-human-cells.html
3/2/2021 8:00 AMThe path to dark matter and other fundamental enigmas may be through a warped extra dimension, according to a new study that proposes a new theory of the universe.https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3vkny/scientists-have-proposed-a-new-particle-that-is-a-portal-to-a-5th-dimension
3/2/2021 10:00 AMT 10
3/2/2021 12:00 PMA study done by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich physicists demonstrates that fundamental characteristics of mopolymeric lecules, such as their subunit composition, are sufficient to trigger selection processes in a plausible prebiotic setting.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-life-darwinian-evolution.html
3/2/2021 2:00 PMAstronomers report the discovery of a new sub-Neptune exoplanet as part of the TESS Hunt for Young and Maturing Exoplanets (THYME) program. The newly found alien world, designated HD 110082 b, is about three times larger than the Earth and orbits a relatively young star.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-thyme-sub-neptune-exoplanet-orbiting-young.html
3/2/2021 4:00 PMA team of quantum theorists seeking to cure a basic problem with quantum annealing computers—they have to run at a relatively slow pace to operate properly—found something intriguing instead. While probing how quantum annealers perform when operated faster than desired, the team unexpectedly discovered a new effect that may account for the imbalanced distribution of matter and antimatter in the universe and a novel approach to separating isotopes.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-lack-symmetry-qubits-errors-quantum.html
3/2/2021 6:00 PMMessenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines to prevent COVID-19 have made headlines around the world recently, but scientists have also been working on mRNA vaccines to treat or prevent other diseases, including some forms of cancer. Now, researchers reporting in ACS’ Nano Letters have developed a hydrogel that, when injected into mice with melanoma, slowly released RNA nanovaccines that shrank tumors and kept them from metastasizing.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-mrna-vaccine-cancer-immunotherapy.html
3/3/2021 8:00 AMNew observations of the first black hole ever detected have led astronomers to question what they know about the Universe’s most mysterious objects.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-black-hole-massive-thought.html
3/3/2021 10:00 AMT 10
3/3/2021 12:00 PMThe chunk of space rock that killed the nonavian dinosaurs may have been a piece of a comet that Jupiter’s gravity kicked onto a collision course with Earth.https://www.space.com/dinosaur-killing-comet-oort-cloud
3/3/2021 2:00 PMIf you look toward the constellation Andromeda on a clear night far from city lights, you can barely make out a long, fuzzy blob called the Andromeda Galaxy. The Andromeda Galaxy, or M31, is the nearest large neighbor of our Milky Way, though it sits some 2.5 million light-years away. That makes it the most distant object regularly visible with the naked eye.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/01/meet-the-milky-ways-neighbor-the-andromeda-galaxy
3/3/2021 4:00 PMA two-meter-long painting of a kangaroo in Western Australia’s Kimberley region has been identified as Australia’s oldest intact rock painting.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-dating-techniques-reveal-australia-oldest.html
3/3/2021 6:00 PMAstronomers have long been looking into the vast universe in hopes of discovering alien civilisations. But for a planet to have life, liquid water must be present. The likelihood of that scenario has seemed impossible to calculate because it has been the assumption that planets like Earth got their water by chance when a large ice asteroid hit the planet.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-milky-swarming-planets-oceans-continents.html
3/4/2021 8:00 AMResearchers found they could coat a liquid elastic on the outside of a disc and spin it to form useful, complex patterns. When spun just right, tiny spindles rise from the material as it cures. The spindles grow as the disc accelerates, forming a soft solid that resembles hairs.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-artificial-hairs-clever-physics.html
3/4/2021 10:00 AMT 10
3/4/2021 12:00 PMBritish engineers are preparing to test the fuel mix that could one day power the largest nuclear fusion experiment in the world, Nature reports. Researchers at the Joint European Torus (JET), a fusion reactor at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, UK, began conducting fusion tests involving tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, back in December.https://futurism.com/scientists-testing-fuel-giant-fusion-reactor
3/4/2021 2:00 PMTracing back a ghostly particle to a shredded star, scientists have uncovered a gigantic cosmic particle accelerator. The subatomic particle, called a neutrino, was hurled towards Earth after the doomed star came too close to the supermassive black hole at the center of its home galaxy and was ripped apart by the black hole’s colossal gravity. It is the first particle that can be traced back to such a ‘tidal disruption event’ (TDE) and provides evidence that these little understood cosmic catastrophes can be powerful natural particle accelerators.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-ghost-particle-shredded-star-reveals.html
3/4/2021 4:00 PMLarge galaxies are known to strip the gas that occupies the space between the stars of smaller satellite galaxies.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-big-galaxies-star-forming-gas-smaller.html
3/4/2021 6:00 PMEuropa, one of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons, is not the most welcoming place. On the surface, daytime temperatures barely surpass −260 degrees Fahrenheit (–160 degrees Celsius), and a fractured, icy shell blankets the landscape. Giant geysers occasionally blast water vapor 125 miles (200 kilometers) above the surface — the equivalent of about 20 stacked Mount Everests. If these conditions weren’t enough to deter visitors, intense radiation from Jupiter would doom any living thing on the surface.https://astronomy.com/magazine/2019/08/how-we-might-find-life-on-europa
3/5/2021 8:00 AMBlack holes are regions in space where gravity is very strong—so strong that nothing that enters them can escape, including light. Theoretical predictions suggest that there is a radius surrounding black holes known as the event horizon. Once something passes the event horizon, it can no longer escape a black hole, as gravity becomes stronger as it approaches its center.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-stationary-hawking-analog-black-hole.html
3/5/2021 10:00 AMT 10
3/5/2021 12:00 PMBad news for any future Mars settlers: New research used data from NASA spacecraft to show that gravity waves emanating from the planet are making it even more inhospitable to life as time goes on.https://futurism.com/the-byte/mars-radiating-gravity-waves-bad-news-human-settlers
3/5/2021 2:00 PMFor the first time, scientists managed to open a line of two-way, real-time communication with sleeping volunteers who were in the midst of a lucid dream.https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-communicate-lucid-dreamers-sleep
3/5/2021 4:00 PMA new study at ISOLDE finds no signature of a “magic” number of neutrons in potassium-51, challenging the proposed magic nature of nuclei with 32 neutrons.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-potassium-nucleus-magic.html
3/5/2021 6:00 PMHaving a memory of past events enables us to take smarter decisions about the future. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPIDS) and Technical University of Munich (TUM) identify the basis for forming memories in the slime mold Physarum polycephalum—despite its lack of a nervous system.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-single-celled-slime-mold-nervous-food.html
3/6/2021 8:00 AMChina is just one of many countries in the Northern Hemisphere experiencing an extremely cold winter due in part to both the tropical Pacific and the Arctic, according to an analysis of temperatures from Dec. 1, 2020 to mid-January of 2021.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-arctic-tropical-pacific-synergistic-effects.html
3/6/2021 10:00 AMT 10
3/6/2021 12:00 PMA high-intensity accelerator beam is formed of trillions of particles that race at lightning speeds down a system of powerful magnets and high-energy superconductors. Calculating the physics of the beam is so complex that not even the fastest supercomputers can keep up.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-years-physicists-track-lost-particles.html
3/6/2021 2:00 PMPlans to build a prototype fusion power plant in the United States have come into tighter focus, as a new report lays out a rough timeline for building the multibillon-dollar plant and a strategy for developing its design. The United States should strive to start construction of the pilot by 2035 and to have it running by 2040, according to a report released this week by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). To meet that tight schedule, the report calls for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to help fund two to four teams that, in collaboration with private industry, would develop by 2028 different conceptual designs.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/02/road-map-us-fusion-power-plant-comes-clearer-focus-sort
3/6/2021 4:00 PMFishing primarily removes larger and more active fish from populations. It thus acts as a selection factor that favors shy fish, as a recent study by the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) shows. The promotion of rather small, shy and overall harder to catch fish has consequences for the quality of the fishery and makes it difficult to accurately survey the development of fish stocks.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-fishing-small-shy-fish-survival.html
3/6/2021 6:00 PMScientists have successfully sequenced the genome of an extinct cave bear using a 360,000-year-old bone—the oldest genome of any organism from a non-permafrost environment.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-dna-year-old-bone-reveals-oldest.html
3/7/2021 8:00 AMResearchers from the University of Illinois Chicago have discovered a new gene-editing technique that allows for the programming of sequential cuts—or edits—over time.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-gene-editing-tool.html
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3/7/2021 12:00 PMResearchers are developing a new battery powered by lab-grown gems made from reformed nuclear waste. If it works, it will last thousands of years.https://www.wired.com/story/are-radioactive-diamond-batteries-a-cure-for-nuclear-waste/
3/7/2021 2:00 PMThe future is a slippery thing, but sometimes physics can help. And while human destiny will remain ever unknown, the fate of two of our artifacts can be calculated in staggering detail.https://www.space.com/predicting-voyager-golden-records-distant-future
3/7/2021 4:00 PMGraphene, a two-dimensional material composed exclusively of carbon, has revealed extraordinary properties, including thermal and electrical conductivity, transparency, and flexibility. When combined, these properties become particularly interesting in the age of touch screens and flexible electronics. “Unlike 3-D materials, graphene has a height reduced to the ultimate dimension of the atom. It’s therefore a carbon atom plane,” explains Prof. Jean-Christophe Charlier, a specialist in nanoscopic physics at the Institute of Condensed Matter and Nanosciences of UCLouvain.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-magic-angle-graphene.html
3/7/2021 6:00 PMAn oldie but a goodie, how did NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex take advantage of the planet’s gravity?https://www.space.com/38226-how-gravity-assists-work-osiris-rex.html
3/8/2021 8:00 AMScientists from quantum computing company D-Wave have demonstrated that, using a method called quantum annealing, they could simulate some materials up to three million times faster than it would take with corresponding classical methods. Together with researchers from Google, the scientists set out to measure the speed of simulation in one of D-Wave’s quantum annealing processors, and found that performance increased with both simulation size and problem difficulty, to reach a million-fold speedup over what could be achieved with a classical CPU.https://www.zdnet.com/article/a-quantum-computer-just-solved-a-decades-old-problem-three-million-times-faster-than-a-classical-computer/
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3/8/2021 12:00 PMEvolutionary expert Charles Darwin and others recognized a close evolutionary relationship between humans, chimps and gorillas based on their shared anatomies, raising some big questions: how are humans related to other primates, and exactly how did early humans move around? Research by a Texas A&M University professor may provide some answers.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-million-year-old-skeleton-reveal-early-humans.html
3/8/2021 2:00 PMA large international team of researchers has proven that fragments of splitting atomic nuclei begin spinning after scission occurs during nuclear fission. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes their experiments, which may one day fully explain why such fragments begin spinning in the first place.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-fragments-atomic-nuclei-scission.html
3/8/2021 4:00 PMNASA is funding research for a conceptual telescope called a “solar gravitational lens” (SGL) that could allow us to observe distant exoplanets at an astonishing resolution — a futuristic endeavor that could help find out once and for all if we are alone in the universe.https://futurism.com/nasa-telescope-vegetation-exoplanets
3/8/2021 6:00 PMIn a breakthrough for quantum computing, University of Chicago researchers have sent entangled qubit states through a communication cable linking one quantum network node to a second node.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-entangled-qubit-states-channel.html
3/9/2021 8:00 AMAstronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) claim to have spotted the closest known black hole to Earth. The black hole is only 1,000 light-years from Earth — so close, the system it’s in can be seen in the southern hemisphere’s night sky with the naked eye, according to the researchers.https://futurism.com/astronomers-find-nearest-black-hole-earth
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3/9/2021 12:00 PMFreshwater is accumulating in the Arctic Ocean. The Beaufort Sea, which is the largest Arctic Ocean freshwater reservoir, has increased its freshwater content by 40% over the past two decades. How and where this water will flow into the Atlantic Ocean is important for local and global ocean conditions.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-record-high-arctic-freshwater-labrador-sea.html
3/9/2021 2:00 PMNASA just unveiled a new autonomous robot named BRUIE that it plans to send on the prowl for extraterrestrial life.https://futurism.com/the-byte/robot-nasa-hunt-aliens-ocean-worlds
3/9/2021 4:00 PMNearly a century after dark matter was first proposed to explain the motion of galaxy clusters, physicists still have no idea what it’s made of. Researchers around the world have built dozens of detectors in hopes of discovering dark matter. As a graduate student, I helped design and operate one of these detectors, aptly named HAYSTAC. But despite decades of experimental effort, scientists have yet to identify the dark matter particle.https://www.space.com/dark-matter-search-gets-quantum-tech-speed-boost
3/9/2021 6:00 PMOrbital Assembly Corporation (OAC) recently unveiled new details about its ambitious Voyager Station, which is projected to be the first commercial space station operating with artificial gravity.https://www.space.com/orbital-assembly-voyager-space-station-artificial-gravity-2025
3/10/2021 8:00 AMA team of researchers from the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography and their collaborators have revealed that the abundant microbes living in ancient sediment below the seafloor are sustained primarily by chemicals created by the natural irradiation of water molecules.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-microbes-deep-beneath-seafloor-survive.html
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3/10/2021 12:00 PMAfter traveling several billion miles toward the Sun, a wayward young comet-like object orbiting among the giant planets has found a temporary parking place along the way. The object has settled near a family of captured ancient asteroids, called Trojans, that are orbiting the Sun alongside Jupiter. This is the first time a comet-like object has been spotted near the Trojan population.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-comet-pit-jupiter-asteroids.html
3/10/2021 2:00 PMNew Horizons is currently deep within the Kuiper Belt, about 48 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun, where 1 AU is the average Earth-Sun distance. After passing Arrokoth, New Horizons is on the hunt for a new Kuiper Belt object to fly by.https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2021/02/ask-astro-can-new-horizons-help-us-find-planet-nine
3/10/2021 4:00 PMA supernova event signifies the end of a star’s life, leaving this universe with a bang. Not only do they leave clouds of gases and elements lying around for the next solar system to use, but they also emit gusts of cosmic radiation, which, according to a new study, may have had a profound effect on the biology of our planet in the past.https://astronomy.com/news/2016/07/ancient-gusts-of-cosmic-radiation-could-have-affected-earths-biology
3/10/2021 6:00 PMThe total amount of data generated worldwide is expected to reach 175 zettabytes (1 ZB equals 1 billion terabytes) by 2025. If 175 ZB were stored on Blu-ray disks, the stack would be 23 times the distance to the moon. There is an urgent need to develop storage technologies that can accommodate this enormous amount of data.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-sub-diffraction-optical-enables-storage-nanoscale.html
3/11/2021 8:00 AMA pair of researchers with the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Museum of Natural History in the U.S., respectively, has respectively, uncovered the first known example of a rebbachisaurid dinosaur to be found in Asia. Alexander Averianov and Hans-Dieter Sues have written a paper describing their find and where they believe it fits into the dinosaur ancestral tree.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-rebbachisaurid-dinosaur-asia.html
3/11/2021 10:00 AMThe ocean floor is vast and varied, making up more than 70% of the Earth’s surface. Scientists have long used information from sediments at the bottom of the ocean—layers of rock and microbial muck—to reconstruct the conditions in oceans of the past.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-pyrite-earth-ocean-atmosphere-local.html
3/11/2021 12:00 PMA team of researchers from Indonesia and Singapore has found evidence of the continued existence of a bird long thought extinct. In their paper published in the journal BirdingASIA, the team describes the history of the bird, why it was thought to be extinct and how it was found in Borneo.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-bird-believed-extinct-years-borneo.html
3/11/2021 2:00 PMFor the first time ever, researchers were able to catch space-time crystals on camera using a transmission X-ray microscope.https://futurism.com/video-space-time-crystals
3/11/2021 4:00 PMGravity was the first fundamental force that humanity recognized, yet it remains the least understood. Physicists can predict the influence of gravity on bowling balls, stars and planets with exquisite accuracy, but no one knows how the force interacts with minute particles, or quanta. The nearly century-long search for a theory of quantum gravity — a description of how the force works for the universe’s smallest pieces — is driven by the simple expectation that one gravitational rulebook should govern all galaxies, quarks and everything in between.https://www.space.com/quantum-gravity.html
3/11/2021 6:00 PMA team of international researchers went back to the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago to gain new insights into the cosmic origin of the heaviest elements on the period-ic table.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-radioactivity-meteorites-heaviest-elements-solar.html
3/12/2021 8:00 AMNASA’s Parker Solar Probe nailed its fourth swing past Venus on Feb. 20, and mission scientists celebrated by releasing a stunning image captured during a similar maneuver in July.https://www.space.com/stunning-venus-photo-parker-solar-probe-flyby
3/12/2021 10:00 AMNew observations of the first black hole ever detected have led astronomers to question what they know about the Universe’s most mysterious objects.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-black-hole-massive-thought.html
3/12/2021 12:00 PMOfficials at the Pompeii archaeological site in Italy announced Saturday the discovery of an intact ceremonial chariot, one of several important discoveries made in the same area outside the park near Naples following an investigation into an illegal dig.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-roman-chariot-unearthed-intact-pompeii.html
3/12/2021 2:00 PMThis summer, NASA plans to launch the most sophisticated Mars rover in history — a 2,260-pound behemoth which, if all goes well, will eventually send samples from the Red Planet back to Earth.https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-mars-life-hiding-underground
3/12/2021 4:00 PMFor more than 150 years, scientists have been incorrectly classifying a group of fossil insects as damselflies, the familiar cousins of dragonflies that flit around wetlands eating mosquitoes. While they are strikingly similar, these fossils have oddly shaped heads, which researchers have always attributed to distortion resulting from the fossilization process.https://phys.org/news/2021-02-paleontologists-insect-group-year-old-mystery.html
3/12/2021 6:00 PMNASA’s Perseverance rover has been spotted on the Martian surface by a camera high overhead, on the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.https://www.space.com/exomars-orbiter-spots-perseverance-rover-mars
3/13/2021 8:00 AMWithout electronics and photonics, there would be no computers, smartphones, sensors, or information and communication technologies. In the coming years, the new field of phononics may further expand these options. That field is concerned with understanding and controlling lattice vibrations (phonons) in solids. In order to realize phononic devices, however, lattice vibrations have to be controlled as precisely as commonly realized in the case of electrons or photons.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-skills-graphene-tunable-lattice-vibrations.html
3/13/2021 10:00 AMResearchers are in the search for generalisable rules and patterns in nature. Biogeographer Julia Kemppinen together with her colleagues tested if plant functional traits show similar patterns along microclimatic gradients across far-apart regions from the high-Arctic Svalbard to the sub-Antarctic Marion Island. Kemppinen and her colleagues found surprisingly identical patterns.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-tundra-vegetation-similar-patterns-microclimates.html
3/13/2021 12:00 PMAround 2.5 billion years ago, our planet experienced what was possibly the greatest change in its history: According to the geological record, molecular oxygen suddenly went from nonexistent to becoming freely available everywhere. Evidence for the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE) is clearly visible, for example, in banded iron formations containing oxidized iron. The GOE, of course, is what allowed oxygen-using organisms—respirators—and ultimately ourselves, to evolve. But was it indeed a ‘great event’ in the sense that the change was radical and sudden, or were the organisms alive at the time already using free oxygen, just at lower levels?https://phys.org/news/2021-03-great-oxygenation-event.html
3/13/2021 2:00 PMTissue engineering has long-depended on geometrically static scaffolds seeded with cells in the lab to create new tissues and even organs. The scaffolding material—usually a biodegradable polymer structure—is supplied with cells and the cells, if supplied with the right nutrients, then develop into tissue as the underlying scaffold biodegrades. But this model ignores the extraordinarily dynamic morphological processes that underlie the natural development of tissues.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-d-bioengineering-materials-natural-tissue.html
3/13/2021 4:00 PMThe Mars Perseverance Rover, which already has sent back some incredible images from the Red Planet, is equipped with 23 cameras designed for a host of tasks. Its main camera array is particularly impressive, able to see details as small as a tip of a pencil close by, and the size of an almond from a football field away in 3D.https://petapixel.com/2021/03/01/a-closer-look-at-the-mars-perseverance-rovers-incredible-cameras/
3/13/2021 6:00 PMThe Acheulean was estimated to have died out around 200,000 years ago but the new findings suggest it may have persisted for much longer, creating over 100,000 years of overlap with more advanced technologies produced by Neanderthals and early modern humans.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-neanderthal-early-modern-human-stone.html
3/14/2021 8:00 AMIn tropical oceans, a combination of sunlight and weak winds drives up surface temperatures in the afternoon, increasing atmospheric turbulence, unprecedented new observational data collected by an Oregon State University researcher shows.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-calm-days-sunlight-ocean-surface.html
3/14/2021 10:00 AMA giant iceberg, more than 20 times the size of Manhattan, just split off from Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf. This dramatic breakup comes after a major crack formed on the shelf in November 2020 and continued to grow until the ‘berg finally broke off February 26.https://www.space.com/brunt-ice-shelf-breaks-antarctica
3/14/2021 12:00 PMA half-melted hunk of iron-rich rock found in Uppsala, Sweden, is part of a meteorite that fell there in November 2020.https://www.space.com/iron-meteorite-recovered-sweden
3/14/2021 2:00 PMIn a world first, an international team of researchers has read an unopened letter from Renaissance Europe—without breaking its seal or damaging it in any way.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-secrets-17th-century-letters-revealed.html
3/14/2021 4:00 PMUsing the extinct niobium-92 atom, ETH researchers have been able to date events in the early solar system with greater precision than before. The study concludes that supernova explosions must have taken place in the birth environment of our sun.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-extinct-atom-reveals-long-kept-secrets.html
3/14/2021 6:00 PMAstronomers once thought the universe could collapse in a Big Crunch. Now most agree it will end with a Big Freeze.https://astronomy.com/news/magazine/2021/01/the-beginning-to-the-end-of-the-universe-the-big-crunch-vs-the-big-freeze
3/15/2021 8:00 AMThe backbone is the Swiss Army Knife of mammal locomotion. It can function in all sorts of ways that allows living mammals to have remarkable diversity in their movements. They can run, swim, climb and fly all due, in part, to the extensive reorganization of their vertebral column, which occurred over roughly 320 million years of evolution.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-mammal-ancestors-unique.html
3/15/2021 10:00 AMA team led by Vanderbilt engineers has achieved the ability to transmit two different types of optical signals across a single chip at the same time.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-photonics-discovery-portends-efficiencies-silicon.html
3/15/2021 12:00 PMFebruary marked significant progress for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which completed its final functional performance tests at Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, California. Testing teams successfully completed two important milestones that confirmed the observatory’s internal electronics are all functioning as intended, and that the spacecraft and its four scientific instruments can send and receive data properly through the same network they will use in space. These milestones move Webb closer to being ready to launch in October.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-nasa-james-webb-space-telescope.html
3/15/2021 2:00 PMWhen quantum computers become more powerful and widespread, they will need a robust quantum internet to communicate.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-quantum-internet-closer-reality.html
3/15/2021 4:00 PMAn international team of researchers has found evidence implicating a deep underground reservoir as the source of high levels of methane in the waters of the East Siberian Arctic Ocean. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes testing three isotopic forms of dissolved methane in the waters.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-east-siberian-arctic-ocean-elevated.html
3/15/2021 6:00 PMPowerful and deadly, the bite of a trap-jaw ant is renowned throughout the animal kingdom. Unlike normal gripping jaws, which rely on muscles to open and close, the trap-jaw latches itself open, storing energy like a stretched spring. When released, the jaws of the ansnap shut on their prey in one ultrafast strike.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-trap-jaw-ant-ultrafast.html
3/16/2021 8:00 AMScientists at the University of Bath in the UK have found a way to bind together two photons of different colors, paving the way for important advancements in quantum-electrodynamics—the field of science that describes how light and matter interact. In time, the team’s findings are likely to impact developments in optical and quantum communication, and precision measurements of frequency, time and distances.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-photon-photon-polaritons-intriguing-particles-emerge.html
3/16/2021 10:00 AMIf you drive south through central Utah on Interstate 15 and look west somewhere around Fillmore, you’ll see smooth hills and fields of black rock. The area is, aptly, named the Black Rock Desert. It may not look like much, but you’re looking at some of Utah’s volcanoes.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-unusual-earthquakes-highlight-central-utah.html
3/16/2021 12:00 PMA pair of researchers from Toho University and NASA Nexus for Exoplanet System Science has found evidence, via simulation, that Earth will lose its oxygen-rich atmosphere in approximately 1 billion years. In their paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience, Kazumi Ozaki and Christopher Reinhard describe the factors that went into their simulation and what it showed.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-simulations-earth-oxygen-rich-atmosphere-billion.html
3/16/2021 2:00 PMMany animals feign death to try to escape their predators, with some individuals in prey species remaining motionless, if in danger, for extended lengths of time.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-animals-fake-death-periods-predators.html
3/16/2021 4:00 PMUsing ground-based facilities and space telescopes, an international team of astronomers has conducted multiwavelength observations of a galaxy cluster known as CLJ1449+0856. The observational campaign detected multiple faint radio-jets, what could shed more light on the nature of this cluster. The finding is reported in a paper published February 23 on the arXiv pre-print server.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-astronomers-faint-radio-jets-galaxy-cluster.html
3/16/2021 6:00 PMThe cell membranes of all organisms contain ion channels that permit ions to pass into or out of the cell, and these channels play extremely important roles in fundamental physiological processes such as heartbeats and the rapid conduction of signals along neurons. An important property of these ion channels is their selective conductivity—they selectively permit the passage of particular ions. For example, potassium channels more readily permit the passage of potassium ions than the passage of sodium ions, despite the fact that potassium ions are larger.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-mechanism-cellular-ion-channels.html
3/17/2021 8:00 AMAbout 17 years ago, J. Martin Laming, an astrophysicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, theorized why the chemical composition of the Sun’s tenuous outermost layer differs from that lower down. His theory has recently been validated by combined observations of the Sun’s magnetic waves from the Earth and from space.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-astrophysicist-theory-sun-composition-varies.html
3/17/2021 10:00 AMA new study published today in the journal Geophysical Research Letters used NASA’s ice-measuring laser satellite to identify atmospheric river storms as a key driver of increased snowfall in West Antarctica during the 2019 austral winter.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-atmospheric-rivers-mass-west-antarctica.html
3/17/2021 12:00 PMThe question astronomers hear the most is why isn’t Pluto a planet anymore? More than 10 years ago, astronomers famously voted to change Pluto’s classification. But the question still comes up.https://astronomy.com/news/2019/12/why-do-astronomers-keep-changing-what-it-means-to-be-a-planet
3/17/2021 2:00 PMFor the first time, scientists have assessed how many corals there are in the Pacific Ocean—and evaluated their risk of extinction.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-trillion-corals-world-first-coral-prompts.html
3/17/2021 4:00 PMThe North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) is a gravitational-wave detector that monitors areas in the vicinity of Earth using a network of pulsars (i.e., clock-like stars). At the end of 2020, the NANOGrav collaboration gathered evidence of fluctuations in the timing data of 45 pulsars, which could be compatible with a stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) signal at nanohertz frequencies.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-theoretical-pulsar-nanograv.html
3/17/2021 6:00 PMNew cryo-electron microscopy images suggest archaeal microbes pack their chromatin into tight coils that can spring open, forming unexpected contortions.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-flexible-slinkies-dna-archaea.html
3/17/2021 9:00 PMThe rapid loss of variation within species is a hidden biodiversity crisis, according to the authors of a new study looking at how this variation supports essential ecological functions and the benefits nature provides for people.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-scientists-hidden-biodiversity-crisis-variation.html
3/18/2021 8:00 AMPlants have a metabolic signal that adjusts their circadian clock in the evening to ensure they store enough energy to survive the night, a new study reveals.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-bedtime-alarm-survival.html
3/18/2021 10:00 AMFew terms are more ubiquitous in the scientific arena these days than “quantum.” Technologies based on the notoriously tricky laws of quantum mechanics promise to enable computers much more powerful than today’s fastest supercomputers, unhackable secure communications and unprecedented sensing capabilities necessary for further scientific discovery.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-quantum-milestone.html
3/18/2021 12:00 PMJapanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa announced that he’s inviting eight members of the public to get onboard a SpaceX Starship with him and fly around the Moon as soon as 2023.https://futurism.com/the-byte/billionaire-eight-people-moon-free
3/18/2021 2:00 PMA new comet is on its way in toward the sun, with prospects that it may become bright enough to see with the unaided eye by year’s end.https://www.space.com/newfound-comet-leonard-visible-2021
3/18/2021 4:00 PMHow many new particles has the LHC discovered? The most widely known discovery is of course that of the Higgs boson. Less well known is the fact that, over the past 10 years, the LHC experiments have also found more than 50 new particles called hadrons. Coincidentally, the number 50 appears in the context of hadrons twice, as 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of hadron colliders: on 27 January 1971, two beams of protons collided for the first time in CERN’s Intersecting Storage Rings accelerator, making it the first accelerator in history to produce collisions between two counter-rotating beams of hadrons.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-large-hadron-collider-tally-hadrons.html
3/18/2021 6:00 PMMeasuring the size of atomic nuclei has sometimes been useful to probe aspects of nucleon-nucleon interaction and the bulk properties of nuclear matter. The charge radius of atomic nuclei, which can be extracted using laser spectroscopy techniques, is sensitive to both the bulk properties of nuclear matter and particularly subtle details of the interactions between protons and neutrons.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-unveil-issues-nuclear-theory-magic.html
3/19/2021 8:00 AMThe source of potentially hazardous solar particles, released from the Sun at high speed during storms in its outer atmosphere, has been located for the first time by researchers at UCL and George Mason University, Virginia, U.S.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-source-hazardous-high-energy-particles-sun.html
3/19/2021 10:00 AMIt’s an idea worthy of a Jules Verne novel; a mysterious layer at the center of our planet. Now researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) have confirmed the existence of the Earth’s “innermost inner core.”https://phys.org/news/2021-03-scientists-deep-reveal-earth-hidden.html
3/19/2021 12:00 PMNew research from Royal Holloway, has found water and organic matter on the surface of an asteroid sample returned from the inner Solar System. This is the first time that organic materials, which could have provided chemical precursors for the origin of life on Earth, have been found on an asteroid.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-materials-essential-life-earth-surface.html
3/19/2021 2:00 PMFish school, insects swarm and birds fly in murmurations. Now, new research finds that on the most basic level, this kind of group behavior forms a new kind of active matter, called a swirlonic state.https://www.space.com/swirlonic-matter-unusual-behavor.html
3/19/2021 4:00 PMLast year, astronomers were puzzled when Betelguese, the bright red supergiant star in the constellation Orion, dramatically faded, but then recovered. The dimming lasted for weeks. Now, astronomers have turned their sights toward a monster star in the adjoining constellation Canis Major, the Great Dog.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-hubble-mystery-monster-star-dimming.html
3/19/2021 6:00 PMA pair of researchers at Applied Physics has created what they describe as the first general model for a warp drive, a model for a space craft that could travel faster than the speed of light, without actually breaking the laws of physics.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-potential-real-physical-warp.html
3/20/2021 8:00 AMLawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists have achieved a near 100 percent increase in the amount of antimatter created in the laboratory.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-creation-antimatter-laser-energy.html
3/20/2021 10:00 AMTexas A&M University researchers have recently shown superior performance of a new oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) alloy they developed for use in both fission and fusion reactors.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-nuclear-resilient-oxide-dispersion-alloy.html
3/20/2021 12:00 PMA new path toward sending and receiving information with single photons of light has been discovered by an international team of researchers led by the University of Michigan.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-egg-carton-quantum-dot-array.html
3/20/2021 2:00 PMVolcanic eruptions, not natural variability, were the cause of an apparent “Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation,” a purported cycle of warming thought to have occurred on a timescale of 40 to 60 years during the pre-industrial era, according to a team of climate scientists who looked at a large array of climate modeling experiments.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-apparent-atlantic-artifact-climate.html
3/20/2021 4:00 PMA study by Monash scientists has found that a rare earth affects the fate of a key reaction with copper, gold, silver, and uranium mineralisation.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-rare-earth-copper-gold-silver.html
3/20/2021 6:00 PMA newly discovered alien world could help astronomers better understand the atmospheres of rocky planets. The newfound exoplanet, Gliese 486 b, circles a dim red dwarf star just 26 light-years from Earth and is about 1.3 times larger and 2.8 times more massive than our home planet, a new study reports.https://www.space.com/alien-planet-gliese-486-b-discovery
3/21/2021 8:00 AMWhen you think about what separates humans from chimpanzees and other apes, you might think of our big brains, or the fact that we get around on two legs rather than four. But we have another distinguishing feature: water efficiency.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-humans-evolved-closest-primate-relatives.html
3/21/2021 10:00 AMResearchers in the UK have developed a way to coax microscopic particles and droplets into precise patterns by harnessing the power of sound in air. The implications for printing, especially in the fields of medicine and electronics, are far-reaching.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-life-rich-pattern-future.html
3/21/2021 12:00 PMA critical ingredient for auroras exists much higher in space than previously thought, according to new research in the journal Scientific Reports. The dazzling light displays in the polar night skies require an electric accelerator to propel charged particles down through the atmosphere. Scientists at Nagoya University and colleagues in Japan, Taiwan and the U.S. have found that it exists beyond 30,000 kilometers above the Earth’s surface—offering insight not just about Earth, but other planets as well.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-story-polar-aurora-bigger-unknown.html
3/21/2021 2:00 PMDuring the past 25 years astronomers have discovered a wide variety of exoplanets, made of rock, ice and gas, thanks to the construction of astronomical instruments designed specifically for planet searches. Also, using a combination of different observing techniques they have been able to determine a large number of masses, sizes, and hence densities of the planets, which helps them to estimate their internal composition and raises the number of planets which have been discovered outside the Solar System.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-super-earth-planetary-atmosphere.html
3/21/2021 4:00 PMIn September 2020, the LIGO/Virgo collaboration, a large team of scientists working at different universities worldwide, announced that they had detected most massive gravitational wave binary signal observed to date, which they called GW190521. In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, they explored the hypothesis that this signal was produced by the merger of two black holes, with at least the primary component mass in the mass gap predicted by the pair-instability supernova theory.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-gw190521-event-primordial-black-holes.html
3/21/2021 6:00 PMSatellite imagery shows that the area covered by kelp forests off the coast of Northern California has dropped by more than 95 percent, with just a few small, isolated patches of bull kelp remaining. Species-rich kelp forests have been replaced by “urchin barrens,” where purple sea urchins cover a seafloor devoid of kelp and other algae.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-collapse-northern-california-kelp-forests.html
3/22/2021 8:00 AMRoundworms don’t have eyes or the light-absorbing molecules required to see. Yet, new research shows they can somehow sense color. The study, published in the journal Science, suggests worms use this ability to assess the risk of feasting on potentially dangerous bacteria that secrete blue toxins. The researchers pinpointed two genes that contribute to this spectral sensitivity and are conserved across many organisms, including humans.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-roundworms-wavelengths-environment-dangerous-bacteria.html
3/22/2021 10:00 AMThe amount of snow falling on Greenland’s glaciers may have been less than the water lost through icebergs calving and melting since at least the mid-1980s, a study of almost 40 years of satellite images has revealed.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-greenland-ice-loss-begun-early.html
3/22/2021 12:00 PMAn international research team led by chemist Prof. Thomas Heine of TU Dresden has discovered a new two-dimensional material with unprecedented properties: regardless of whether it is strained or compressed, it always expands. This so-called half-auxetic behavior has not been observed before and is therefore very promising for the design of new applications, especially in nano-sensorics.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-compression-strainthe-material.html
3/22/2021 2:00 PMHow and when do mountains grow? It is tempting to think of mountain formation as something that takes place only extremely gradually, on timescales of tens of millions of years. One tectonic plate slowly pushes up against and slightly under another, until eventually up rises a mountain range. Of course, that picture is far too simplistic. We know, for example, that processes like erosion and earthquakes affect the way mountains grow.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-himalaya-great-mountains-falling.html
3/22/2021 4:00 PMNearly 2600 years ago, a man was beheaded near modern-day York, U.K.—for what reasons, we still don’t know—and his head was quickly buried in the clay-rich mud. When researchers found his skull in 2008, they were startled to find that his brain tissue, which normally rots rapidly after death, had survived for millennia—even maintaining features such as folds and grooves.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/how-chunk-human-brain-survived-intact-2600-years
3/22/2021 6:00 PMAstrophysicists have an idea that could help to solve two mysteries: the reason for the bizarre abundance of super-high-energy radiation shooting from the center of our galaxy and the identity of invisible stuff called dark matter that has perplexed the world since its discovery some 50 years ago.https://www.space.com/gravity-portals-solve-dark-matter-gamma-ray-mystery
3/23/2021 8:00 AMA team of researchers and engineers at Canadian company Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc., working with the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the U.S., has developed a programmable, scalable photonic quantum chip that can execute multiple algorithms. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes how they made their chip, its characteristics and how it can be used. Ulrik Andersen with the Technical University of Denmark has published a News & Views piece in the same journal issue outlining current research on quantum computers and the work by the team in Canada.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-xanadu-programmable-photonic-quantum-chip.html
3/23/2021 10:00 AMBlack holes, those gravitational monsters so named because no light can escape their clutches, are by far the most mysterious objects in the universe. But a new theory proposes that black holes may not be black at all. According to a new study, these black holes may instead be dark stars home to exotic physics at their core. This mysterious new physics may cause these dark stars to emit a strange type of radiation; that radiation could in turn explain all the mysterious dark matter in the universe, which tugs on everything but emits no light.https://www.space.com/black-holes-not-black-planck-hearts
3/23/2021 12:00 PMThe earliest multicellular organisms may have lacked heads, legs, or arms, but pieces of them remain inside of us today, new research shows. According to a UC Riverside study, 555-million-year-old oceanic creatures from the Ediacaran period share genes with today’s animals, including humans.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-surprisingly-similar-earth-animals.html
3/23/2021 2:00 PMLarge tropical volcanos have caused some of the world’s most destructive natural disasters in history, with eruptions spewing out massive quantities of harmful gases and other debris that can wipe out everything in their path.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-volcanic-eruptions-large-persistent-impacts.html
3/23/2021 4:00 PMFor the first time, astronomers have detected a powerful, 600-mile-wide (1,000 kilometers) hurricane of plasma in Earth’s upper atmosphere — a phenomenon they’re calling a “space hurricane.”https://www.space.com/space-hurricane-over-north-pole
3/23/2021 6:00 PMAccording to a new analysis, a meteorite found last year in Algeria is actually older than the Earth itself.https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-chunk-ancient-planet-africa
3/24/2021 8:00 AMPierfranco Demontis said in 1988, “Ice becomes a fast-ion conductor at high pressure and high temperatures,” but his prediction was only hypothetical until recently. After 30 years of study, superionic water ice was verified experimentally in 2018. Superionicity may eventually explain the strong magnetic field in giant planetary interiors.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-earth-deep-mantle-proton-rivers.html
3/24/2021 10:00 AMAstronomers have discovered evidence for an extraordinarily long jet of particles from a supermassive black hole in the early Universe, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-gigantic-jet-spied-black-hole.html
3/24/2021 12:00 PMA piece of the space rock that lit up skies over England on Feb. 28 has been found. The singed hunk of asteroid was discovered in the driveway of a house in Winchcombe, a small town in the county of Gloucestershire in southwestern England. The rock, which weighs nearly 10.6 ounces (300 grams), is the first meteorite found in the UK since 1991, experts said, and the first known carbonaceous chondrite ever discovered in the country.https://www.space.com/meteorite-uk-fireball-discovery
3/24/2021 2:00 PMRecent advancements in the development of experimental Bell tests have enabled the implementation of a new type of device-independent random number generator. Remarkably, this new type of random number generators can be realized with malicious quantum devices, without requiring detailed models of the quantum devices used.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-device-independent-protocol-efficient-random.html
3/24/2021 4:00 PMWhen it comes to microelectronics, there is one chemical element like no other: silicon, the workhorse of the transistor technology that drives our information society. The countless electronic devices we use in everyday life are a testament to how today very high volumes of silicon-based components can be produced at very low cost. It seems natural, then, to use silicon also in other areas where the properties of semiconductors—as silicon is one—are exploited technologically, and to explore ways to integrate different functionalities. Of particular interest in this context are diode lasers, such as those employed in barcode scanners or laser pointers, which are typically based on gallium arsenide (GaAs). Unfortunately though, the physical processes that create light in GaAs do not work so well in silicon. It therefore remains an outstanding, and long-standing, goal to find an alternative route to realizing a ‘laser on silicon.’https://phys.org/news/2021-03-key-long-sought-goal-silicon-based-laser.html
3/24/2021 6:00 PMThe fossil in question is that of an oviraptorosaur, a group of bird-like theropod dinosaurs that thrived during the Cretaceous Period, the third and final time period of the Mesozoic Era (commonly known as the ‘Age of Dinosaurs’) that extended from 145 to 66 million years ago. The new specimen was recovered from uppermost Cretaceous-aged rocks, some 70 million years old, in Ganzhou City in southern China’s Jiangxi Province.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-world-dinosaur-eggs-fossilized-babies.html
3/25/2021 8:00 AMA laboratory experiment captured the pull between two minuscule gold spheres, paving the way for experiments that probe the quantum nature of gravity.https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/physicists-measure-the-gravitational-force-between-the-smallest-masses-yet/
3/25/2021 10:00 AMTwo-dimensional (2D) materials, such as graphene or transition metal dichalcogenides, can sometimes be assembled into bilayers with a twist between individual layers. In recent years, many researchers have been investigating the properties of these twisted double-layer structures and their potential advantages for fabricating electronic devices.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-high-temperature-topological-superconductivity-double-layer-copper.html
3/25/2021 12:00 PM“You see, nature is unpredictable. How do you expect to predict it with a computer?” said American physicist Richard Feynman before computer scientists at a conference in 1981. Forty years later, Purdue University engineers are building the kind of system that Feynman imagined would overcome the limitations of today’s classical computers by more closely acting like nature: a “probabilistic computer.”https://phys.org/news/2021-03-naturally-probabilistic.html
3/25/2021 2:00 PMWhat do you do after solving the answer to life, the universe, and everything? If you’re mathematicians Drew Sutherland and Andy Booker, you go for the harder problem.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-sum-cubes-puzzle-solution.html
3/25/2021 4:00 PMRecent observations have shown that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of each galaxy. However, what is the origin of these supermassive black holes? It is still a mystery today. An international research team led by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) in Taiwan has predicted an extreme supernova from a supermassive star, possible the progenitor of supermassive black holes. Their calculation suggested that this supernova can be observed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that will be launched by the end of 2021.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-massive-stars-early-universe-progenitors.html
3/25/2021 6:00 PMGeologists have long thought tectonic plates move because they are pulled by the weight of their sinking portions and that an underlying, hot, softer layer called asthenosphere serves as a passive lubricant. But a team of geologists at the University of Houston has found that layer is actually flowing vigorously, moving fast enough to drive plate motions.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-geologists-powerful-river-caribbean.html
3/26/2021 8:00 AMAn international team of scientists with Fridgeir Grímsson from the University of Vienna has found a previously unknown fossil fly species in old lake sediments of the Messel Pit, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Germany. In the stomach of the fossil insect, pollen from various plants could be detected, which allows rare insights into the feeding behavior, the ecology and the role of the fly as a pollinator.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-fossilized-frenzy-million-year-old-full-belly.html
3/26/2021 10:00 AMThe recent synthesis of one-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures, a type of heterostructure made by layering two-dimensional materials that are one atom thick, may lead to new, miniaturized electronics that are currently not possible, according to a team of Penn State and University of Tokyo researchers.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-sushi-like-2d-heterostructures-miniaturized-electronics.html
3/26/2021 12:00 PMNew research conducted at the UNESCO World Heritage listed ‘Plain of Jars’ in Laos has established the stone jars were likely placed in their final resting position from as early as 1240 to 660 BCE.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-mystery-laos-megalithic-jars.html
3/26/2021 2:00 PMOrbiting a red dwarf star 41 light-years away is an Earth-sized, rocky exoplanet called GJ 1132 b. In some ways, GJ 1132 b has intriguing parallels to Earth, but in other ways it is very different. One of the differences is that its smoggy, hazy atmosphere contains a toxic mix of hydrogen, methane and hydrogen cyanide. Scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have found evidence this is not the planet’s original atmosphere, and that the first one was blasted away by blistering radiation from GJ 1132 b’s nearby parent star. The so-called “secondary atmosphere” is thought to be formed as molten lava beneath the planet’s surface continually oozes up through volcanic fissures. Gases seeping through these cracks seem to be constantly replenishing the atmosphere, which would otherwise also be stripped away by the star. This is the first time a secondary atmosphere has been detected on a world outside our solar system.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-earth-sized-exoplanet-lost-atmosphere-gained.html
3/26/2021 4:00 PMHumans today take Earth’s magnetic North Pole for granted. But over the course of the planet’s history, the direction of its magnetic field has shifted. A new study suggests that the last time the field flipped around and flopped back again, the effects on Earth’s surface were cataclysmic, Carolyn Gramling reports for Science News.https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/did-ancient-magnetic-field-reversal-cause-chaos-life-earth-180977072/
3/26/2021 6:00 PMMagnetic reconnection shows the reconfiguration of magnetic field geometry. It plays an elemental role in the rapid release of magnetic energy and its conversion to other forms of energy in magnetized plasma systems throughout the universe.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-vacuum-solar-telescope-reveals-magnetic.html
3/27/2021 8:00 AMCatastrophic collapse of materials and structures is the inevitable consequence of a chain reaction of locally confined damage—from solid ceramics that snap after the development of a small crack to metal space trusses that give way after the warping of a single strut.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-team-ultralightweight-crush-resistant-tensegrity-metamaterials.html
3/27/2021 10:00 AMFor the first time ever, a Northwestern University-led research team has peered inside a human cell to view a multi-subunit machine responsible for regulating gene expression.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-reveal-3d-responsible-gene.html
3/27/2021 12:00 PMNASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered the remains of a rare kind of stellar explosion near the center of the Milky Way. Supernovas are stellar explosions that seed the galaxy with elements vital for life. Sagittarius A East (or Sgr A East) is a supernova remnant that lies near Sagittarius A* — the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way. This supernova remnant is the first known example in our own Milky Way galaxy of an unusual type of white dwarf stellar explosion called a Type Iax supernova, according to a statement from the Chandra X-ray Observatory.https://www.space.com/rare-supernova-relic-milky-way-core
3/27/2021 2:00 PMIn recent years, there have been significant advancements in the development of digital quantum computers and simulators. These emerging physical systems are opening up unprecedented possibilities for controlling and measuring a variety of quantum dynamics. As a result, some fundamental questions in many-body physics that would have previously been considered speculative and outside the realm of experimental exploration can now be examined in laboratory settings.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-protocol-explore-entanglement-dynamics-spacetime.html
3/27/2021 4:00 PMScientists have long theorized that supermassive black holes can wander through space—but catching them in the act has proven difficult.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-astronomers-black-hole.html
3/27/2021 6:00 PMAstronomers have painted their best picture yet of an RV Tauri variable, a rare type of stellar binary where two stars—one approaching the end of its life—orbit within a sprawling disk of dust. Their 130-year dataset spans the widest range of light yet collected for one of these systems, from radio to X-rays.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-scientists-aged-star-century.html
3/28/2021 8:00 AMProteins are the key component in all modern forms of life. Hemoglobin, for example, transports the oxygen in our blood; photosynthesis proteins in the leaves of plants convert sunlight into energy; and fungal enzymes help us to brew beer and bake bread. Researchers have long been examining the question of how proteins mutate or come into existence in the course of millennia. That completely new proteins—and, with them, new properties—can emerge practically out of nothing, was inconceivable for decades, in line with what the Greek philosopher Parmenides said: “Nothing can emerge from nothing” (ex nihilo nihil fit). Working with colleagues from the U.S. and Australia, researchers from the University of Münster (Germany) have now reconstructed how evolution forms the structure and function of a newly emerged protein in flies. This protein is essential for male fertility.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-proteins.html
3/28/2021 10:00 AMPhysicists exploring the quantum world watched the birth of a quasiparticle, shedding light on the strange behavior of these bizarre “fake particles.”https://www.space.com/quantum-physicists-watch-birth-quasiparticle
3/28/2021 12:00 PMRussian scientists launched one of the world’s biggest underwater space telescopes to peer deep into the universe from the pristine waters of Lake Baikal.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-russia-deploys-giant-space-telescope.html
3/28/2021 2:00 PMMethane raindrops on Titan could grow to be almost a centimeter across, nearly twice the size of large raindrops on Earth (about 6 millimeters). And, thanks to Titan’s thicker atmosphere and lower gravity, they would fall much more slowly, roughly 5.2 feet per second (1.6 m/s), the speed at which snowflakes fall on Earth (compared to rates of terrestrial rainfall at up to 30 ft/s [9 m/s]). The slower speed and larger drops would make it easier to see that raindrops (on Titan and Earth) tend to be distorted and flattened by the atmosphere as they fall.https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2015/05/titanic-raindrops
3/28/2021 4:00 PMScientists think they’ve spied an alien world that lost its atmosphere — then conjured itself a new one.https://www.space.com/hubble-finds-lava-exoplanet-with-second-atmosphere
3/28/2021 6:00 PMAs far back as the Greek historian Herodotus, a group of people called the Scythians were considered highly mobile warrior nomads.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-scythian-people-werent-nomadic-warriors.html
3/29/2021 8:00 AMAstronomers simulated what humans will see on Earth when the star Betelgeuse explodes as a supernova sometime in the next 100,000 years.https://astronomy.com/news/2020/02/when-betelgeuse-goes-supernova-what-will-it-look-like-from-earth
3/29/2021 10:00 AMAfter 20 years of continuous habitation, the International Space Station has entered its “Golden Age” and is abuzz with activity—thanks in large part to the return of US rocket launches via commercial partner SpaceX. But though the near- future of this symbol of post-Cold War cooperation is assured, NASA wants to begin disengaging by the end of the decade, leaving a gap that the private sector and China hope to fill.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-spacex-partnership-iss-golden-agebut.html
3/29/2021 12:00 PMIn 1966, US Army scientists drilled down through nearly a mile of ice in northwestern Greenland—and pulled up a fifteen-foot-long tube of dirt from the bottom. Then this frozen sediment was lost in a freezer for decades. It was accidentally rediscovered in 2017.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-scientists-stunned-beneath-mile-deep-greenland.html
3/29/2021 2:00 PMWhen Steamboat Geyser, the world’s tallest, started erupting again in 2018 in Yellowstone National Park after decades of relative silence, it raised a few tantalizing scientific questions. Why is it so tall? Why is it erupting again now? And what can we learn about it before it goes quiet again?https://phys.org/news/2021-03-scientists-plumb-depths-world-tallest.html
3/29/2021 4:00 PMAn important Maya man buried nearly 1,300 years ago led a privileged yet difficult life. The man, a diplomat named Ajpach’ Waal, suffered malnutrition or illness as a child, but as an adult he helped negotiate an alliance between two powerful dynasties that ultimately failed. The ensuing political instability left him in reduced economic circumstances, and he probably died in relative obscurity.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-ancient-maya-ambassador-bones-life.html
3/29/2021 6:00 PMResearch by a team of chemists at the University of Toronto, led by Nobel Prize-winning researcher John Polanyi, is shedding new light on the behavior of molecules as they collide and exchange atoms during chemical reaction. The discovery casts doubt on a 90-year old theoretical model of the behavior of the “transition state”, intermediate between reagents and products in chemical reactions, opening a new area of research.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-discovery-knock-on-chemistry-frontier-reaction.html
3/30/2021 8:00 AMAstronomers think they might be able to detect black holes falling into wormholes using ripples in spacetime known as gravitational waves, but only if wormholes actually exist and such a scenario ever happened, a new study finds.https://www.space.com/black-holes-fall-into-wormholes-gravitational-waves.html
3/30/2021 10:00 AMMale animals are less likely to try to attract a mate when they are in poor condition, a paper published in Nature Ecology and Evolution has found. The study looked at how individual condition influences investment into courtship behavior in animals. Its author, Dr. Liam Dougherty (University of Liverpool) studied a sample of 147 animal species, obtaining data from eight taxonomic groups, with insects, fish, amphibians, and birds making up the majority of species.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-males-females-poor-condition.html
3/30/2021 12:00 PMThe hummingbird is named after the humming sound it makes when it hovers in front of flowers to feed. But only now has it become clear how the wing generates the hummingbird’s namesake sound when it is beating rapidly at 40 beats per second. Researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology, Sorama, a TU/e spin-off company, and Stanford University meticulously observed hummingbirds using 12 high-speed cameras, six pressure plates and 2176 microphones. They discovered that the soft, complex feathered wings of hummingbirds generate sound in a fashion similar to how the simpler wings of insect do. The new insights could help make devices like fans and drones quieter.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-technique-unravels-hummingbird-wings-characteristic.html
3/30/2021 2:00 PMNew results from the Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument on NASA’s Juno mission reveal for the first time the birth of auroral dawn storms—the early morning brightening unique to Jupiter’s spectacular aurorae. These immense, transient displays of light occur at both Jovian poles and had previously been observed only by ground-based and Earth-orbiting observatories, notably NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-nasa-juno-reveals-dark-jupiter.html
3/30/2021 4:00 PMFinnish astrophotographer J-P Metsavainio has released a Milky Way photo that took him nearly 12 years to create. The 1.7-gigapixel image has a cumulative exposure time of 1,250 hours.https://petapixel.com/2021/03/16/photographer-spends-12-years-1250-hours-exposing-photo-of-milky-way/
3/30/2021 6:00 PMOne of the most profound discoveries in planetary science over the past 25 years is that worlds with oceans beneath layers of rock and ice are common in our solar system. Such worlds include the icy satellites of the giant planets, like Europa, Titan and Enceladus, and distant planets like Pluto.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-theorizes-worlds-underground-oceans-conceal.html
3/31/2021 8:00 AMThe coronavirus’ structure is an all-too-familiar image, with its densely packed surface receptors resembling a thorny crown. These spike-like proteins latch onto healthy cells and trigger the invasion of viral RNA. While the virus’ geometry and infection strategy is generally understood, little is known about its physical integrity.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-ultrasound-potential-coronaviruses.html
3/31/2021 10:00 AMIn 2017, the first interstellar object from beyond our solar system was discovered via the Pan-STARRS astronomical observatory in Hawaii. It was named ‘Oumuamua, meaning “scout” or “messenger” in Hawaiian. The object was like a comet, but with features that were just odd enough to defy classification.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-scientists-extra-solar-oumuamua.html
3/31/2021 12:00 PMRadio telescopes are the world’s most sensitive radio receivers, capable of finding extremely faint wisps of radio emission coming from objects at the farthest reaches of the universe. Recently, a team of astronomers used the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to take advantage of a helping hand from nature to detect a distant galaxy that likely is the faintest radio-emitting object yet found.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-cosmic-lens-reveals-faint-radio.html
3/31/2021 2:00 PMSimple systems can reproduce faster than complex ones. So, how can the complexity of life have arisen from simple chemical beginnings? Starting with a simple system of self-replicating fibers, chemists at the University of Groningen have discovered that upon introducing a molecule that attacks the replicators, the more complex structures have an advantage. This system shows the way forward in elucidating how life can originate from lifeless matter.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-death-enables-complexity-chemical-evolution.html
3/31/2021 4:00 PMFor those who study what happens when magma and crust collide, igneous rocks like pegmatites are a welcome sight. But in addition to holding clues about Earth’s mineral and geologic processes, pegmatites deposits are known for containing diverse and richly colored mineral crystals that can be cut into spectacular gems. One of the largest — if not best — example is the Dom Pedro Aquamarine.https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-of-natural-history/2021/03/16/how-worlds-largest-aquamarine-gem-came-be/
3/31/2021 6:00 PMScientists have discovered a new species of ancient winged shark, which fed on plankton eons before the emergence of giant manta rays, according to new research. The species, Aquilolamna milarcae, which lived around 93 million years ago, was discovered in the north east of Mexico.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-discovery-winged-shark-cretaceous-seas.html
4/1/2021 8:00 AMCongratulating the natural satellite for moving on to new and exciting opportunities, NASA announced Monday that the moon would be leaving Earth’s orbit to take on a position with a bigger planet at the end of the month.https://www.theonion.com/nasa-announces-moon-will-be-leaving-earth-s-orbit-to-ta-1845480528
4/1/2021 10:00 AMT10
4/1/2021 12:00 PMNASA’s newest rover recorded audio of itself crunching over the surface of the Red Planet, adding a whole new dimension to Mars exploration.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-perseverance-rover-captures-mars.html
4/1/2021 2:00 PMIt’s not uncommon for crescent-shaped swaths of sand to dot the shorelines of meandering rivers. These swaths usually appear along the inner side of a river bend, where the bank wraps around the sandy patch, forming deposits known as a “point bars.”https://phys.org/news/2021-03-meandering-rivers-counter-point-bars-underlying.html
4/1/2021 4:00 PMWater is an ephemeral thing. It can emerge from an isolated spring, as if by magic, to birth a babbling brook. It can also course through a mighty river, seeping into the soil until all that remains downstream is a shady arroyo, the nearby trees offering the only hint of where the water has gone.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-reveal-extent-rivers-country-aquifers.html
4/1/2021 6:00 PMNewly excavated skeletal remains of an ankylosaurid—a large armored herbivore that lived during the Cretaceous Period—may indicate that members of this family of dinosaurs were able to dig, according to a study published in Scientific Reports. The specimen, known as MPC-D 100/1359, may further our understanding of ankylosaurid behavior during the Late Cretaceous (84-72 million years ago).https://phys.org/news/2021-03-prehistoric-armoured-dinosaur.html
4/2/2021 8:00 AMIn 2018, physicists showed that something interesting happens when two sheets of the nanomaterial graphene are placed on top of each other. When one layer is rotated to a “magic angle” of around 1.1 degrees with respect to the other, the system becomes a superconductor—meaning it conducts electricity with zero resistance. Even more exciting, there was evidence that it was an unconventional form of superconductivity—a type that can happen at temperatures well above absolute zero, where most superconducting materials function.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-electron-interaction-magic-angle-graphene.html
4/2/2021 10:00 AMT10
4/2/2021 12:00 PMProgress in the field of integrated circuits is measured by matching, exceeding, or falling behind the rate set forth by Gordon Moore, former CEO and co-founder of Intel, who said the number of electronic components, or transistors, per integrated circuit would double every year. That was more than 50 years ago, and surprisingly his prediction, now called Moore’s Law, came true.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-pace-law-exploring-material-class.html
4/2/2021 2:00 PMThe Research Group on Synthetic Biology for Biomedical Applications at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, has designed a cellular device capable of computing by printing cells on paper. For the first time, they have developed a living device that could be used outside the laboratory without a specialist, and it could be produced on an industrial scale at low cost.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-biological-device-capable-cells-paper.html
4/2/2021 4:00 PMFor 50 years, the research community has been hunting unsuccessfully for the so-called Odderon particle. Now, a Swedish-Hungarian research group has discovered the mythical particle with the help of extensive analysis of experimental data from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-evidence-elusive-odderon-particle.html
4/2/2021 6:00 PMUsing the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, a team of astronomers has directly measured winds in Jupiter’s middle atmosphere for the first time. By analyzing the aftermath of a comet collision from the 1990s, the researchers have revealed incredibly powerful winds, with speeds of up to 1450 kilometers an hour, near Jupiter’s poles. They could represent what the team have described as a “unique meteorological beast in our solar system.”https://phys.org/news/2021-03-powerful-stratospheric-jupiter.html
4/3/2021 8:00 AMOne of the best ways to study human evolution is by comparing us with nonhuman species that, evolutionarily speaking, are closely related to us. That closeness can help scientists narrow down precisely what makes us human, but that scope is so narrow it can also be extremely hard to define. To address this complication, researchers from Stanford University have developed a new technique for comparing genetic differences.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-technique-reveals-genes-underlying-human.html
4/3/2021 10:00 AMT10
4/3/2021 12:00 PMThe detected intensity from two coherent point-like light sources depends on their relative positions. It is a well-known phenomenon called optical interference. In general, the intensity can range from zero (destructive interference) to some maximum value (constructive interference).https://phys.org/news/2021-03-method-electron-properties-future-ultraviolet.html
4/3/2021 2:00 PMA strange dent in Earth’s magnetic field doses orbiting craft with high levels of radiation. It’s caused everything from periodic glitches to total mission failure.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/02/hidden-spaceflight-danger-the-south-atlantic-anomaly
4/3/2021 4:00 PMOne of great mysteries of human biology is how a single cell can give rise to the 37 trillion cells contained in the average body, each with its own specialized role. Researchers at Yale University and the Mayo Clinic have devised a way to recreate the earliest stages of cellular development that gives rise to such an amazing diversity of cell types.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-ancestrycom-cells.html
4/3/2021 6:00 PMMany machine learning algorithms on quantum computers suffer from the dreaded “barren plateau” of unsolvability, where they run into dead ends on optimization problems. This challenge had been relatively unstudied—until now. Rigorous theoretical work has established theorems that guarantee whether a given machine learning algorithm will work as it scales up on larger computers.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-barren-plateaus-key-quantum-machine.html
4/4/2021 8:00 AMA space telescope spotted a distant supermassive black hole spurting an X-ray jet. Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory found the jet coming from an object roughly 12.7 billion light-years from Earth, which is pretty early in the universe’s 13.77-billion-year-old history. If confirmed, this would be one of the farthest jet-shooting objects of its kind yet known.https://www.space.com/supermassive-black-hole-jet-bigger-than-milky-way
4/4/2021 10:00 AMT10
4/4/2021 12:00 PMAstronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory found the jet coming from an object roughly 12.7 billion light-years from Earth, which is pretty early in the universe’s 13.77-billion-year-old history. If confirmed, this would be one of the farthest jet-shooting objects of its kind yet known.https://www.space.com/supermassive-black-hole-jet-bigger-than-milky-way
4/4/2021 2:00 PMResearchers at the University of Ottawa have debunked the decade-old myth of metals being useless in photonics—the science and technology of light—with their findings, recently published in Nature Communications, expected to lead to many applications in the field of nanophotonics.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-metal-nanostructures.html
4/4/2021 4:00 PMSome astronomers believe there is a massive planet, far beyond the orbit of Neptune, orbiting the sun — but after years of searching, scientists have not found this theoretical world, which they’ve dubbed “Planet Nine.”https://www.space.com/planet-nine-little-black-hole.html
4/4/2021 6:00 PMWhat exactly is an event horizon?https://www.space.com/black-holes-event-horizon-explained.html
4/5/2021 8:00 AMAbig event in the insect world is approaching. Starting sometime in April or May, depending on latitude, one of the largest broods of 17-year cicadas will emerge from underground in a dozen states, from New York west to Illinois and south into northern Georgia. This group is known as Brood X, as in the Roman numeral for 10.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-billions-cicadas-trees.html
4/5/2021 10:00 AMT10
4/5/2021 12:00 PMA new type of rock created during large and exceptionally hot volcanic eruptions has been discovered beneath the Pacific Ocean.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-basalt-beneath-ocean.html
4/5/2021 2:00 PMThe eagle shark was probably not as fearsome as its name suggests. The ancient shark, described on March 19 in the journal Science, was most likely a slow-moving filter feeder that looked like a cross between a standard shark and a manta ray. But the eagle shark lived about 95 million years ago, 30 million years before modern rays appeared in the ocean. The find has paleontologists wondering of other ancient sharks took unusual shapes, since many are known only by the teeth they left behind.https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/discovery-95-million-year-old-eagle-shark-fossil-makes-waves-180977285/
4/5/2021 4:00 PMA snake that actually looks like many different snakes. It sounds like a riddle. It sort of is.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-uncovering-evolutionary-history-snake.html
4/5/2021 6:00 PMScientists are celebrating the long-sought discovery of the odderon, a strange phenomenon that appears only rarely when protons collide at high energies, such as inside particle accelerators. Though the odderon was first predicted to exist in the early 1970s, it wasn’t until recently that physicists finally gathered the data they needed at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider to confirm a true discovery.https://gizmodo.com/physicists-discover-the-elusive-odderon-first-predicte-1846513075
4/6/2021 8:00 AMA team of scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed the thinnest and most sensitive flow sensor, which could have significant implications for medical research and applications, according to new research.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-ultra-sensitive-microsensors.html
4/6/2021 10:00 AMT10
4/6/2021 12:00 PMA cast of so-called ‘nurse cells’ surrounds and supports the growing fruit fly egg during development, supplying the egg—or ‘oocyte’—with all the nutrients and molecules it needs to thrive. Long viewed as passive in this process, the Drosophila egg actually plays an active role not only in its own growth, but also in the growth of the surrounding nurse cells, Princeton University researchers report.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-fruit-egg-growth-highlighting-parallels.html
4/6/2021 2:00 PMScientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory have observed novel helical magnetic ordering in the topological compound EuIn2As2 which supports exotic electrical conduction tunable by a magnetic field. The discovery has significant implications for basic research into functional topological properties and may one day find use in a number of advanced technology applications.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-scientists-complex-tunable-magnetism-tied.html
4/6/2021 4:00 PMThe most famous storm in the solar system is an apex predator. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot feasted on numerous smaller storms that wandered into its neighborhood recently, possibly even gaining sustenance from these meals, a new study suggests.https://www.space.com/jupiter-great-red-spot-eats-smaller-storms
4/6/2021 6:00 PMFighting among social animals is common as they compete for the resources they need to survive and reproduce. A winner and a loser will inevitably result from these interactions, but do these challenges also leave an unseen, lasting mark?https://phys.org/news/2021-03-day-competition-wild-encoded-songbird.html
4/7/2021 8:00 AMUsing the Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers from Chile have performed a chemical analysis of a sample of stars in the globular cluster NGC 6553. Results of this study, available in a paper published March 12 on the arXiv pre-print server, shed more light on the chemical composition of this cluster.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-chilean-chemical-composition-globular-cluster.html
4/7/2021 10:00 AMT10
4/7/2021 12:00 PMThe LHCb Collaboration at CERN has found particles not behaving in the way they should according to the guiding theory of particle physics—the Standard Model.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-result-lhcb-theory-physics.html
4/7/2021 2:00 PMSci-fi writers have long leaned on the wormhole as an important plot device. It’s a quick way to get characters from point A to point B, across the vast distances in spacetime, in a matter of seconds.https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a35795047/traversable-wormholes-could-exist-in-real-world/
4/7/2021 4:00 PMResearchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden, have developed a novel type of thermometer that can simply and quickly measure temperatures during quantum calculations with extremely high accuracy. The breakthrough provides a benchmarking tool for quantum computing of great value—and opens up for experiments in the exciting field of quantum thermodynamics.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-thermometer-quantum.html
4/7/2021 6:00 PMThe strange signals known as “fast radio bursts” (FRBs) have long mystified the astronomy community. The sudden, strong radio pulses, often emanating from distant galaxies, appear at regularly timed intervals, from every few of milliseconds to weeks — and we still aren’t entirely sure what they are or why they exist.https://futurism.com/the-byte/new-patterns-mysterious-radio-pulses-galaxies
4/8/2021 8:00 AMNew research led by the University of Bristol has revealed that crocodiles once flourished on land and in the oceans as a result of fast evolution.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-snappy-evolution-success-ancient-crocodiles.html
4/8/2021 10:00 AMT10
4/8/2021 12:00 PMFollowing the mind-boggling release of the first image ever captured of a black hole, astronomers have done it again, revealing a new view of the massive celestial object and shedding light on how magnetic fields behave close to black holes.https://www.space.com/first-black-hole-image-polarized-m87
4/8/2021 2:00 PMOnly 4 spacecraft have ever returned images from Venus’ surface. The world next door doesn’t make it easy, with searing heat and crushing pressure that quickly destroy any lander.https://www.planetary.org/articles/every-picture-from-venus-surface-ever
4/8/2021 4:00 PMIn a significant advance toward the future redefinition of the international unit of time, the second, a research team led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has compared three of the world’s leading atomic clocks with record accuracy over both air and optical fiber links.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-atomic-clocks-accuracy-fiber-air.html
4/8/2021 6:00 PMThe high temperatures and pressures of the Earth’s mantle forge carbon-rich minerals known as carbonates into diamond. But less is known about the fate of carbonates that travel even deeper underground—depths from which no sample has ever been recovered.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-diamonds-scientists-deep-carbon-story.html
4/9/2021 8:00 AMScientists make pivotal discovery of method for wireless modulation of neurons with X-rays that could improve the lives of patients with brain disorders. The X-ray source only requires a machine like that found in a dentist’s office.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-method-brain-movement-disorders.html
4/9/2021 10:00 AMT10
4/9/2021 12:00 PMEarlier this year an announcement raised a tantalizing possibility: a ninth planet lurking in the outer reaches of our solar system. The announcement turned the astronomy and planetary science world upside down.https://astronomy.com/news/2016/10/planet-nine-tilting-the-sun
4/9/2021 2:00 PMThe secret to building superconducting quantum computers with massive processing power may be an ordinary telecommunications technology—optical fiber.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-optical-fiber-boost-power-superconducting.html
4/9/2021 4:00 PMBright semiconductor nanocrystals known as quantum dots give QLED TV screens their vibrant colors. But attempts to increase the intensity of that light generate heat instead, reducing the dots’ light-producing efficiency.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-scientists-uncover-quantum-dots-brighter.html
4/9/2021 6:00 PMA team of scientists at Arizona State University has proposed that the large blobs of material in Earth’s mantle (the large low-shear velocity provinces, LLSVPs) may be left over pieces of Theia, a protoplanet theorized to have struck Earth, resulting in the creation of the moon. The group argued their case at this year’s Lunar and Planetary Science Conference and are awaiting publication in Geophysical Research Letters.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-theory-large-blobs-material-earth.html
4/10/2021 8:00 AMBuried beneath 20 kilometers of ice, the subsurface ocean of Enceladus—one of Saturn’s moons—appears to be churning with currents akin to those on Earth.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-ocean-currents-enceladus.html
4/10/2021 10:00 AMT10
4/10/2021 12:00 PMFor 30 years, the Asdex Upgrade has been paving the way for a fusion power plant that generates climate-neutral energy. The tokamak fusion plant was repeatedly expanded and improved during this time. Not least for this reason, it provides numerous insights that are incorporated into the design and operation of other fusion plants. For example, the Asdex Upgrade team has developed scenarios for the operation of the Jet test plant in the UK and the Iter test plant in France as well as forecasts for a planned demonstration power plant. A conversion planned for mid-2022 is intended to prepare the plant for the future.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-asdex-experimental-facility-plasma.html
4/10/2021 2:00 PMA major goal of organic and medicinal chemistry in recent decades has been the rapid synthesis of three-dimensional molecules for the development of new drugs. These drug candidates exhibit a variety of improved properties compared to predominantly flat molecular structures, which are reflected in clinical trials by higher efficacy and success rates. However, they could only be produced at great expense or not at all using previous methods. Chemists led by Prof. Frank Glorius (University of Münster, Germany) and his colleagues Prof. M. Kevin Brown (Indiana University Bloomington) and Prof. Kendall N. Houk (University of California, Los Angeles) have now succeeded in converting several classes of flat nitrogen-containing molecules into the desired three-dimensional structures. Using more than 100 novel examples, they were able to demonstrate the broad applicability of the process.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-chemists-breakthrough-production-three-dimensional-molecular.html
4/10/2021 4:00 PMThe LHCb Collaboration at CERN has found particles not behaving in the way they should according to the guiding theory of particle physics—the Standard Model.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-result-lhcb-theory-physics.html
4/10/2021 6:00 PMNo spacecraft has gotten a close look at Uranus in more than three decades — but scientists know they want to go back, if they can design the right mission to do so.https://www.space.com/uranus-orbiter-would-solve-dynamo.html
4/11/2021 8:00 AMAstrophysicist Andrea Ghez has spent her scientific career peering at the center of the Milky Way, trying to see the invisible. In 2020, she won a Nobel Prize for that work, which dramatically strengthened the evidence that a supermassive black hole, invisible to our instruments, is lurking at the heart of the galaxy. She also became just the fourth woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in the award’s more than a century of history, a statistic she told Space.com she views as a responsibility.https://www.space.com/andrea-ghez-supermassive-black-hole-milky-way-diversity
4/11/2021 10:00 AMThe Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a pair of enormous research facilities in the United States dedicated to detecting ripples in the fabric of space-time known as gravitational waves. Such signals come from massive objects in the universe, such as black holes and neutron stars, and provide astronomers with an entirely new window to observe cosmic phenomena.https://www.space.com/LIGO-Laser-Interferometer-Gravitational-Wave-Observatory.html
4/11/2021 12:00 PMMachine vision systems have many applications, including self-driving cars, intelligent manufacturing, robotic surgery and biomedical imaging, among many others. Most of these machine vision systems use lens-based cameras, and after an image or video is captured, typically with a few megapixels per frame, a digital processor is used to perform machine-learning tasks, such as object classification and scene segmentation. Such a traditional machine vision architecture suffers from several drawbacks. First, the large amount of digital information makes it hard to achieve image/video analysis at high speed, especially using mobile and battery-powered devices. In addition, the captured images usually contain redundant information, which overwhelms the digital processor with a high computational burden, creating inefficiencies in terms of power and memory requirements. Moreover, beyond the visible wavelengths of light, fabricating high-pixel-count image sensors, such as what we have in our mobile phone cameras, is challenging and expensive, which limits the applications of standard machine vision methods at longer wavelengths, such as terahertz part of the spectrum.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-classification-single-pixel-detector.html
4/11/2021 2:00 PMAn international research team, led by Monash University, has discovered for the first time the mystery behind the formation of ‘coffee rings’ by examining the contact angle of droplets onto a surface, and how they dry.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-international-team-uncovers-mystery-coffee.html
4/11/2021 4:00 PMIn a quantum theory of point particles, a fundamental quantity is the correlation function, which measures the probability for a particle to propagate from one point to another. The correlation function develops singularities when the two points are connected by light-like trajectories. In a flat spacetime, there is such a unique trajectory, but when spacetime is curved, there can be many light-like trajectories connecting two points. This is a result of gravitational lensing, which describes the effect of curved geometry on the propagation of light.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-theory-mystery-particles-black-hole.html
4/11/2021 6:00 PMMost people know mother-of-pearl, an iridescent biomineral also called nacre, from buttons, jewelry, instrument inlays and other decorative flourishes. Scientists, too, have admired and marveled at nacre for decades, not only for its beauty and optical properties but because of its exceptional toughness.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-nondestructive-optical-technique-reveals-mother-of-pearl.html
4/12/2021 8:00 AMA team of researchers from Universidade de São Paulo, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul and Universitat Pompeu Fabra, has found evidence of a genetic Australasian influence in more parts of South America than just the Amazon. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their study of a genomic dataset from multiple South American populations across the continent.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-australasian-genetic-wider-south-america.html
4/12/2021 10:00 AMWithin the realm of quantum mechanics, the generation of quantum entanglement remains one of the most challenging goals. Entanglement, simply put, is when the quantum state of each particle or a group of particles is not independent of the quantum states of other particles or groups, even over long distances. Entangled particles have always fascinated physicists, as measuring one entangled particle can result in a change in another entangled particle, famously dismissed as “spooky action at a distance” by Einstein. By now, physicists understand this strange effect and how to make use of it, for example to increase the sensitivity of measurements. However, entangled states are very fragile, as they can be easily disrupted by decoherence. Researchers have already created entangled states in atoms, photons, electrons and ions, but only recently have studies begun to explore entanglement in gases of polar molecules.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-theoretical-physicists-quantum-interactions-3d.html
4/12/2021 12:00 PMAn interdisciplinary team at Monash University discovered a new universal rule of biological growth that explains surprising similarities in the shapes of sharp structures across the tree of life, including teeth, horns, claws, beaks, animal shells, and even the thorns and prickles of plants.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-animals-pointy-body.html
4/12/2021 2:00 PMWhat if one mission could study the gravitational waves triggered by some of the most violent events in the universe — on the way to observing the least-known planets of our solar system?https://www.space.com/ice-giant-missions-could-catch-gravitational-waves
4/12/2021 4:00 PMOver the past few decades, astrophysicists and cosmologists have gathered various observations hinting at the existence of dark matter (DM), a type of matter that does not absorb, reflect or emit light, and thus cannot be detected using conventional techniques for observing electromagnetic radiation. While physicists have predicted its existence based on astrophysical and cosmological observations, so far, DM has never been observed experimentally.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-diurnal-effect-cosmic-ray-boosted-dark.html
4/12/2021 6:00 PMResearchers with the CERN-based ALPHA collaboration have announced the world’s first laser-based manipulation of antimatter, leveraging a made-in-Canada laser system to cool a sample of antimatter down to near absolute zero. The achievement, detailed in an article published today and featured on the cover of the journal Nature, will significantly alter the landscape of antimatter research and advance the next generation of experiments.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-canadian-built-laser-chills-antimatter-absolute.html
4/13/2021 8:00 AM430,000 years ago a meteor exploded over Antarctica, leaving clues in the debris. Remnants from the space rock can help researchers get a better sense of how often these cosmic explosions occur—and what kind of threat they pose to Earth.https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/430000-years-ago-a-meteor-exploded-over-antarctica-leaving-clues-in-the-debris
4/13/2021 10:00 AMResearchers with the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Congo Program and the Nouabalé-Ndoki Foundation found that female putty-nosed monkeys (Cercopithecus nictitans) use males as “hired guns” to defend from predators such as leopards.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-female-monkeys-males-hired-guns.html
4/13/2021 12:00 PMNature’s strongest material now has some stiff competition. For the first time, researchers have hard evidence that human-made hexagonal diamonds are stiffer than the common cubic diamonds found in nature and often used in jewelry.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-lab-made-hexagonal-diamonds-stiffer-natural.html
4/13/2021 2:00 PMUsing complementary computing calculations and neutron scattering techniques, researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge and Lawrence Berkeley national laboratories and the University of California, Berkeley, discovered the existence of an elusive type of spin dynamics in a quantum mechanical system.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-quantum-material-subtle-behavior-theoretical.html
4/13/2021 4:00 PMSeveral recent studies have started to piece together a provocative idea: Particles either made of or related to dark matter might clump together to form invisible “ghost stars.” These stars, which may have escaped detection by masquerading as black holes, could help scientists finally make sense of the invisible majority of the universe — assuming dark matter, and the ghost stars, actually exist.https://futurism.com/the-byte/growing-suspicion-universe-filled-invisible-ghost-stars
4/13/2021 6:00 PMAstronomers have detected X-rays from Uranus for the first time, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This result may help scientists learn more about this enigmatic ice giant planet in our solar system.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-x-rays-uranus.html
4/14/2021 8:00 AMUsing satellite data to ‘see in the dark’, researchers have shown for the first time that lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet drain during winter, a finding with implications for the speed at which the world’s second-largest ice sheet flows to the ocean.https://phys.org/news/2021-03-lakes-greenland-ice-sheet-huge.html
4/14/2021 10:00 AMSugars make up about 95% of honey, explaining how the substance became synonymous with sweetness and a food staple of bee colonies, which repeatedly digest and regurgitate flower nectar to produce it.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-team-inflammation-fighting-nanoparticles-honey.html
4/14/2021 12:00 PMNASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will create enormous cosmic panoramas, helping us answer questions about the evolution of our universe. Astronomers also expect the mission to find thousands of planets using two different techniques as it surveys a wide range of stars in the Milky Way.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-nasa-roman-mission-transiting-planets.html
4/14/2021 2:00 PMAbout 10 years ago, researchers at the University of Bonn produced an extreme aggregate photon state, a single “super-photon” made up of many thousands of individual light particles, and presented a completely new light source. The state is called an optical Bose-Einstein condensate and has captivated many physicists ever since, because this exotic world of light particles is home to its very own physical phenomena. Researchers led by Prof. Dr. Martin Weitz, who discovered the super photon, and theoretical physicist Prof. Dr. Johann Kroha now report a new observation: a so-called overdamped phase, a previously unknown phase transition within the optical Bose-Einstein condensate.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-physicists-phase-bose-einstein-condensate-particles.html
4/14/2021 4:00 PMThe current method of manufacturing carbon nanotubes—in essence rolled up sheets of graphene—is unable to allow complete control over their diameter, length and type. This problem has recently been solved for two of the three different types of nanotubes, but the third type, known as ‘zigzag’ nanotubes, had remained out of reach. Researchers with Japan’s National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) have now figured out how to synthesize the zigzag variety.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-made-to-order-nanotube-synthesis-technique.html
4/14/2021 6:00 PMWe know your cat’s whiskers are handsome—but you can’t even see the cool part. The base of the whisker, which is responsible for sending touch signals to the brain, is hidden inside the follicle, a deep pocket that embeds the whisker within the skin. Because this section of the whisker is obscured, understanding precisely how whiskers communicate touch to the brain has been a longstanding mystery.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-whisker-simulation-insight-mammals.html
4/15/2021 8:00 AMFor the first time, researchers have discovered a way to obtain polarity and photovoltaic behavior from certain nonphotovoltaic, atomically flat (2D) materials. The key lies in the special way in which the materials are arranged. The resulting effect is different from, and potentially superior to, the photovoltaic effect commonly found in solar cells.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-2d-materials-combine-polarized-photovoltaic.html
4/15/2021 10:00 AMAn international research team has investigated why dolphins and whales perform record-breaking dives to several kilometers deep. For the first time they were able to match hunting behavior to the prey present in the hunting zones.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-whales-deep-profitable-prey.html
4/15/2021 12:00 PMScientists from Mahasarakham University (Thailand) and the University of Bonn have examined the newly discovered caudal vertebrae of a spinosaurid dinosaur that could belong to Siamosaurus suteethorni. The comparison with finds around the world led to the realization that the Spanish Camarillosaurus is also a spinosaur and that often several species of these giant predators have inhabited the same area.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-dinosaur-tail-vertebra-track.html
4/15/2021 2:00 PMScientists have figured out a way to create and cancel magnetic fields from afar.https://www.space.com/magnetic-fields-created-from-afar
4/15/2021 4:00 PMIn a September 2020 essay in Nature Energy, three scientists posed several “grand challenges”—one of which was to find suitable materials for thermal energy storage devices that could be used in concert with solar energy systems. Fortuitously, Mingda Li—the Norman C. Rasmussen Assistant Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, who heads the department’s Quantum Matter Group—was already thinking along similar lines. In fact, Li and nine collaborators (from MIT, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Argonne National Laboratory) were developing a new methodology, involving a novel machine-learning approach, that would make it faster and easier to identify materials with favorable properties for thermal energy storage and other uses.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-approach-thermal-properties-crystalline-solids.html
4/15/2021 6:00 PMAquaculture—the farming of fish, shellfish, and other aquatic animals for food—has reached unprecedented levels of growth in recent years, but largely without consideration of its impact on individual animals, finds a new analysis by a team of researchers.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-science-pace-aquaculture.html
4/16/2021 8:00 AMBees are perhaps the insects that most arouse our fascination and curiosity. With the exception of Antarctica, they are found on all continents, in all habitats that contain insect-pollinated flowering plants. Representations of humans collecting honey from wild bees date back to 15,000 years ago, and pots of honey have even been found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs like Tutankhamen. Although we generally have a fixed idea about what cartoon bees look like, there are thousands of species around the world, with different sizes, colors and behaviors. There are even several examples of solitary bees, many without stingers, and even some species that survive by plundering other weaker colonies. But something that has consistently impressed researchers is the organization of their hives, which are truly highly populated cities with an efficiency to make any urban planner envious.https://www.archdaily.com/946778/the-incredible-architecture-of-bees
4/16/2021 10:00 AMPhobos and Deimos are the remains of a larger Martian moon that was disrupted between 1 and 2.7 billion years ago, say researchers from the Institute of Geophysics at ETH Zurich and the Physics Institute at the University of Zurich. In collaboration with the U.S. Naval Observatory, they reached this conclusion using computer simulations and seismic recordings from the InSight Mars mission.https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2021/02/martian-moons-have-a-common-ancestor.html
4/16/2021 12:00 PMA new study shows a correlation between the end of solar cycles and a switch from El Nino to La Nina conditions in the Pacific Ocean, suggesting that solar variability can drive seasonal weather variability on Earth.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-ties-solar-variability-onset-decadal.html
4/16/2021 2:00 PMThree years ago, scientists at the University of Michigan discovered an artificial photosynthesis device made of silicon and gallium nitride (Si/GaN) that harnesses sunlight into carbon-free hydrogen for fuel cells with twice the efficiency and stability of some previous technologies.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-hydrogen-fuel-machine-ultimate-self-improvement.html
4/16/2021 4:00 PMA new automated process prints a peptide-based hydrogel scaffold containing uniformly distributed cells. The scaffolds hold their shapes well and successfully facilitate cell growth that lasts for weeks.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-ultrashort-peptides-tissue.html
4/16/2021 6:00 PMOne day, humankind may step foot on another habitable planet. That planet may look very different from Earth, but one thing will feel familiar—the rain.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-size-raindrops-potentially-habitable-planets.html
4/17/2021 8:00 AMFor centuries, people in Baltic nations have used ancient amber for medicinal purposes. Even today, infants are given amber necklaces that they chew to relieve teething pain, and people put pulverized amber in elixirs and ointments for its purported anti-inflammatory and anti-infective properties. Now, scientists have pinpointed compounds that help explain Baltic amber’s therapeutic effects and that could lead to new medicines to combat antibiotic-resistant infections.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-paleopharmaceuticals-baltic-amber-drug-resistant-infections.html
4/17/2021 10:00 AMHome brewing enthusiasts and major manufacturers alike experience the same result of the beer-making process: mounds of leftover grain. Once all the flavor has been extracted from barley and other grains, what’s left is a protein- and fiber-rich powder that is typically used in cattle feed or put in landfills. Today, scientists report a new way to extract the protein and fiber from brewer’s spent grain and use it to create new types of protein sources, biofuels and more.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-beer-proteins-foods-fiber-biofuels.html
4/17/2021 12:00 PMScientists from the Genomic Integrity and Structural Biology Group led by Rafael Fernández-Leiro at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) have discovered how certain proteins ensure the repair of errors introduced into the DNA during its replication. Using cryo-electron microscopy, they made the MutS protein, also known as the guardian of our genome, visible. That enabled them to describe how this single protein is able to coordinate the essential DNA repair process from beginning to end.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-international-reveals-guardian-genome.html
4/17/2021 2:00 PMNASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is “seeing double.” Peering back 10 billion years into the universe’s past, Hubble astronomers found a pair of quasars that are so close to each other they look like a single object in ground-based telescopic photos, but not in Hubble’s crisp view.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-hubble-quasars-merging-galaxies.html
4/17/2021 4:00 PMBoron nitride is a technologically interesting material because it is very compatible with other two-dimensional crystalline structures. It therefore opens up pathways to artificial heterostructures or electronic devices built on them with fundamentally new properties.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-international-materials-quantum-sensor-technology.html
4/17/2021 6:00 PMA mysterious glow coming from the center of the Milky Way might be caused by annihilating dark matter — elusive matter that emits no light.https://www.space.com/dark-matter-may-cause-milky-way-to-glow
4/18/2021 8:00 AMNine of the hottest years in human history have occurred in the last decade. Without a major shift in this climate trajectory, the future of life on Earth is in question. Should humans, whose fossil-fueled society is driving climate change, use technology to put the brakes on global warming?https://phys.org/news/2021-04-sun-reflector-earth-scientists-explore.html
4/18/2021 10:00 AMNagoya University scientists in Japan have demonstrated how DNA-like molecules could have come together as a precursor to the origins of life. The findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, not only suggest how life might have begun, but also have implications for the development of artificial life and biotechnology applications.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-life-dna-like-xnas.html
4/18/2021 12:00 PMResearchers at the University of Konstanz and Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior in Germany have found that birds are able to change their culture to become more efficient. Populations of great tits were able to switch from one behavior to a better alternative when their group members were slowly replaced with new birds. Published today as open access in the journal Current Biology, this research reveals immigration as a powerful driver of cultural change in animal groups that could help them to adapt to rapidly changing environments.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-great-tits-traditions.html
4/18/2021 2:00 PMRainstorms grew more erratic and droughts much longer across most of the U.S. West over the past half-century as climate change warmed the planet, according to a sweeping government study released Tuesday that concludes the situation is worsening.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-droughts-longer-rainfall-erratic-years.html
4/18/2021 4:00 PMBattling other male baboons to achieve high social status comes with physiological costs that accelerate aging.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-high-status-aging-male-baboons.html
4/18/2021 6:00 PMThe universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate, and while no one is sure why, researchers with the Dark Energy Survey (DES) at least had a strategy for figuring it out: They would combine measurements of the distribution of matter, galaxies and galaxy clusters to better understand what’s going on.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-dark-energy-survey-physicists-window.html
4/19/2021 8:00 AMA good way to find out what a cell is doing—whether it is growing out of control as in cancers, or is under the control of an invading virus, or is simply going about the routine business of a healthy cell—is to look at its gene expression. Though a vast majority of cells in an organism all contain the same genes, how those genes are expressed is what gives rise to different cell types—the difference between a muscle cell and a neuron, for example.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-swiss-army-knife-genomic.html
4/19/2021 10:00 AMPreliminary results from two experiments suggest something could be wrong with the basic way physicists think the universe works, a prospect that has the field of particle physics both baffled and thrilled.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-tantalizing-results-defy-physics-rulebook.html
4/19/2021 12:00 PMEPFL scientists have developed AI-powered nanosensors that let researchers track various kinds of biological molecules without disturbing them.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-artificial-intelligence-explore-biomolecular-world.html
4/19/2021 2:00 PMAnyone who has visited the Australian outback would be familiar with spinifex grasses, which cover almost a fifth of our continent. Like many scientists, they may have also wondered why this iconic arid grass grows in striking ring shapes.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-spinifex-hole.html
4/19/2021 4:00 PMImagine there are arrows that are lethal when fired on your enemies yet harmless if they fall on your friends. It’s easy to see how these would be an amazing advantage in warfare, if they were real. However, something just like these arrows does indeed exist, and they are used in warfare … just on a different scale.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-incredible-bacterial-homing-missiles-scientists.html
4/19/2021 6:00 PMUsing NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, Chinese astronomers have detected significant GeV gamma-ray emission from a supernova remnant (SNR) known as G272.2-3.2. The finding is detailed in a paper published March 29 on the arXiv pre-print repository.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-gamma-ray-emission-supernova-remnant-g2722-.html
4/20/2021 8:00 AMA natural brilliant blue coloring has been discovered by an international team of researchers including chemists at the University of California, Davis. The new cyan blue, obtained from red cabbage, could be an alternative to synthetic blue food colorings such as the widely used FD&C Blue No. 1.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-natural-blue-food.html
4/20/2021 10:00 AMEngineers working on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have successfully folded and packed its sunshield for its upcoming million-mile (roughly 1.5 million kilometer) journey, which begins later this year.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-nasa-webb-telescope-sunshield-million.html
4/20/2021 12:00 PMFor the first time, researchers have been able to obtain data from underneath Thwaites Glacier, also known as the “Doomsday Glacier.” They find that the supply of warm water to the glacier is larger than previously thought, triggering concerns of faster melting and accelerating ice flow.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-exploration-ocean-currents-beneath-doomsday.html
4/20/2021 2:00 PMA tiny protein of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that gives rise to COVID-19, may have big implications for future treatments, according to a team of Penn State researchers.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-antibody-binding-site-covid-virus-variants.html
4/20/2021 4:00 PMA global science collaboration using data from NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) telescope on the International Space Station has discovered X-ray surges accompanying radio bursts from the pulsar in the Crab Nebula. The finding shows that these bursts, called giant radio pulses, release far more energy than previously suspected.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-giant-radio-pulses-pulsars-hundreds.html
4/20/2021 6:00 PMOver the past decade, the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system has revolutionized genetic engineering, allowing scientists to make targeted changes to organisms’ DNA. While the system could potentially be useful in treating a variety of diseases, CRISPR-Cas9 editing involves cutting DNA strands, leading to permanent changes to the cell’s genetic material.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-reversible-crispr-method-gene-underlying.html
4/21/2021 8:00 AMBelow the verdant surface and organic rich soil, life extends kilometers into Earth’s deep rocky crust. The continental deep subsurface is likely one of the largest reservoirs of bacteria and archaea on Earth, many forming biofilms—like a microbial coating of the rock surface. This microbial population survives without light or oxygen and with minimal organic carbon sources, and can get energy by eating or respiring minerals. Distributed throughout the deep subsurface, these biofilms could represent 20-80% of the total bacterial and archaeal biomass in the continental subsurface according to the most recent estimate. But are these microbial populations spread evenly on rock surfaces, or do they prefer to colonize specific minerals in the rocks?https://phys.org/news/2021-04-earth-crust-mineralogy-hotspots-intraterrestrial.html
4/21/2021 10:00 AMThe melting rate of the Antarctic ice sheet is mainly controlled by the increase of ocean temperatures surrounding Antarctica. Using a new, higher-resolution climate model simulation, scientists from Utrecht University found a much slower ocean temperature increase compared to current simulations with a coarser resolution. Consequently, the projected sea-level rise in 100 years is about 25% lower than expected from the current simulations.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-current-climate-simulations-overestimate-future.html
4/21/2021 12:00 PMThe images capture drama billions of years ago in the early Universe—glinting galaxies, glowing with stars that have exploded into supernovas and blazing jets fired from black holes.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-radio-telescope-reveals-thousands-star-forming.html
4/21/2021 2:00 PMA clean energy future propelled by hydrogen fuel depends on figuring out how to reliably and efficiently split water. That’s because, even though hydrogen is abundant, it must be derived from another substance that contains it—and today, that substance is often methane gas. Scientists are seeking ways to isolate this energy-carrying element without using fossil fuels. That would pave the way for hydrogen-fueled cars, for example, that emit only water and warm air at the tailpipe.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-solutions-hydrogen-surface.html
4/21/2021 4:00 PMJPL’s Lunar Crater Radio Telescope advanced concept is among the projects that have been selected for further research and development.https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-selects-innovative-early-stage-tech-concepts-for-continued-study
4/21/2021 6:00 PMTwo teams of researchers have independently found that there exists a certain type of graphene system where electrons freeze as the temperature rises. The first team, with members from Israel, the U.S. and Japan, found that placing one layer of graphene atop another and then twisting the one on top resulted in a graphene state in which the electrons would freeze as temperatures rose. And in attempting to explain what they observed, they discovered that the entropy of the near-insulating phase was approximately half of what would be expected from free-electron spins. The second team, with members from the U.S., Japan and Israel, found the same graphene system and in their investigation to understand their observations, they noted that a large magnetic moment arose in the insulator. Both teams have published their results in the journal Nature. Biao Lian with Princeton University has published a News and Views piece outlining the work by both teams in the same journal issue.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-graphene-electrons-temperature.html
4/22/2021 8:00 AMhttps://www.space.com/34-image-day.html
4/22/2021 10:00 AMSeveral hundred people have already booked their tickets and begun training for a spectacular voyage: a few minutes, or perhaps days, in the weightlessness of space.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-aboard-space.html
4/22/2021 12:00 PMDutch astronomer Ewine van Dishoeck (Leiden University, the Netherlands), together with an international team of colleagues, has written an overview of everything we know about water in interstellar clouds thanks to the Herschel space observatory. The article, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, summarizes existing knowledge and provides new information about the origin of water on new, potentially habitable, worlds. The article is expected to serve as a reference work for the next twenty years.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-long-awaited-reveals-journey-interstellar-clouds.html
4/22/2021 2:00 PMIn the search for life on other planets, the presence of oxygen in a planet’s atmosphere is one potential sign of biological activity that might be detected by future telescopes. A new study, however, describes several scenarios in which a lifeless rocky planet around a sun-like star could evolve to have oxygen in its atmosphere.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-oxygen-false-positives-life-planets.html
4/22/2021 4:00 PMAll supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies appear to have periods when they swallow matter from their close surroundings. But that is about as far as the similarities go. That’s the conclusion reached by British and Dutch astronomers from their research with ultra-sensitive radio telescopes in a well-studied region of the universe.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-black-holes-variety-table-manners.html
4/22/2021 6:00 PMThey are diligently stoking thousands of bonfires on the ground close to their crops, but the French winemakers are fighting a losing battle. An above-average warm spell at the end of March has been followed by days of extreme frost, destroying the vines with losses amounting to 90 percent above average. The image of the struggle may well be the most depressingly beautiful illustration of the complexities and unpredictability of global climate warming. It is also an agricultural disaster from Bordeaux to Champagne.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-chaos-europe-sea-ice-arctic.html
4/23/2021 8:00 AMA team led by University of Minnesota researchers has discovered that deep-sea bacteria dissolve carbon-containing rocks, releasing excess carbon into the ocean and atmosphere. The findings will allow scientists to better estimate the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, a main driver of global warming.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-ocean-bacteria-carbon-atmosphere.html
4/23/2021 10:00 AMScientists at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Chicago have demonstrated a new technique based on quantum technology that will advance the search for dark matter, the invisible stuff that accounts for 85% of all matter in the universe.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-sensitive-qubit-based-technique-dark.html
4/23/2021 12:00 PMAstrophysicists have found a new region of the Milky Way, and it’s filled with searingly hot, bright-blue stars that are about to explode.https://www.space.com/new-milky-way-spur-discovered
4/23/2021 2:00 PMClimate change is making India’s monsoon stronger and more chaotic, scientists said Wednesday, warning of potential severe consequences for food, farming and the economy affecting nearly a fifth of the world’s population.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-climate-indian-monsoon-seasons-chaotic.html
4/23/2021 4:00 PMIn April 2019, scientists released the first image of a black hole in galaxy M87 using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). However, that remarkable achievement was just the beginning of the science story to be told.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-multi-wavelength-reveal-impact-black-hole.html
4/23/2021 6:00 PMJust as humans are challenged from the social isolation caused by the coronavirus pandemic, a new study finds that a solitary lifestyle has profound effects on the brains of a social insect: paper wasps.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-social-wasps-recognition-abilities-isolation.html
4/24/2021 8:00 AMUniversity of California, Berkeley, chemists have discovered a way to simplify the removal of toxic metals. like mercury and boron. during desalination to produce clean water, while at the same time potentially capturing valuable metals, such as gold.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-simultaneously-toxic-metals-salt.html
4/24/2021 10:00 AMA pair of orbiting black holes millions of times the Sun’s mass perform a hypnotic pas de deux in a new NASA visualization. The movie traces how the black holes distort and redirect light emanating from the maelstrom of hot gas—called an accretion disk—that surrounds each one.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-nasa-visualization-probes-light-bending-binary.html
4/24/2021 12:00 PMMathematicians and engineers at the University of Utah have teamed up to show how ultrasound waves can organize carbon particles in water into a sort of pattern that never repeats. The results, they say, could result in materials called “quasicrystals” with custom magnetic or electrical properties.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-patterns.html
4/24/2021 2:00 PMSome snake species slither across the ground, while others climb trees, dive through sand or glide across water. Today, scientists report that the surface chemistry of snake scales varies among species that negotiate these different terrains. The findings could have implications for designing durable materials, as well as robots that mimic snake locomotion to cross surfaces that would otherwise be impassable.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-snake-species-terrains-surrender-surface.html
4/24/2021 4:00 PMHow many Tyrannosaurus rexes roamed North America during the Cretaceous period? That’s a question Charles Marshall pestered his paleontologist colleagues with for years until he finally teamed up with his students to find an answer.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-rexes-billions.html
4/24/2021 6:00 PMA small group of leopards migrated to Asia about half a million years ago following their evolution in Africa, a new study suggests.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-leopards-africa-asia-genetically-distinct.html
4/25/2021 8:00 AMHoney is humankind’s oldest sweetener—and for thousands of years it was also the only one. Indirect clues about the significance of bees and bee products are provided by prehistoric petroglyphs on various continents, created between 8,000 and 40,000 years ago. Ancient Egyptian reliefs indicate the practice of beekeeping as early as 2600 year BCE. But for sub-Saharan Africa, direct archaeological evidence has been lacking until now. The analysis of the chemical residues of food in potsherds has fundamentally altered the picture. Archaeologists at Goethe University in cooperation with chemists at the University of Bristol were able to identify beeswax residues in 3500 year-old potsherds of the Nok culture.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-year-old-honeypot-oldest-evidence-honey.html
4/25/2021 10:00 AMInvestigators in China and the United States have injected human stem cells into primate embryos and were able to grow chimeric embryos for a significant period of time—up to 20 days. The research, despite its ethical concerns, has the potential to provide new insights into developmental biology and evolution. It also has implications for developing new models of human biology and disease.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-human-monkey-chimeric-embryos.html
4/25/2021 12:00 PMFlorida State University researchers have discovered a novel way to improve the performance of electrical wires used as high-temperature superconductors (HTS), findings that have the potential to power a new generation of particle accelerators.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-high-temperature-superconductor-wires.html
4/25/2021 2:00 PMA NASA spacecraft left a mark at an asteroid when it grabbed a load of rubble last year for return to Earth, new pictures revealed. The Osiris-Rex spacecraft made one final flyby of asteroid Bennu on April 7 to take photos of the disturbance left by October’s sample collection.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-nasa-spacecraft-mess-asteroid-samples.html
4/25/2021 4:00 PMLast month saw the average concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) climb to almost 418 parts-per-million, a level not seen on Earth for millions of years. In order to get a sense of what our future may hold, scientists have been looking to the deep past. Now, new research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which combines climate, ice sheet and vegetation model simulations with a suite of different climatic and geologic scenarios, opens the clearest window yet into the deep history of the Antarctic ice sheet and what our planetary future might hold.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-ancient-antarctic-ice-sheets-future.html
4/25/2021 6:00 PMStreams and rivers emit large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but a new study published in Nature Geoscience led by researchers at the universities in Umeå and Lausanne shows that the flux may be greater than previously thought.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-streams-rivers-emit-carbon-dioxide.html
4/26/2021 8:00 AMThe 300-million-year-old shark’s teeth were the first sign that it might be a distinct species. The ancient chompers looked less like the spear-like rows of teeth of related species. They were squatter and shorter, less than an inch long, around 2 centimeters.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-godzilla-shark-mexico-formal.html
4/26/2021 10:00 AMA team of researchers from the Austrian Academy of Science’s, Austrian Archaeological Institute, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archeology, has identified a piece of writing on a shard of pottery unearthed in 2018 at the Lachish archaeological site as the oldest piece of writing ever found in Israel. In their paper published in Cambridge University Press’s, Antiquity, the group describes studying the writing and what they learned about it.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-oldest-piece-israel-ancient-shard.html
4/26/2021 12:00 PMMammal communities underwent long periods of so-called functional stability despite the waxing and waning of their constituent species over tens of millions of years, even persisting through several environmental crises. This is the main conclusion of a new study published in the journal Science by an interdisciplinary team from Spain and Germany.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-species-ecosystems-persist-millions-years.html
4/26/2021 2:00 PMIf you look around space, you’ll notice a lot of things — the planets, stars, moons, even the galaxy itself — have one thing in common: they’re spinning. So, is the universe spinning, too? This mystery is one that cosmologists have been acutely studying, because it’s one that can tell us about the fundamental nature of the universe.https://www.space.com/does-the-universe-rotate.html
4/26/2021 4:00 PMIn recent years there has been an exhaustive study of red dwarf stars to find exoplanets in orbit around them. These stars have effective surface temperatures between 2400 and 3700 K (over 2000 degrees cooler than the Sun), and masses between 0.08 and 0.45 solar masses. In this context, a team of researchers led by Borja Toledo Padrón, a Severo Ochoa-La Caixa doctoral student at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), specializing in the search for planets around this type of stars, has discovered a super-Earth orbiting the star GJ 740, a red dwarf star situated some 36 light years from the Earth.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-super-earth-orbiting-red-dwarf-star.html
4/26/2021 6:00 PMWhy is sugar not transparent? Because light that penetrates a piece of sugar is scattered, altered and deflected in a highly complicated way. However, as a research team from TU Wien (Vienna) and Utrecht University (Netherlands) has now been able to show, there is a class of very special light waves for which this does not apply: for any specific disordered medium—such as the sugar cube you may just have put in your coffee—tailor-made light beams can be constructed that are practically not changed by this medium, but only attenuated. The light beam penetrates the medium, and a light pattern arrives on the other side that has the same shape as if the medium were not there at all.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-penetrate-opaque-materials.html
4/27/2021 8:00 AMhttps://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/16/eabf3671
4/27/2021 10:00 AMA team of astronomers led by Dutch scientists has directly imaged a giant planet orbiting at a large distance around a sun-like star. Why this planet is so massive and how it got to be there is a mystery.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-giant-planet-large-distance-sun-like.html
4/27/2021 12:00 PMIn the weeks following its launch in early 2006, when NASA’s New Horizons was still close to home, it took just minutes to transmit a command to the spacecraft, and hear back that the onboard computer received and was ready to carry out the instructions.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-nasa-horizons-rare-space-milestone.html
4/27/2021 2:00 PMScientists have for the first time captured the complex dynamics of particle movement in granular materials, helping to explain why mixed nuts often see the larger Brazil nuts gather at the top. The findings could have vital impact on industries struggling with the phenomenon, such as pharmaceuticals and mining.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-scientists-brazil-nut-puzzle-largest-nuts.html
4/27/2021 4:00 PMSomeday, scientists believe, tiny DNA-based robots and other nanodevices will deliver medicine inside our bodies, detect the presence of deadly pathogens, and help manufacture increasingly smaller electronics.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-dna-robots-minutes-days.html
4/27/2021 6:00 PMNew research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) shows that land use by human societies has reshaped ecology across most of Earth’s land for at least 12,000 years. The research team, from over ten institutions around the world, revealed that the main cause of the current biodiversity crisis is not human destruction of uninhabited wildlands, but rather the appropriation, colonization, and intensified use of lands previously managed sustainably.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-people-earth-ecology-years-sustainably.html
4/28/2021 8:00 AMA new study finds a naturally occurring “earthquake gate” that decides which earthquakes are allowed to grow into magnitude 8 or greater.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-reveals-nature-earthquake-blocker.html
4/28/2021 10:00 AMThe “Great Oxygenation Event” (GOE), the process whereby the Earth’s atmosphere was continuously enriched with oxygen, a waste product of photosynthesis, began ~2.43 billion years ago. The source, according to science, was photosynthesizing cyanobacteria. But why did this all-important turnaround occur so late? Cyanobacterial life existed, as rock samples show, at least 300 million years before the GOE. Achim Herrmann, who is researching the spread of early cyanobacteria in his doctoral thesis at TU Kaiserslautern, is hot on the trail for answers.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-oxygen-producing-cyanobacteria-complex-life.html
4/28/2021 12:00 PMA new study outlines the need for materials advances in the hardware that goes into making quantum computers if these futuristic devices are to surpass the abilities of the computers we use today.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-materials-advances-key-quantum-hardware.html
4/28/2021 2:00 PMFlushing a toilet can generate large quantities of microbe-containing aerosols depending on the design, water pressure or flushing power of the toilet. A variety of pathogens are usually found in stagnant water as well as in urine, feces and vomit. When dispersed widely through aerosolization, these pathogens can cause Ebola, norovirus that results in violent food poisoning, as well as COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-flushing-toilet-dont-linger-aerosolized.html
4/28/2021 4:00 PMScientists from MIT just dropped an incredible piece of a brand-new music genre that we think could really take off: spider music.https://futurism.com/the-byte/mit-spider-music
4/28/2021 6:00 PMThe observation that most of the viruses that cause human disease come from other animals has led some researchers to attempt “zoonotic risk prediction” to second-guess the next virus to hit us. However, in an Essay in the open access journal PLOS Biology, led by Dr. Michelle Wille at the University of Sydney, Australia with co-authors Jemma Geoghegan and Edward Holmes, it is proposed that these zoonotic risk predictions are of limited value and will not tell us which virus will cause the next pandemic. Instead, we should target the human-animal interface for intensive viral surveillance.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-pandemic-virus-harder.html
4/29/2021 8:00 AMIt has been known for about a year that minks can become infected with SARS-CoV-2. The virus had been transmitted from humans to farmed mink and mutated in infected animals. Mutations were acquired in the spike protein, which is crucial for the entry of the virus into host cells and represents the central point of attack for antibodies. These SARS-CoV-2 variants from mink were transmitted back to humans, raising concerns that minks could be a continuing source of infection of humans with SARS-CoV-2 variants with altered biological properties. Researchers at the German Primate Center (DPZ) – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research in Göttingen, Germany, have now shown that an antibody used for COVID-19 therapy is unable to effectively inhibit SARS-CoV-2 harboring a spike mutation acquired in minks. In addition, the mutation reduced the inhibition of the virus by antibodies produced in SARS-CoV-2 infected humans. These results show that SARS-CoV-2 can acquire mutations in minks that may reduce control of the virus by the human immune system.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-sars-cov-variants-mink-evade-inhibition.html
4/29/2021 10:00 AMFerocious tyrannosaur dinosaurs may not have been solitary predators as long envisioned, but more like social carnivores such as wolves, new research found.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-mass-fossil-site-tyrannosaurs.html
4/29/2021 12:00 PMThe Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has picked three big space companies for the first phase of a larger project to test nuclear propulsion above low Earth orbit by 2025.https://www.space.com/darpa-contracts-nuclear-propulsion-cislunar-space
4/29/2021 2:00 PMAmazon has selected United Launch Alliance (ULA) to start launching its megaconstellation of internet satellites to space. ULA will participate in nine launches of Project Kuiper, which Amazon hopes will eventually send 3,236 advanced satellites to low Earth orbit. The number of satellites ULA will send aloft was not disclosed in a press release from the two organizations, nor was the value of the launch contract.https://www.space.com/amazon-kuiper-megaconstellation-atlas-v-rockets
4/29/2021 4:00 PMDietary sugars and gut microbes play a key role in promoting malaria parasite infection in mosquitoes. Researchers in China have uncovered evidence that mosquitoes fed a sugar diet show an increased abundance of the bacterial species Asaia bogorensis, which enhances parasite infection by raising the gut pH level.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-gut-microbes-mosquitoes-prone-malaria.html
4/29/2021 6:00 PMShort gamma-ray bursts, which as the name implies are brief blasts of high-energy gamma rays, tend to appear far away from their host galaxies. For years, astronomers have thought that this means they get a “kick” when they’re born. But new observations prove otherwise: we’ve just been missing all the stars in their neighborhood.https://www.space.com/short-gamma-ray-bursts-home-galaxies
4/30/2021 8:00 AMThe famous 1700 Cascadia earthquake that altered the coastline of western North America and sent a tsunami across the Pacific Ocean to Japan may have been one of a sequence of earthquakes, according to new research presented at the Seismological Society of America (SSA)’s 2021 Annual Meeting.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-cascadia-earthquake-sequence-earthquakes.html
4/30/2021 10:00 AMAntibiotics on the cocoon protect the offspring of beewolves, a group of digger wasps, from detrimental fungi. These protective substances are produced by symbiotic bacteria of the genus Streptomyces, which live in these insects. In a new study in PNAS, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology and the University of Mainz, together with an international team, showed that these beneficial bacteria are losing genetic material that is no longer needed. The genome of these bacteria is of great interest for understanding the process of genome erosion and elucidating how the cooperation and the mutual benefit between bacteria and their host insects have evolved over long periods of time.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-defensive-symbiosis-gene-loss-bacterial.html
4/30/2021 12:00 PMEngineered, autonomous machines combined with artificial intelligence have long been a staple of science fiction, and often in the role of villain like the Cylons in the “Battlestar Galactica” reboot, creatures composed of biological and engineered materials. But what if these autonomous soft machines were … helpful?https://phys.org/news/2021-04-future-machines.html
4/30/2021 2:00 PMScientists have discovered one of the smallest black holes on record—and the closest one to Earth found to date. Researchers have dubbed it ‘The Unicorn,’ in part because it is, so far, one of a kind, and in part because it was found in the constellation Monoceros—’The Unicorn.’https://phys.org/news/2021-04-black-hole-closest-earth-smallest.html
4/30/2021 4:00 PMScientists have spotted the largest flare ever recorded from the sun’s nearest neighbor, the star Proxima Centauri.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-humungous-flare-sun-nearest-neighbor.html
4/30/2021 6:00 PMA new analysis of air pollution data from five large Chinese cities has found statistically significant differences between data from monitoring stations run by local governments and data from stations run by U.S. embassies and consulates.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-air-pollution-chinese-cities-differs.html
5/1/2021 8:00 AMDeep in its searing hot belly, the giant red star Betelgeuse could be producing tons of hypothetical dark matter particles called axions that, if they exist, would give off a telltale signal. A recent search for such a tantalizing emission has turned up empty, but helps physicists place new limits on the putative axion’s properties.https://www.space.com/axions-coming-from-betelgeuse.html
5/1/2021 10:00 AMT10
5/1/2021 12:00 PMIt’s a common sight: pelicans gliding along the waves, right by the shore. These birds make this kind of surfing look effortless, but actually the physics involved that give them a big boost are not simple.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-intricate-gliding-pelicans.html
5/1/2021 2:00 PMNASA’s STEREO-A and ESA/NASA’s SOHO spacecraft detected a coronal mass ejection, or CME, leaving the sun on April 17 at 12:36 p.m. EDT. This CME did not impact Earth but did move toward Mars, passing the planet in the late evening and early morning hours of April 21 and 22.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-mars-directed-coronal-mass-ejection-erupts.html
5/1/2021 4:00 PMThe expanding shell of gas and dust that surrounds the star is about five light-years wide, which equals the distance from here to the nearest star beyond the Sun, Proxima Centauri. The huge structure was created from one or more giant eruptions about 10,000 years ago. The star’s outer layers were blown into space—like a boiling teapot popping off its lid. The expelled material amounts to roughly 10 times our Sun’s mass.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-hubble-captures-giant-star-edge.html
5/1/2021 6:00 PMOver the last 60 years, scientists have been able to observe how and when genetic information was replicated, determining the existence a “replication timing program,” a process that controls when and in what order segments of DNA replicate. However, scientists still cannot explain why such a specific timing sequence exists.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-sixty-year-old-dna-replication-sequence.html
5/2/2021 8:00 AMTextbooks had to be rewritten. Members of the public were outraged. Our understanding of the solar system itself was forever changed on Aug. 24, 2006, when researchers at the International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted to reclassify Pluto, changing its status from a planet to a dwarf planet — a relegation that was largely seen as a demotion and which continues to have reverberations to this day. Just our two cents – we’re very much in the ‘Pluto Is A Planet’ team.https://www.space.com/why-pluto-is-not-a-planet.html
5/2/2021 10:00 AMT10
5/2/2021 12:00 PMA pair of environmental scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has found that up to 20% of all the groundwater wells in the world are at risk of going dry in the near future. In their paper published in the journal Science, Scott Jasechko and Debra Perrone describe their analysis of groundwater well construction data from millions of wells around the world. James Famiglietti and Grant Ferguson with the University of Saskatchewan, have published a Perspectives piece in the same journal issue outlining the importance of groundwater management and the work done by the researchers on this new effort.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-environmental-scientists-global-groundwater-wells.html
5/2/2021 2:00 PMA team of researchers with the Westfalen-Lippe Landscape Association revealed during a presentation in the city of Schmallenberg that one of the largest hoards of Iron Age weapons in western Germany had been unearthed at a nearby dig site on a small mountain in Wilzenberg. In their press release, the researchers note that they found approximately 100 Celtic Iron Age artifacts—primarily through the use of a metal detector.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-biggest-iron-age-weapon-hoards.html
5/2/2021 4:00 PMUsing the ARO 12-m telescope, astronomers have investigated a young starless core known as Lynds 1521E (or L1521E). The study resulted in the detection of complex organic molecules in this object. The finding is detailed in a paper April 15 on the arXiv pre-print repository.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-complex-molecules-starless-core-lynds.html
5/2/2021 6:00 PMA breakthrough study led by Monash University has shown the great potential for mobile phone signals and data to be used in the detection and measurement of bushfire smoke concentrations.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-mobile-bushfire.html
5/3/2021 8:00 AMWhen the four-decades-old Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft entered interstellar space in 2012 and 2018, respectively, scientists celebrated. These plucky spacecraft had already traveled 120 times the distance from the Earth to the sun to reach the boundary of the heliosphere, the bubble encompassing our solar system that’s affected by the solar wind. The Voyagers discovered the edge of the bubble but left scientists with many questions about how our Sun interacts with the local interstellar medium. The twin Voyagers’ instruments provide limited data, leaving critical gaps in our understanding of this region.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-probing-deep-space-interstellar.html
5/3/2021 10:00 AMT10
5/3/2021 12:00 PMNuclear physicists have made a new, highly accurate measurement of the thickness of the neutron “skin” that encompasses the lead nucleus in experiments conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and just published in Physical Review Letters. The result, which revealed a neutron skin thickness of .28 millionths of a nanometer, has important implications for the structure and size of neutron stars.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-physicists-net-neutron-star-gold.html
5/3/2021 2:00 PMA team led by physical oceanographers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, and including Bangor University scientist, shows in a new study how plumes of warm water are flowing into the Arctic Ocean from the Pacific Ocean and accelerating sea ice melt from below.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-arctic-sea-ice.html
5/3/2021 4:00 PMA new coating solution discovered by researchers at Simon Fraser University can transform regular materials into waterproof surfaces. The product will be cheaper to produce, free of harmful fluorinated compounds, and effective on a variety of materials.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-waterproofing-solution.html
5/3/2021 6:00 PMMuch as yeast serves in bakeries as single-celled helper, the bacterium Escherischia coli is a must in every biotechnology lab. A team led by Prof. Dr. Barbara Di Ventura, professor of biological signaling research at the University of Freiburg, has developed a new so-called optogenetic tool that simplifies a standard method in biotechnology: Instead of feeding the bacteria with sugar as commonly done, the researchers can now simply shine light on them.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-tool-synthetic-biology-bacteria-photos.html
5/4/2021 8:00 AMIf a base station in a local area network tries to use a directional beam to transmit a signal to a user trying to connect to the network—instead of using a wide area network broadcast, as base stations commonly do—how does it know which direction to send the beam?https://phys.org/news/2021-04-exploiting-non-line-of-sight-paths-terahertz-wireless.html
5/4/2021 10:00 AMT10
5/4/2021 12:00 PMEgyptian archeologists unearthed 110 burial tombs at an ancient site in a Nile Delta province, the Tourism and Antiquities Ministry said. The graves, some of which have human remains inside, were found at the Koum el-Khulgan archeological site in Dakahlia province, around 150 kilometers (93 miles) northeast of Cairo, the ministry said.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-egypt-archeologists-unearth-ancient-tombs.html
5/4/2021 2:00 PMIt’s one of the longest-running mysteries of science: How did a jumble of elements undergo the right chemical reactions to spark life on Earth? The answer, it seems, is electrifying … literally.https://www.space.com/life-on-earth-sparked-by-lightning
5/4/2021 4:00 PMA team led by Prof. GUO Guangcan and Prof. ZOU Changling from the University of Science and Technology of China of the Chinese Academy of Sciences realized efficient frequency conversion in microresonators via a degenerate sum-frequency process, and achieved cross-band frequency conversion and amplification of converted signal through observing the cascaded nonlinear optical effects inside the microresonator.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-high-efficiency-frequency-conversion-photonic-chip.html
5/4/2021 6:00 PMScientists from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav) have described a way to determine the birth population of double neutron stars—some of the densest objects in the universe formed in collapsing massive stars. The recently published study observed different life stages of these neutron star systems.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-deciphering-neutron-stars-radio-gravitational.html
5/5/2021 8:00 AMIn 1994, physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed a radical technology that would allow faster than light travel: the warp drive, a hypothetical way to skirt around the universe’s ultimate speed limit by bending the fabric of reality. It was an intriguing idea — even NASA has been researching it at the Eagleworks laboratory — but Alcubierre’s proposal contained problems that seemed insurmountable. Now, a recent paper by US-based physicists Alexey Bobrick and Gianni Martire has resolved many of those issues and generated a lot of buzz. But while Bobrick and Martire have managed to substantially demystify warp technology, their work actually suggests that faster-than-light travel will remain out of reach for beings like us, at least for the time being.https://www.space.com/warp-drive-research-dashes-faster-than-light-travel-dreams
5/5/2021 10:00 AMT10
5/5/2021 12:00 PMThe International Astronomical Union is calling for the pristine night sky to be protected by the United Nations as astronomers struggle with exposures ruined by trains of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites.https://www.space.com/astronomers-night-sky-protection-starlink-megaconstellations
5/5/2021 2:00 PMImagine trying to pick up a pebble or scrape microbes off a cave wall in a bulky spacesuit with puffy gloves on, under a time constraint because you don’t want to run out of oxygen. That’s what the analog astronauts do daily at the HI-SEAS moonbase habitat in Hawaii as they prepare for future missions to the moon and Mars, says Michaela Musilova of the International MoonBase Alliance (IMA) and director of HI-SEAS, the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-scientists-don-spacesuits-explore-hawaiian.html
5/5/2021 4:00 PMNew research from The Australian National University (ANU) shows female swift parrots can determine the sex of their offspring, and they are favoring boys over girls as they face diminished survival prospects in the wild.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-endangered-swift-parrots-favor-sons.html
5/5/2021 6:00 PMSpaceX has had its sights set on Mars since Musk formed the company in 2002. And for years, Musk, who became a tech billionaire before launch SpaceX’s, has been very candid about the risks that come with the territory of human spaceflight to the Red Planet. In fact, in 2017, Musk said at the International Astronautical Congress that the first humans to journey to Mars should be “prepared to die.”https://www.space.com/elon-musk-mars-spacex-risks-astronauts-die
5/6/2021 8:00 AMA small asteroid barreled through the sky and burned up over the Kalahari Desert of Botswana in the summer of 2018 and now, scientists suspect that the space rock originated from Vesta, the second largest asteroid in the solar system.https://www.space.com/meteorites-botswana-from-vesta-originally
5/6/2021 10:00 AMT10
5/6/2021 12:00 PMNearly one quarter of the land in the Northern Hemisphere, amounting to some 9 million square miles, is layered with permafrost—soil, sediment, and rocks that are frozen solid for years at a time. Vast stretches of permafrost can be found in Alaska, Siberia, and the Canadian Arctic, where persistently freezing temperatures have kept carbon, in the form of decayed bits of plants and animals, locked in the ground.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-cave-deposits-shift-permafrost-years.html
5/6/2021 2:00 PMAbout a quarter of a percent of the entire gross domestic product of industrialized countries is estimated to be lost through a single technical issue: the fouling of heat exchanger surfaces by salts and other dissolved minerals. This fouling lowers the efficiency of multiple industrial processes and often requires expensive countermeasures such as water pretreatment. Now, findings from MIT could lead to a new way of reducing such fouling, and potentially even enable turning that deleterious process into a productive one that can yield saleable products.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-salt-self-eject.html
5/6/2021 4:00 PMGlaciers are melting faster, losing 31% more snow and ice per year than they did 15 years earlier, according to three-dimensional satellite measurements of all the world’s mountain glaciers. Scientists blame human-caused climate change.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-satellites-world-glaciers-faster.html
5/6/2021 6:00 PMA billion year old fossil, which provides a new link in the evolution of animals, has been discovered in the Scottish Highlands. A team of scientists, led by the University of Sheffield in the UK and Boston College in the U.S., has found a microfossil which contains two distinct cell types and could be the earliest multicellular animal ever recorded.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-billion-year-old-fossil-reveals-link-evolution.html
5/7/2021 8:00 AMThese mysterious earthquakes originate between 400 and 700 kilometers below the surface of the Earth and have been recorded with magnitudes up to 8.3 on the Richter scale.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-professor-deep-earthquake-mystery.html
5/7/2021 10:00 AMT10
5/7/2021 12:00 PMLightning bolts break apart nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the atmosphere and create reactive chemicals that affect greenhouse gases. Now, a team of atmospheric chemists and lightning scientists have found that lightning bolts and, surprisingly, subvisible discharges that cannot be seen by cameras or the naked eye produce extreme amounts of the hydroxyl radical—OH—and hydroperoxyl radical—HO2.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-lightning-subvisible-discharges-molecules-atmosphere.html
5/7/2021 2:00 PMWasps deserve to be just as highly valued as other insects, like bees, due to their roles as predators, pollinators, and more, according to a new review paper led by UCL and University of East Anglia researchers. The study compiles evidence from over 500 academic papers to review how roughly 33,000 species of stinging (aculeate) wasps contribute to their ecosystems, and how this can benefit the economy, human health, and society.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-wasps-valuable-ecosystems-economy-human.html
5/7/2021 4:00 PMSuperhighways’ used by a population of up to 6.5 million Indigenous Australians to navigate the continent tens of thousands of years ago have been revealed by new research using sophisticated modelling of past people and landscapes.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-superhighways-australians.html
5/7/2021 6:00 PMChinese scientists have made direct observations of face-centered cubic VCoNi (medium)-entropy alloys (MEA) and for the first time proposed a convincing identification of subnanoscale chemical short-range order (CSRO). This achievement undisputedly resolves the pressing question of if, what and why CSRO exists, and how to explicitly identify CSRO.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-scientists-chemical-short-range-medium-entropy-alloy.html
5/8/2021 8:00 AMScientists from Stony Brook University and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior have pieced together a timeline of how brain and body size evolved in mammals over the last 150 million years. The findings show that brain size relative to body size—long considered an indicator of animal intelligence—has not followed a stable scale over evolutionary time.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-scientists-re-evaluating-relative-brain-size.html
5/8/2021 10:00 AMT10
5/8/2021 12:00 PMThe Brazilian Amazon released nearly 20 percent more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the last decade than it absorbed, according to a stunning report that shows humanity can no longer depend on the world’s largest tropical forest to help absorb manmade carbon pollution.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-climate-amazon-friend-foe.html
5/8/2021 2:00 PMUnderstanding how light waves oscillate in time as they interact with materials is essential to understanding light-driven energy transfer in materials, such as solar cells or plants. Due to the fantastically high speeds at which light waves oscillate, however, scientists have yet to develop a compact device with enough time resolution to directly capture them.https://phys.org/news/2021-04-compact-on-chip-device-electric-field-waveforms.html
5/8/2021 4:00 PMMore than a year into a very real crisis, experts gathered virtually to confront a second emergency, a potential asteroid impact — but this disaster, fortunately, was entirely hypothetical.https://www.space.com/planetary-defense-asteroid-impact-scenario-exercise-2021
5/8/2021 6:00 PMCeres, the biggest asteroid in our solar system, now has another bragging right. According to new research, Ceres has water seeping onto its surface, suggesting the presence of an ancient underground ocean.https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/dwarf-planet-ceres-water-geologically-active/
5/9/2021 8:00 AMWe usually assume that inbreeding is bad and should be avoided under all circumstances. But new research performed by researchers at Stockholm University shows that there is little support for this assumption.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-relatives-big-nature.html
5/9/2021 10:00 AMT10
5/9/2021 12:00 PMResearchers from NYU Abu Dhabi’s Center for Genomics and Systems Biology have successfully sequenced the genome of previously extinct date palm varieties that lived more than 2,000 years ago. They did so using date palm seeds that were recovered from archaeological sites in the southern Levant region and radiocarbon-dated from the 4th century BCE to the 2nd century CE. The seeds were germinated to yield viable, new plants. The researchers conducted whole genome sequencing of these germinated ancient samples and used this genome data to examine the genetics of these previously extinct Judean date palms. This study marks the first time researchers have sequenced the genomes of plants from ancient germinated seeds.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-sequenced-genome-extinct-date-palms.html
5/9/2021 2:00 PMA new study found overlooked tsunami hazards related to undersea, near-shore strike-slip faults, especially for coastal cities adjacent to faults that traverse inland bays. Several areas around the world may fall into this category, including the San Francisco Bay area, Izmit Bay in Turkey and the Gulf of Al-Aqaba in Egypt.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-previously-unrecognized-tsunami-hazard-coastal.html
5/9/2021 4:00 PMWhen two people want different things, frustration is inevitable. But these non-reciprocal interactions can also occur not just between people, but in the natural world.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-physicists-reveal-motion-frustration.html
5/9/2021 6:00 PMThe human world is, increasingly, an urban one—and that means elevators. Hong Kong, the hometown of physicist Zhijie Feng (Boston University), adds new elevators at the rate of roughly 1500 every year…making vertical transport an alluring topic for quantitative research.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-elevator-physicists-math.html
5/10/2021 8:00 AMAstronomers have apparently found the closest known black hole to Earth, a weirdly tiny object dubbed “The Unicorn” that lurks just 1,500 light-years from us. The nickname has a double meaning. Not only does the black hole candidate reside in the constellation Monoceros (“the unicorn”), its incredibly low mass — about three times that of the sun — makes it nearly one of a kind.https://www.space.com/tiny-black-hole-unicorn-closest-to-earth
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5/10/2021 12:00 PMWhen it comes to batteries, lithium-ion are the best we have as far as energy density and convenience. For now.https://techxplore.com/news/2021-05-team-stable-efficient-anode-free-sodium.html
5/10/2021 2:00 PMIt’s one of the most compelling questions you could possibly ask, one that humanity has been asking since basically the beginning of time: What’s beyond the known limits? What’s past the edge of our maps? The ultimate version of this question is, what lies outside the boundary of the universe? The answer is … well, it’s complicated.https://www.space.com/whats-beyond-universe-edge
5/10/2021 4:00 PMScientists have revealed how an antibiotic of ‘last resort’ kills bacteria. The findings, from Imperial College London and the University of Texas, may also reveal a potential way to make the antibiotic more powerful.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-resort-antibiotic-bacteria-balloons.html
5/10/2021 6:00 PMAn open question among the physics community is whether black holes can be tidally deformed by an external gravitational field. If this were confirmed to be true, it could have important implications for many areas of physics, including fundamental physics, astrophysics and gravitational-wave astronomy.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-black-holes-deform-external-static.html
5/11/2021 8:00 AMA team of international scientists, led by the Galician Institute of High Energy Physics (IGFAE) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), has proposed a simple and novel method to bring the accuracy of the Hubble constant measurements down to 2% using a single observation of a pair of merging neutron stars.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-gravitational-wave-scientists-method-refine-hubble.html
5/11/2021 10:00 AMThe Breakthrough Listen project has made several attempts to find evidence of alien civilizations through radio astronomy. Its latest effort focuses attention on the center of our galaxy.https://www.universetoday.com/151063/breakthrough-listen-searched-for-signals-from-intelligent-civilizations-near-the-center-of-the-milky-way/
5/11/2021 12:00 PMEver made a complete mess in your kitchen while baking? At moments it may look like flour is floating in the air, but once you’ve added plenty of water and formed your dough, the bread becomes more like a ball. A similar process is at work in a far-flung solar system known as PDS 70, except the flour and water are swapped for gas and dust. In the case of planet PDS 70b, gas and dust are slowly being drawn in as this distant world builds mass over millions of years.https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2021/news-2021-021
5/11/2021 2:00 PMAs the digital revolution has now become mainstream, quantum computing and quantum communication are rising in the consciousness of the field. The enhanced measurement technologies enabled by quantum phenomena, and the possibility of scientific progress using new methods, are of particular interest to researchers around the world.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-complex-photons-boost-future-quantum.html
5/11/2021 4:00 PMSince it was first introduced in 2016, transparent wood has been developed by researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology as an innovative structural material for building construction. It lets natural light through and can even store thermal energy.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-citrus-derivative-transparent-wood-percent.html
5/11/2021 6:00 PMAn individual human can maintain stable social relationships with about 150 people. This is the proposition known as “Dunbar’s number”—that the architecture of the human brain sets an upper limit on our social lives. A new study from Stockholm University indicates that a cognitive limit on human group sizes cannot be derived in this manner.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-friends-deconstructs-dunbar.html
5/12/2021 8:00 AMWhen a drinking glass falls on the floor and breaks, the shards will vary in size from large to extremely small. For the broken glass of a bus shelter, the story is different: all fragments have roughly the same size. Researchers from the University of Amsterdam, Unilever Vlaardingen and EPFL Lausanne investigated the breaking phenomenon, and discovered that two very different processes cause the two types of shards.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-big-fragment.html
5/12/2021 10:00 AMWherever scientists look, they can spot them: whether in remote mountain lakes, in Arctic sea ice, in the deep-ocean floor or in air samples, even in edible fish—thousands upon thousands of microscopic plastic particles in the micro to millimeter range. This microplastic is now even considered one of the defining features of the Anthropocene, the age of the Earth shaped by modern humans.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-tiny-plastic-particles-environment.html
5/12/2021 12:00 PMA pair of researchers with Tel Aviv University’s School of Zoology has found that bats have an innate sense of the speed of sound. In their paper, Eran Amichai and Yossi Yovel describe experiments they conducted with both wild and lab raised bats and what they learned from them.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-innate.html
5/12/2021 2:00 PMUsing the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), astronomers have detected a new extragalactic odd radio circle (ORC). The newfound radio source, designated ORC J0102–2450, has a diameter of nearly 1 million light years. The finding is reported in a paper published April 27 on arXiv.org.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-astronomers-extragalactic-circular-radio-source.html
5/12/2021 4:00 PMMammals see with their eyes, hear with their ears and smell with their nose. But which sense or organ allows them to orient themselves on their migrations, which sometimes go far beyond their local foraging areas and therefore require an extended ability to navigate? Scientific experiments led by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW), published together with Prof. Richard A. Holland (Bangor University, UK) and Dr. Gunārs Petersons (Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies) now show that the cornea of the eyes is the location of this important sense in migrating bats. If the cornea is anesthetized, the otherwise reliable sense of orientation is disturbed while light detection remains unimpaired. The experiment suggests the localisation of a magnetic sense in mammals.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-cryptic-localized-sixth-mammals-lies.html
5/12/2021 6:00 PMAstronomers using data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have identified 14 candidate antistars — stars made of antimatter — in our Milky Way Galaxy.http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/antimatter-stars-09617.html
5/13/2021 8:00 AMResearchers at ETH Zurich have succeeded in turning specially prepared graphene flakes either into insulators or into superconductors by applying an electric voltage. This technique even works locally, meaning that in the same graphene flake regions with completely different physical properties can be realized side by side.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-material-keyboard-graphene.html
5/13/2021 10:00 AMUniversity of Bristol research into octopus vision has led to a quick and easy test that helps optometrists identify people who are at greater risk of macular degeneration, the leading cause of incurable sight loss.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-insights-color-blind-octopus-human-sight.html
5/13/2021 12:00 PMThe singularity at the center of a black hole is the ultimate no man’s land: a place where matter is compressed down to an infinitely tiny point, and all conceptions of time and space completely break down. And it doesn’t really exist. Something has to replace the singularity, but we’re not exactly sure what.https://www.space.com/what-happens-black-hole-center
5/13/2021 2:00 PMA new focus article in the May issue of Geology summarizes research on plastic waste in marine and sedimentary environments. Authors I.A. Kane of the Univ. of Manchester and A. Fildani of the Deep Time Institute write that “Environmental pollution caused by uncontrolled human activity is occurring on a vast and unprecedented scale around the globe. Of the diverse forms of anthropogenic pollution, the release of plastic into nature, and particularly the oceans, is one of the most recent and visible effects.”https://phys.org/news/2021-05-plastic-pollution-deep-sea-geological.html
5/13/2021 4:00 PMFor all animals, eliminating some cells is a necessary part of embryonic development. Living cells are also naturally sloughed off in mature tissues; for example, the lining of the intestine turns over every few days.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-biologists-trigger-cell-extrusion.html
5/13/2021 6:00 PMAfter years of development, the Lunar Crater Radio Telescope (LCRT) project has been awarded $500,000 to support additional work as it enters Phase II of NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. While not yet a NASA mission, the LCRT describes a mission concept that could transform humanity’s view of the cosmos.https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/lunar-crater-radio-telescope-illuminating-the-cosmic-dark-ages
5/14/2021 8:00 AMOur Milky Way galaxy was born in violence and scientists are still piecing together a picture of the cosmic crime scene.https://www.space.com/early-milky-way-cannibalism.html
5/14/2021 10:00 AMScientists have discovered a new type of uranium that is the lightest ever known. The discovery could reveal more about a weird alpha particle that gets ejected from certain radioactive elements as they decay.https://www.livescience.com/lightest-uranium-isotope-discovered.html
5/14/2021 12:00 PMNew observations and simulations show that jets of high-energy particles emitted from the central massive black hole in the brightest galaxy in galaxy clusters can be used to map the structure of invisible inter-cluster magnetic fields. These findings provide astronomers with a new tool for investigating previously unexplored aspects of clusters of galaxies.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-window-hidden-side-magnetized-universe.html
5/14/2021 2:00 PMChimpanzees and bonobos diverged comparatively recently in great ape evolutionary history. They split into different species about 1.7 million years ago. Some of the distinctions between chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and bonobo (Pan paniscus) lineages have been made clearer by a recent achievement in hominid genomics.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-bonobo-genome-fine-tunes-great.html
5/14/2021 4:00 PMIn a series of papers, Rochester researchers report major strides in improving the transfer of information in quantum systems.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-major-hurdle-quantum.html
5/14/2021 6:00 PMChina’s core space station module is now circling Earth. The module, called Tianhe (“Harmony of the Heavens”), launched Wednesday night (April 28) atop a Long March-5B Y2 carrier rocket from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the northeastern coast of south China’s Hainan Province.https://www.space.com/china-space-station-assembly-plans
5/15/2021 8:00 AMPhysicists have measured the “skin” of an atom for the first time and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it is extremely thin. The measurement may help us understand the properties of neutron stars.https://www.newscientist.com/article/2276963-physicists-have-measured-an-atoms-neutron-skin-for-the-first-time/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=echobox&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1620400454
5/15/2021 10:00 AMScientists have outlined the wild way humans could travel past Neptune in under 10 years—with over 1.5 tons of cargo on board.https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/solar-system/a36037178/direct-fusion-drive-space-travel-neptune/
5/15/2021 12:00 PMA team of researchers from Universidad de Granada and Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas, both in Spain, has found that male hoopoes provide more nourishment to female mates who paint their eggs well.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-male-hoopoes-extra-nourishment-eggs.html
5/15/2021 2:00 PMWhen you save an image to your smartphone, those data are written onto tiny transistors that are electrically switched on or off in a pattern of “bits” to represent and encode that image. Most transistors today are made from silicon, an element that scientists have managed to switch at ever-smaller scales, enabling billions of bits, and therefore large libraries of images and other files, to be packed onto a single memory chip.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-physicists-antiferromagnetism.html
5/15/2021 4:00 PMIn the 150 years since Charles Darwin speculated that humans originated in Africa, the number of species in the human family tree has exploded, but so has the level of dispute concerning early human evolution. Fossil apes are often at the center of the debate, with some scientists dismissing their importance to the origins of the human lineage (the “hominins”), and others conferring them starring evolutionary roles. A new review out on May 7 in the journal Science looks at the major discoveries in hominin origins since Darwin’s works and argues that fossil apes can inform us about essential aspects of ape and human evolution, including the nature of our last common ancestor.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-human-stories-compatible-fossils.html
5/15/2021 6:00 PMTransitioning from fossil fuels to a clean hydrogen economy will require cheaper and more efficient ways to use renewable sources of electricity to break water into hydrogen and oxygen.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-nanoscale-reaction-limits-efficiency-hydrogen.html
5/16/2021 8:00 AMA research team from Brown University has made a major step toward improving the long-term reliability of perovskite solar cells, an emerging clean energy technology. In a study published on May 7 in the journal Science, the team demonstrates a “molecular glue” that keeps a key interface inside cells from degrading. The treatment dramatically increases cells’ stability and reliability over time, while also improving the efficiency with which they convert sunlight into electricity.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-molecular-perovskite-solar-cells-reliable.html
5/16/2021 10:00 AMThink about the number of times your computer on Earth has crashed. Now imagine how challenging that would be during a rover mission on Mars.https://www.space.com/mars-rovers-radiation-protection-xilinx
5/16/2021 12:00 PMLeather is an ever growing multi-billion dollar industry requiring more than 3.8 billion bovine animals—equal to one for every two people on earth—to sustain production each year. And while the products—clothing, shoes, furniture and more—can be quite elegant and durable, the environmental impact of leather production has been severe, leading to deforestation, water and land overuse, environmental pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-leather-like-material-silk-proteins.html
5/16/2021 2:00 PMA team of chemists and physicists at Utrecht University has succeeded in designing a new type of catalyst. By combining two metals with atomic precision they created a highly effective catalytic material.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-multidisciplinary-cooperation-catalysts-effective.html
5/16/2021 4:00 PMFor the first time, a spacecraft on another planet has recorded the sounds of a separate spacecraft. NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used one of its two microphones to listen as the Ingenuity helicopter flew for the fourth time on April 30, 2021. A new video combines footage of the solar-powered helicopter taken by Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z imager with audio from a microphone belonging to the rover’s SuperCam laser instrument.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-perseverance-mars-rover-captures-video.html
5/16/2021 6:00 PMLarge amounts of gas are sometimes funneled to a galaxy’s nuclear regions, with profound consequences. The gas triggers starburst activity and can also feed the supermassive black hole, converting it into an active galactic nucleus (AGN); indeed the supermassive black holes in AGN are thought to gain most of their mass in these accretion events. Eventually, outward pressure from supernovae, shocks, and/or AGN activity terminate the inflow. Galaxy mergers are thought to be one mechanism capable of triggering these massive inflows by disrupting the medium. A less dramatic cause may result from gas flows induced by a combination of galactic rotation and the gravitational instabilities generated by galactic bars, the elongated central structures (composed of stars) found in numerous spiral galaxies including the Milky Way.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-barred-galaxy-massive-molecular-inflow.html
5/17/2021 8:00 AMFor decades, cosmologists have wondered if the large-scale structure of the universe is a fractal — that is, if it looks the same no matter how large the scale. After completing massive surveys of galaxies, scientists finally have an answer: No, but kind of, in a way.https://www.space.com/universe-pattern-fractals-cosmic-web
5/17/2021 10:00 AMFilaments of material wrapped around a supermassive black hole have been spotted for the first time suggesting a star trapped by the black hole’s gravity has just been destroyed by ”spaghettification”.https://www.space.com/spaghettified-star-observed-near-black-hole
5/17/2021 12:00 PMScientists from the Faculty of Health and Sports Sciences at the University of Tsukuba used aerodynamics experiments to empirically test the flight properties of a new four-panel soccer ball adopted by the English Premier League this year. Based on projectile and wind-tunnel data, they computed the drag and side forces and found that the new ball was marginally more stable than previous versions but may not fly as far. This work may help improve the design of future sports equipment.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-english-premier-league-soccer-ball.html
5/17/2021 2:00 PMCarbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion dropped 10% in the European Union last year amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to estimates from the EU’s statistical office.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-carbon-emissions-energy-eu-year.html
5/17/2021 4:00 PMFifty million years ago, a throng of thimble-sized fish met its untimely end. Now, a team of Japanese scientists may have uncovered the pristinely-preserved mass grave that immortalized these doomed creatures’ final moments.https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/fossil-school-fish/
5/17/2021 6:00 PMTo observe the swift neuronal signals in a fish brain, scientists have started to use a technique called light-field microscopy, which makes it possible to image such fast biological processes in 3D. But the images are often lacking in quality, and it takes hours or days for massive amounts of data to be converted into 3D volumes and movies.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-artificial-intelligence-great-microscopes.html
5/18/2021 8:00 AMCosmologists have found a way to double the accuracy of measuring distances to supernova explosions—one of their tried-and-true tools for studying the mysterious dark energy that is making the universe expand faster and faster. The results from the Nearby Supernova Factory (SNfactory) collaboration, led by Greg Aldering of the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), will enable scientists to study dark energy with greatly improved precision and accuracy, and provide a powerful crosscheck of the technique across vast distances and time. The findings will also be central to major upcoming cosmology experiments that will use new ground and space telescopes to test alternative explanations of dark energy.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-supernovae-twins-possibilities-precision-cosmology.html
5/18/2021 10:00 AMA team of researchers from Zhejiang University, Xi’an Jiaotong University and Monash University has developed a way to bind multiple strands of graphene oxide into a thick cable. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their process and possible uses for it. Rodolfo Cruz-Silva and Ana Laura Elías with Shinshu University and Binghamton University have published a Perspectives piece in the same issue outlining the work by the researchers and explaining why they believe the technique could prove useful in manufacturing efforts.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-self-generating-yarn-graphene-oxide-strands.html
5/18/2021 12:00 PMThe most comprehensive study of the family tree for legumes, the plant family that includes beans, soybeans, peanuts, and many other economically important crop plants, reveals a history of whole-genome duplications. The study also helps to uncover the evolution of genes involved in nitrogen fixation—a key trait likely important in the evolutionary spread and diversification of legumes and vital for their use as “green manure” in agriculture. To reconstruct the family tree, researchers compared the DNA sequence of more than 1500 genes from 463 different legume species, including 391 newly sequenced species, that span the diversity of this large plant family.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-massive-molecular-uncovers-clues-evolution.html
5/18/2021 2:00 PMFrom 50,000 to 15,000 years ago, during the last ice age, Earth’s climate wobbled between cooler and warmer periods punctuated by occasional, dramatic ice-melting events.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-year-history-current-yields-climate.html
5/18/2021 4:00 PMWhile working on his doctorate in theoretical physics in the early 1970s, Saul Teukolsky solved a problem that seemed purely hypothetical. Imagine a black hole, the ghostly knot of gravity that forms when, say, a massive star burns out and collapses to an infinitesimal point. Suppose you perturb it, as you might strike a bell. How does the black hole respond?https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/after-decades-effort-scientists-are-finally-seeing-black-holes-or-are-they
5/18/2021 6:00 PMhttps://www.wired.com/story/if-you-transplant-human-head-does-consciousness-follow/
5/19/2021 8:00 AMIn 1884, Edwin Abbott wrote the novel Flatland: A Romance in Many Dimensions as a satire of Victorian hierarchy. He imagined a world that existed only in two dimensions, where the beings are 2D geometric figures. The physics of such a world is somewhat akin to that of modern 2D materials, such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides, which include tungsten disulfide (WS2), tungsten diselenide (WSe2), molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) and molybdenum diselenide (MoSe2).https://phys.org/news/2021-05-physicists-energy-landscapes-intersection-2d.html
5/19/2021 10:00 AMA team of prominent scientists has doubled down on its controversial hypothesis that genetic bits of the pandemic coronavirus can integrate into our chromosomes and stick around long after the infection is over. If they are right—skeptics have argued that their results are likely lab artifacts—the insertions could explain the rare finding that people can recover from COVID-19 but then test positive for SARS-CoV-2 again months later.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/further-evidence-offered-claim-genes-pandemic-coronavirus-can-integrate-human-dna
5/19/2021 12:00 PMA team of astronomers from the Grenoble Alpes University in France and elsewhere, reports the detection of a new sub-Neptune exoplanet orbiting an M dwarf star. The newly found alien world, designated TOI-269 b, is nearly three times larger than the Earth. The finding was detailed in a paper published April 30 on the arXiv pre-print repository.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-sub-neptune-exoplanet-astronomers.html
5/19/2021 2:00 PMAfter a huge Chinese rocket plummeted apparently into the ocean late Saturday (May 8), NASA’s new administrator condemned the country’s use of launch technology that makes uncontrolled reentries from orbit.https://www.space.com/china-rocket-body-fall-implications
5/19/2021 4:00 PMVoyager 1—one of two sibling NASA spacecraft launched 44 years ago and now the most distant human-made object in space—still works and zooms toward infinity.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-space-voyager-plasma.html
5/19/2021 6:00 PMScientists have gotten one step closer to a quantum internet by creating the world’s first multinode quantum network.https://www.space.com/three-node-quantum-network
5/20/2021 8:00 AMA Dutch-led team of astronomers has discovered that high-mass stars are formed differently from their smaller siblings. Whereas small stars are often surrounded by an orderly disk of dust and matter, the supply of matter to large stars is a chaotic mess. The researchers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope for their observation.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-high-mass-stars-disk-debris.html
5/20/2021 10:00 AMOne third of the proteins essential for life processes are produced in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of the cell and distributed via membrane vesicles. Sorting of proteins at ER exit sites and transport to the Golgi apparatus is orchestrated by the so-called COPII protein coat complexes, but not as previously thought. Researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU), Israel, and the Leibniz Institute on Aging—Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI) in Jena, Germany, have now found that the COPII complexes do not leave the ER for transport. They remain as gatekeepers at ER exit sites from where they control the protein recruitment, sorting and exit to the Golgi. The new findings could lead to a paradigm shift in cell biology.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-paradigm-cell-biology-protein-thought.html
5/20/2021 12:00 PMQuadram Institute researchers have discovered a new species of bacterium in the human gut that can convert nitrogen into a biologically useful form.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-species-human-gut-microbiome-nitrogen.html
5/20/2021 2:00 PMAn international team of researchers led by Alice Booth (Leiden University, the Netherlands) have discovered methanol-ijs in the warm part of a planet-forming disk. The methanol cannot have been produced there and must have originated in the cold gas clouds from which the star and the disk formed. Thus, the methanol is inherited. If that is common, it could give the development of life a flying start.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-discovery-methanol-planet-forming-disk.html
5/20/2021 4:00 PMOnly one in three fertilizations leads to a successful pregnancy. Many embryos fail to progress beyond early development. Cell biologists at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen (Germany), together with researchers at the Institute of Farm Animal Genetics in Mariensee and other international colleagues, have now developed a new model system for studying early embryonic development. With the help of this system, they discovered that errors often occur when the genetic material from each parent combines immediately after fertilization. This is due to a remarkably inefficient process.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-combining-maternal-paternal-genetic-surprisingly.html
5/20/2021 6:00 PMPhysicists have spent centuries grappling with an inconvenient truth about nature: Faced with three stars on a collision course, astronomers could measure their locations and velocities in nanometers and milliseconds and it wouldn’t be enough to predict the stars’ fates.https://www.space.com/three-body-problem-statistical-solution
5/21/2021 8:00 AMNew Curtin University research has found a bias among scientists toward colourful and visually striking plants, means they are more likely to be chosen for scientific study and benefit from subsequent conservation efforts, regardless of their ecological importance.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-pretty-hog-limelight.html
5/21/2021 10:00 AMIn cancer, a lot of biology goes awry: Genes mutate, molecular processes change dramatically, and cells proliferate uncontrollably to form entirely new tissues that we call tumors. Multiple things go wrong at different levels, and this complexity is partly what makes cancer so difficult to research and treat.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-cancer-cells-hijack-3d-dna.html
5/21/2021 12:00 PMAs humans, the weather where we live influences our energy consumption. In climates where weather shifts from hot summers to very cold winters, humans consume more energy since the body has to work harder to maintain temperature.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-soil-high-microbial-fluctuation-carbon.html
5/21/2021 2:00 PMForests’ ability to survive and adapt to the disruptions wrought by climate change may depend, in part, on the eddies and swirls of global wind currents, suggests a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-global-climate-shifts-forests-futures.html
5/21/2021 4:00 PMScientists have figured out what triggers large-scale volcanic eruptions and what conditions likely lead to them. Hawaii’s Kilauea is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. Because of this and its relative ease of accessibility, it is also among the most heavily outfitted with monitoring equipment—instruments that measure and record everything from earthquakes and ground movement to lava volume and advancement.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-caldera-collapse-size-duration-volcanic.html
5/21/2021 6:00 PMA chemical that the NSW government has recently partially banned in firefighting has been found in the pups of endangered Australian sea lions and in Australian fur seals.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-firefighting-chemical-sea-lion-fur.html
5/22/2021 8:00 AMAntibiotic resistance in E. coli has been steadily increasing since the early 2000s despite attempts to control it, a new study suggests. In the biggest genomic survey of E. coli to date, that took more than 16 years in Norway, researchers have successfully tracked the spread of antibiotic resistant genes and have shown that these genes are being transferred between E. coli strains.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-multi-drug-resistant-coli.html
5/22/2021 10:00 AMResearchers have confirmed the existence of magnetic plasma waves, known as Alfvén waves, in the Sun’s photosphere. The study, published in Nature Astronomy, provides new insights into these fascinating waves that were first discovered by the Nobel Prize winning scientist Hannes Alfvén in 1947.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-scientists-magnetic-action-sun-photosphere.html
5/22/2021 12:00 PMThey may be tiny weapons, but Brigham Young University’s holography research group has figured out how to create lightsabers—green for Yoda and red for Darth Vader, naturally—with actual luminous beams rising from them.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-hologram-experts-real-life-images-air.html
5/22/2021 2:00 PMWhen VOYAGER 2 flew by neptune and its largest satellite, Triton, in 1989, it revealed a moon with never-before-seen terrain and plumes spurting from the surface. At the time, scientists attributed the plumes to heating from the Sun. But recent advances in understanding ocean worlds such as Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus have raised the possibility that Triton’s plumes may indicate it, too, harbors an ocean under its icy crust — a place where life may have managed to evolve.https://astronomy.com/magazine/2019/08/what-lies-beneath-tritons-ice
5/22/2021 4:00 PMThe sun gives energy to life on Earth, and without this star, we wouldn’t be here. But like most things in space, even stars have limited lifetimes, and someday our sun will die. You don’t need to worry about this solar death anytime soon, though. Inside the sun, a churning fusion engine fuels the star, and it still has a lot of fuel left — about 5 billion years’ worth.https://www.space.com/14732-sun-burns-star-death.html
5/22/2021 6:00 PMResearchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have developed a new material that prevents infections in wounds, a specially designed hydrogel that works against all types of bacteria, including antibiotic-resistant strains. The new material offers great hope for combating a growing global problem.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-material-wounds-resistant-bacteria.html
5/23/2021 8:00 AMGeoscientists from Brown and Columbia universities have run a set of experiments designed to understand how much heat is created when ice is deformed. This experiments land some insight into how a moon like the Jovian moon Europa might behave under the strong tidal forces that undergoes as it orbits the giant planet. Europa is under a constant gravitational assault. As it orbits, Europa’ ice’ surface squeezed and stretched with due to Jupiter’s gravity creating enough heat, scientist think, to support a global ocean beneath the moon solid shell.https://www.cosmosup.com/ice-crust-in-europa-hotter/
5/23/2021 10:00 AMOne of the most prominent evils of rapid industrialization has been the emission of toxic pollutants into the surrounding biosphere, with often disastrous consequences for human beings. Several industrial processes, such as chemical manufacturing and printing, along with facilities such as power plants emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are known to be cancer-causing and raise an important environmental issue in need of a solution. Traditionally, VOCs are controlled via a process called catalytic oxidation, in which they are converted into benign materials in the presence of noble metal (e.g. gold, silver, and platinum) nanoparticles. However, the process is expensive and requires a fine-tuning of nanoparticle characteristics. Thus, a catalytic process not requiring noble metal catalysts is highly desirable. While transition metals and their oxides are a possible alternative, they require complex syntheses and precise chemical composition control.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-bone-deep-mineral-human-bone-toxic.html
5/23/2021 12:00 PMResearchers from the University of Tsukuba have sent mice into space to explore effects of spaceflight and reduced gravity on muscle atrophy, or wasting, at the molecular level.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-astronaut-muscle-molecular.html
5/23/2021 2:00 PMGravity was the first fundamental force that humanity recognized, yet it remains the least understood. Physicists can predict the influence of gravity on bowling balls, stars and planets with exquisite accuracy, but no one knows how the force interacts with minute particles, or quanta. The nearly century-long search for a theory of quantum gravity — a description of how the force works for the universe’s smallest pieces — is driven by the simple expectation that one gravitational rulebook should govern all galaxies, quarks and everything in between.https://www.space.com/quantum-gravity.html
5/23/2021 4:00 PMA team of international scientists, led by the Galician Institute of High Energy Physics (IGFAE) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), has proposed a simple and novel method to bring the accuracy of the Hubble constant measurements down to 2% using a single observation of a pair of merging neutron stars.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-gravitational-wave-scientists-method-refine-hubble.html
5/23/2021 6:00 PMOne of the most basic structural aspects of relativistic spacetime is the description of how time and distances are altered by motion. The theory of special relativity describes a spacetime framework for linear constant motion in which time dilates and lengths contract in response to motion. This framework is described by the Lorentz transformation, which encompasses mathematical formulas that describe how time and distance are altered between moving reference frames. The Lorentz transformation also describes how a stationary observer views time in the moving frame to be offset with distance. The offsetting of time with distance between reference frames generates differential simultaneity, in which events that are simultaneous for one observer will not be simultaneous for a second observer moving relative to the first observer.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-optical-reveal-basic-spacetime-rotating.html
5/24/2021 8:00 AMArgonne scientists across several disciplines have combined forces to create a new process for testing and predicting the effects of high temperatures on refractory oxides.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-lasers-levitation-machine-heat-resistant-materials.html
5/24/2021 10:00 AMEvidence of what may be the youngest eruption seen yet on Mars suggests the Red Planet may still be volcanically active, raising the possibility it was recently habitable, a new study finds.https://www.space.com/mars-still-volcanically-active-elysium-planitia
5/24/2021 12:00 PMA new study from the University of Chicago has found that the photosynthetic bacterium Synechococcus elongatus uses a circadian clock to precisely time DNA replication, and that interrupting this circadian rhythm prevents replication from completing and leaves chromosomes unfinished overnight.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-successful-dna-replication-cyanobacteria-circadian.html
5/24/2021 2:00 PMAstronomers have performed high-resolution observations of a complex planetary nebula known as NGC 1514. Results of the study provide essential information about morpho-kinematical structure and chemical composition of this nebula, which could help researchers to better understand its nature.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-nature-complex-planetary-nebula.html
5/24/2021 4:00 PMA newly described horned dinosaur that lived in New Mexico 82 million years ago is one of the earliest known ceratopsid species, a group known as horned or frilled dinosaurs.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-newly-horned-dinosaur-mexico-earliest.html
5/24/2021 6:00 PMSimon Fraser University researchers have designed a remarkably fast engine that taps into a new kind of fuel—information.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-world-fastest-information-fueled-university.html
5/25/2021 8:00 AMGram-negative bacteria are the bane of health care workers’ existence. They’re one of the most dangerous organisms to become infected with—and one of the hardest to treat. But new research from the University of Georgia suggests a component of bacteria’s cell walls may hold the key to crushing the antibiotic-resistant microbes.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-antibiotic-resistance.html
5/25/2021 10:00 AMNew research on the growth rates of coral reefs shows there is still a window of opportunity to save the world’s coral reefs—but time is running out.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-coral-reefs.html
5/25/2021 12:00 PMAuroras paint the sky around the poles when the sun is particularly active, flinging highly charged particles at Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists once thought that the gorgeous events were mirror images, but to their surprise, displays at the north (the aurora borealis) and south (the aurora australis) don’t precisely match.https://www.space.com/43130-northern-lights-auroras-different-in-south.html
5/25/2021 2:00 PMResearchers at the University of California San Diego have laid the groundwork for a potential new type of gene therapy using novel CRISPR-based techniques.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-genetic-copycatchers-efficient-precise-crispr.html
5/25/2021 4:00 PMUnlike the oscillations of sound waves, the oscillations of light are so fast that extremely complex equipment is needed to observe them directly. However, it is possible to measure the frequencies of these oscillations indirectly with frequency combs. These combs are made up of a set of regularly spaced ‘teeth’ where each tooth corresponds to a frequency. Used as a graduated ruler, they offer the possibility of measuring an optical frequency with great precision. This makes it possible, among other things, to measure variations in the distance between the Earth and the Moon with an accuracy equivalent to the size of a hair.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-cavity-solitons-ultra-stable-high-power-optical.html
5/25/2021 6:00 PMThe ‘missing link’ that helped our ancestors to begin communicating with each other through language may have been iconic sounds, rather than charades-like gestures—giving rise to the unique human power to coin new words describing the world around us, a new study reveals.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-ancestors-iconic-bridge-languages.html
5/26/2021 8:00 AMWhether it’s turning forests into cropland or savannah into pastures, humanity has repurposed land over the last 60 years equivalent in area to Africa and Europe combined, researchers said Tuesday.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-earth-surface.html
5/26/2021 10:00 AMThe property that makes fluorescent lights buzz could power a new generation of more efficient computing devices that store data with magnetic fields, rather than electricity. A team led by University of Michigan researchers has developed a material that’s at least twice as “magnetostrictive” and far less costly than other materials in its class. In addition to computing, it could also lead to better magnetic sensors for medical and security devices.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-harnessing-fluorescent-efficient.html
5/26/2021 12:00 PMThough different fabrication approaches exist, two-step deposition is one of the main experimental techniques now used to make efficient, stable PSCs, especially on the industrial scale. The process involves first depositing lead iodide (PbI2) and then adding halide salts of monovalent cations such as methylammonium iodide (MAI) and formamidinium iodide (FAI) to convert it to perovskite.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-low-temperature-crystallization-phase-pure-formamidinium-iodide.html
5/26/2021 2:00 PMA giant mosasaur from the end of the Cretaceous period in Morocco that could have reached up to eight meters long is the third new species to be described from the region in less than a year, bringing the total number of species up to at least 13.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-giant-sea-lizard-fossil-diversity.html
5/26/2021 4:00 PMScientists have spotted water in a primitive meteorite, expanding our understanding of the ancient solar system. Water is abundant in our solar system — from the icy rings of Saturn to the subsurface water on its moon Enceladus and the liquid water and ice detected on Mars, water is known to exist beyond Earth. However, while scientists have suspected that water is preserved in a type of meteorite known as carbonaceous chondrites, they have never discovered liquid water in these rocks — until now.https://www.space.com/discovery-liquid-water-sutters-mill-meteorite
5/26/2021 6:00 PMUsing the Harlan J. Smith Telescope, astronomers have discovered that the star HD 47127 has a substellar companion. The newly identified object, designated HD 47127 B, appears to be a brown dwarf or a brown dwarf binary.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-astronomers-substellar-companion-hd.html
5/27/2021 8:00 AMSea snakes are among the most venomous snakes in the world. Yet, for the most part, they are not a threat to humans. In fact, scuba divers can often grab a handful of writing sea snakes without negative repercussions, although such actions are not recommended. However, if you’re a fish on a coral reef, and you’re reading this article, you should probably be very worried about sea snakes. Sea snakes are often seen alone, but some species are known to hunt in groups.https://roaring.earth/sea-snakes-hunt-in-groups/
5/27/2021 10:00 AMScientists have spotted water in a primitive meteorite, expanding our understanding of the ancient solar system. Water is abundant in our solar system — from the icy rings of Saturn to the subsurface water on its moon Enceladus and the liquid water and ice detected on Mars, water is known to exist beyond Earth. However, while scientists have suspected that water is preserved in a type of meteorite known as carbonaceous chondrites, they have never discovered liquid water in these rocks — until now.https://www.space.com/discovery-liquid-water-sutters-mill-meteorite
5/27/2021 12:00 PMAnyone who’s raised a child or a pet will know just how fast and how steady their growth seems to be. You leave for a few days on a work trip and when you come home the child seems to have grown an inch! That’s all well and good for the modern household, but how did dinosaurs grow up? Did they, too, surprise their parents with their non-stop growth?https://phys.org/news/2021-05-southern-african-dinosaur-irregular-growth.html
5/27/2021 2:00 PMScientists have created new artificial tissues that mimic some of the complex characteristics and abilities of living tissues, paving the way toward unprecedented advances in medicine, soft-robotics, and micro-engineering. The University of Bristol-led breakthrough, published in Advanced Materials, reports the first way to produce centimeter-sized artificial tissues of any shape and with complex internal structures.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-scientists-creation-programmable-artificial-tissues.html
5/27/2021 4:00 PMA study published in the journal Scientific Reports reveals the genetic structure of the land snail Xerocrassa montserratensis and it provides new scientific tools for the improvement of the conservation of this endemic and threatened species in Catalonia. This land mollusc, identified in the late 19th century in the Montserrat mountains, has a reduced geographical distribution limited to the province of Barcelona, and it is a protected species in the area of the natural parks of Montserrat and Sant Llorenç del Munt i l’Obac.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-reveals-genetic-snail-xerocrassa-montserratensis.html
5/27/2021 6:00 PMEvery meal you eat is digested with the help of the bountiful bacteria thronging your intestines. When you’re done digesting, those bacteria are also part of what’s excreted. Now, 1000-year-old piles of dried-out poop are offering insights into how the billions-strong bacterial ecosystems in the human gut have been altered by sanitation, processed foods, and antibiotics.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/piles-ancient-poop-reveal-extinction-event-human-gut-bacteria
5/28/2021 8:00 AMA Rutgers study finds that symbiotic bacteria that colonize root cells may be managed to produce hardier crops that need less fertilizer. Bacteria stimulate root hair growth in all plants that form root hairs, so the researchers examined the chemical interactions between bacteria inside root cells and the root cell.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-symbiotic-bacteria-root-cells-key.html
5/28/2021 10:00 AMAn international research team led by the University of Cologne has succeeded for the first time in connecting several atomically precise nanoribbons made of graphene, a modification of carbon, to form complex structures. The scientists have synthesized and spectroscopically characterized nanoribbon heterojunctions. They then were able to integrate the heterojunctions into an electronic component. In this way, they have created a novel sensor that is highly sensitive to atoms and molecules. The results of their research have been published under the title “Tunneling current modulation in atomically precise graphene nanoribbon heterojunctions’ in Nature Communications. The work was carried out in close cooperation between the Institute for Experimental Physics with the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cologne, as well as with research groups from Montreal, Novosibirsk, Hiroshima, and Berkeley. It was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the European Research Council (ERC).https://phys.org/news/2021-05-atomically-precise-graphene-nanoribbon-heterojunction.html
5/28/2021 12:00 PMIn recent years, many material scientists worldwide have been investigating the potential of two-dimensional (2D) materials, which are composed of a single layer or a few ultrathin layers of atoms and have unique physical, electrical and optical properties.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-two-fold-symmetric-superconductivity-2d-niobium.html
5/28/2021 2:00 PMA new theorem from the field of quantum machine learning has poked a major hole in the accepted understanding about information scrambling.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-quantum-machine-limit.html
5/28/2021 4:00 PMThwaites Glacier is melting fast. But to understand how climate change is driving its decline, scientists need to send instruments through 2,000 feet of ice into the water below.https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/warm-water-found-beneath-thwaites-glacier-antarctica/
5/28/2021 6:00 PMNature-based solutions (NbS) can contribute to the fight against climate change up to the end of our century, according to new Oxford research in the leading scientific journal Nature. The analysis suggests that, to limit global temperature rise, we must slash emissions and increase NbS investment to protect, manage and restore ecosystems and land for the future.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-natural-climate-solutions-highly-effective.html
5/29/2021 8:00 AMThe evolution of ankle and foot bones into different shapes and sizes helped mammals adapt and thrive after the extinction of the dinosaurs, a study suggests.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-ankle-foot-evolution-gave-mammals.html
5/29/2021 10:00 AMA new discovery led by Princeton University could upend our understanding of how electrons behave under extreme conditions in quantum materials. The finding provides experimental evidence that this familiar building block of matter behaves as if it is made of two particles: one particle that gives the electron its negative charge and another that supplies its magnet-like property, known as spin.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-evidence-electron-dual-nature-quantum.html
5/29/2021 12:00 PMRadical changes to the food system are needed to safeguard our food supply and combat malnutrition in the face of climate change, environmental degradation and epidemics, says new report.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-kelp-maggots-mycoprotein-future-foods.html
5/29/2021 2:00 PMScientists exploring the drivers of Antarctic climate change have discovered a new and more efficient pathway for the creation of natural aerosols and clouds which contribute significantly to temperature increases.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-gases-ocean-source-particles-antarctic.html
5/29/2021 4:00 PMWhen a piece of conducting material is heated up at one of its ends, a voltage difference can build up across the sample, which in turn can be converted into a current. This is the so-called Seebeck effect, the cornerstone of thermoelectric effects. In particular, the effect provides a route to creating work out of a temperature difference. Such thermoelectric engines do not have any movable part and are therefore convenient power sources in various applications, including propelling NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance. The Seebeck effect is interesting for fundamental physics, too, as the magnitude and sign of the induced thermoelectric current is characteristic of the material and indicates how entropy and charge currents are coupled. Writing in Physical Review X, the group of Prof. Tilman Esslinger at the Department of Physics of ETH Zurich now reports on the controlled reversal of such a current by changing the interaction strength among the constituents of a quantum simulator made of extremely cold atoms trapped in shaped laser fields. The capability to induce such a reversal means that the system can be turned from a thermoelectric engine into a cooler.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-current-trend-reversed-scientists-seebeck.html
5/29/2021 6:00 PMAstronomers commonly refer to massive stars as the chemical factories of the Universe. They generally end their lives in spectacular supernovae, events that forge many of the elements on the periodic table. How elemental nuclei mix within these enormous stars has a major impact on our understanding of their evolution prior to their explosion. It also represents the largest uncertainty for scientists studying their structure and evolution.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-reveals-hidden-hearts-large-stars.html
5/30/2021 8:00 AMThe first frost of autumn may be grim for gardeners but the latest evidence reveals it is a profound event in the life of plants. The discovery may affect how we grow crops in a fluctuating climate and help us better understand molecular mechanisms in animals and humans.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-frost-deepest.html
5/30/2021 10:00 AMA new whole genome sequence for the Yap hadal snailfish provides insights into how the unusual fish survives in some of the deepest parts of the ocean.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-snailfish-genome-reveals-pressures-deep-sea.html
5/30/2021 12:00 PMScientists have spotted water in a primitive meteorite, expanding our understanding of the ancient solar system. Water is abundant in our solar system — from the icy rings of Saturn to the subsurface water on its moon Enceladus and the liquid water and ice detected on Mars, water is known to exist beyond Earth. However, while scientists have suspected that water is preserved in a type of meteorite known as carbonaceous chondrites, they have never discovered liquid water in these rocks — until now.https://www.space.com/discovery-liquid-water-sutters-mill-meteorite
5/30/2021 2:00 PMAll modern life is composed of cells, from single-celled bacteria to more complex organisms such as humans, which may contain billions or even trillions of cells. But how life came to be cellular remains uncertain. New research led by specially appointed assistant professor Tony Z. Jia at the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Tokyo Institute of Technology, along with colleagues from around the world (Japan, Malaysia, France, Czech Republic, India and the U.S.), shows that simple chemical compounds known as hydroxy acids, which were likely common on primitive Earth, spontaneously link together and form structures reminiscent of modern cells when dried from solution, as may have happened on or in ancient beaches or puddles. The resulting structures may have helped scaffold the emergence of biological cellularity, and offer scientists a new avenue for studying early proto-biological evolution and the origins of life itself.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-life-cellular-unusual-molecules.html
5/30/2021 4:00 PMAustralian-first research by Monash University discredits the theory that rivers and underground water supplies eventually replenish following droughts or floods. Following the Australian Millennium Drought, one-third of Victoria’s water catchments still had not recovered from drought nearly eight years later. For those water catchments not recovered, roughly 80 per cent showed no evidence of recovering anytime soon.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-victoria-catchments-recover-drought.html
5/30/2021 6:00 PMA new approach to genomic species delineation could impact policy and lend clarity to legislation for designating a species as endangered or at risk. The coastal California gnatcatcher is an unassuming little gray songbird that’s been at the epicenter of a legal brawl for nearly 28 years, ever since U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed it as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-approach-genetic-boundaries-species-impact.html
5/31/2021 8:00 AMPaleontologists identified a new species of dinosaur after a specimen from about 73 million years ago was found in northern Mexico.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-mexican-paleontologists-dinosaur-species.html
5/31/2021 10:00 AMArchaeologists discovered the fossilized remains of nine Neanderthals at a prehistoric cave site south of Rome, the Italian Cultural Ministry announced on Saturday. The oldest of the remains date from between 90,000 and 100,000 years ago, while the other eight are believed to be younger, dating from 50,000 to 68,000 years ago.https://www.npr.org/2021/05/09/995214254/an-extraordinary-discovery-archeologists-find-neanderthal-remains-in-cave-near-r
5/31/2021 12:00 PMMassive, slow-moving and ancient. Meet the incredibly rare Chinese giant salamander, which can outgrow the average human. Capable of reaching up to 6 feet from head to tail and weighing more than 110 pounds, Chinese giant salamanders are the largest living amphibians in the world. However, the average individual measures just under 4 feet and weighs between 55 and 65 pounds.https://roaring.earth/giant-salamanders-near-extinction/
5/31/2021 2:00 PMAs the sun’s activity waxes and wanes, so too does the ionosphere of Venus, a key layer in the upper atmosphere, according to new observations that cinch a decades-old suspicion.https://www.space.com/venus-natural-radio-emission-burst-detected
5/31/2021 4:00 PMRodents and pigs share with certain aquatic organisms the ability to use their intestines for respiration, finds a study publishing May 14th in the journal Med. The researchers demonstrated that the delivery of oxygen gas or oxygenated liquid through the rectum provided vital rescue to two mammalian models of respiratory failure.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-mammals-anus-emergencies.html
5/31/2021 6:00 PMAs humans, we’re currently facing two big environmental crises: climate change and biodiversity loss. The first managed to gain a lot of public attention and funding, whereas the latter goes on more slowly in the background. One of the key problems the biodiversity crisis is facing, is the few ways to monitor biodiversity. In his recent publication, Prof Dr. Andrew Skidmore and his team linked existing remote sensing products to so-called essential biodiversity variables (EBVs) in order to measure biodiversity using satellites.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-nature-crisis-space-biodiversity-satellites.html
6/1/2021 8:00 AMWhen a massive star dies, first there is a supernova explosion. Then, what’s left over becomes either a black hole or a neutron star.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-physicists-neutron-stars-bigger-previously.html
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6/1/2021 12:00 PMScientists have used fibre-optic sensing to obtain the most detailed measurements of ice properties ever taken on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Their findings will be used to make more accurate models of the future movement of the world’s second-largest ice sheet, as the effects of climate change continue to accelerate.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-fibre-optics-temperature-greenland-ice-sheet.html
6/1/2021 2:00 PMPlanets, stars, and black holes all grow by consuming material from a spinning disk. While these disks may differ in size, they’re all mostly dependent on the mighty force of gravity, which keeps them spinning around the central mass. Gravity lets small clumps grow into bigger clumps. But it’s not enough to pull the whole disk into the middle in one giant clump, because angular momentum is pulling those clumps away from the center as they spin.https://astronomy.com/news/2019/02/scientists-finally-confirm-a-big-theory-about-solar-system-formation
6/1/2021 4:00 PMA team of researchers at Universidade de São Paulo has found that bird species that have a central position in frugivory networks tend to belong to more stable lineages over macroevolutionary time scales. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their analysis of hundreds of bird species and their dispersal networks and what they found. Carolina Bello and Elisa Barreto with the Federal Research Institute WSL have published a Perspectives piece in the same journal issue outlining past studies of complex networks of fruit-eating birds and the seeds they disperse from an evolutionary perspective and the work done by the team in Brazil.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-bird-species-central-seed-dispersal-networks.html
6/1/2021 6:00 PMScientists have spotted water in a primitive meteorite, expanding our understanding of the ancient solar system. Water is abundant in our solar system — from the icy rings of Saturn to the subsurface water on its moon Enceladus and the liquid water and ice detected on Mars, water is known to exist beyond Earth. However, while scientists have suspected that water is preserved in a type of meteorite known as carbonaceous chondrites, they have never discovered liquid water in these rocks — until now.https://www.space.com/discovery-liquid-water-sutters-mill-meteorite
6/2/2021 8:00 AMA microscope used by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek to conduct pioneering research contains a surprisingly ordinary lens, as new research by Rijksmuseum Boerhaave Leiden and TU Delft shows. It is a remarkable finding, because Van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) led other scientists to believe that his instruments were exceptional. Consequently, there has been speculation about his method for making lenses for more than three centuries.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-antoni-van-leeuwenhoek-rivals-astray.html
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6/2/2021 12:00 PMThree billion years ago, light first zipped through chlorophyll within tiny reaction centers, the first step plants and photosynthetic bacteria take to convert light into food.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-path-photosynthesis.html
6/2/2021 2:00 PMAn international research team analyzed a database of more than 1000 supernova explosions and found that models for the expansion of the Universe best match the data when a new time dependent variation is introduced. If proven correct with future, higher-quality data from the Subaru Telescope and other observatories, these results could indicate still unknown physics working on the cosmic scale.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-expansion-history-universe-supernovae.html
6/2/2021 4:00 PMScientists have long questioned why the bursts of hot gas from the sun do not cool down as fast as expected, and have now used a supercomputer to find out. The team will compare the simulations with ‘real’ data from the Solar Orbiter mission, with the hope that it will confirm their predictions and provide a conclusive answer.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-supercomputer-simulations-space-weather-puzzle.html
6/2/2021 6:00 PMZircon minerals are the oldest-known Earth material. Some formed even before the planet’s crust became the rigid continental plates that move according to modern plate tectonics. New research on ancient zircons suggests that Earth’s modern plate tectonics likely formed around 3.6 billion years ago. The paper, published in the journal Geochemical Perspective Letters, reveals how one of Earth’s defining geologic features likely formed — and set the stage for the emergence of life.https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-of-natural-history/2021/05/14/new-study-zircons-finds-plate-tectonics-began-36-billion-years-ago/
6/3/2021 8:00 AMhttps://roaring.earth/blood-red-river/
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6/3/2021 12:00 PMScientists say we now have the most precise information yet on the deepest points in each of Earth’s five oceans. The key locations where the seafloor bottoms out in the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic and Southern oceans were mapped by the Five Deeps Expedition.https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57063396
6/3/2021 2:00 PMLow-dimensional materials, such as 1D monoatomic chains, exhibit exotic properties that could find interesting applications. However, single-atom bonds and their mechanical characteristics are difficult to study. In a recent study, scientists from JAIST, Japan, showcase a novel method to simultaneously image monoatomic platinum chains with a transmission electron microscope while measuring their bond strength and conductance during mechanical stretching. This technique will help answer many questions in the fields of nanomechanics and surface science.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-thread-imaging-probing-chains-atoms.html
6/3/2021 4:00 PMWhether it’s plankton exposed to parasites or people exposed to pathogens, a host’s initial immune response plays an integral role in determining whether infection occurs and to what degree it spreads within a population, new University of Colorado Boulder research suggests.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-plankton-secrets-pandemics.html
6/3/2021 6:00 PMA research group led by Prof. Luo Tianzhi from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, collaborating with Prof. Wang Zhengzhi’s team from Wuhan University, explored the natural defenses in the tail spike of mantis shrimps and left chela of hermit crabs.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-optimized-multi-scale-chemical-gradients-exoskeletons.html
6/4/2021 8:00 AMMarilyn Monroe famously sang that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but they are also very popular with quantum scientists—with two new research breakthroughs poised to accelerate the development of synthetic diamond-based quantum technology, improve scalability, and dramatically reduce manufacturing costs.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-future-diamond-based-quantum-technology.html
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6/4/2021 12:00 PMA European startup is perfecting technology that will be sent to the moon to make oxygen from lunar soil as part of a 2025 European Space Agency (ESA) demonstration mission.https://www.space.com/esa-oxygen-from-lunar-regolith-demonstration.html
6/4/2021 2:00 PMMitochondria—the ‘batteries’ that power our cells—play an unexpected role in common diseases such as type 2 diabetes and multiple sclerosis, concludes a study of over 350,000 people conducted by the University of Cambridge.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-mothers-offspring-height-lifespan-disease.html
6/4/2021 4:00 PMWhen doctors or scientists want to peer into living tissue, there’s always a trade-off between how deep they can probe and how clear a picture they can get.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-diamonds-engage-optical-microscopy-mri.html
6/4/2021 6:00 PMData from the Jakobshavn drainage basin of the Central-Western Greenland ice sheet reveals that the distinct mark of this part of the ice sheet has reached a tipping point. That is the conclusion by Niklas Boers from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany and Martin Rypdal from the Arctic University of Norway, after careful studies of the development in melt rates and ice-sheet height changes during the last 140 years. The two authors propose close monitoring of the Greenland ice sheet to assess the situation.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-greenland-ice-sheet.html
6/5/2021 8:00 AMA team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in the Netherlands and one in Germany has created a list of the 1000 rivers around the globe that are pouring the most plastics into the world’s oceans. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes their study of the factors that introduce plastics into the ocean, and the methods they used to figure out which rivers were the largest contributors.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-rivers-contributing-ocean-plastics.html
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6/5/2021 12:00 PMIn a surprise find, scientists have discovered sugar-coated RNA molecules decorating the surface of cells.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-rna-molecules-unexpected-sugar-coating.html
6/5/2021 2:00 PMAn international team of climate scientists has found evidence showing that human-created greenhouse gases have led to a shrinking stratosphere. In their paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, the group describes analyzing data from satellites to create computer models.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-greenhouse-gases-stratosphere.html
6/5/2021 4:00 PMA nanophotonics-based LiDAR technology developed by a POSTECH research team was presented as an invited paper in Nature Nanotechnology, the leading academic journal in the field of nanoscience and nanoengineering. In this paper, a POSTECH research team (led by Professor Junsuk Rho of the departments of mechanical engineering and chemical engineering, postdoctoral researcher Dr. Inki Kim of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Ph.D. candidate Jaehyuck Jang of the Department of Chemical Engineering) in cooperation with the French National Science Institute (CNRS-CRHEA) focused on the LiDAR device developed through studying the metamaterials based ultralight nanophotonics.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-lidar-device-size-finger.html
6/5/2021 6:00 PMA team of scientists from The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center in Melbourne, Australia, discovered a new checkpoint mechanism that fine-tunes gene transcription. As reported in a study published in Cell, a component of the Integrator protein complex tethers the protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) to the site of transcription, allowing it to stop the activity of the RNA polymerase II enzyme (RNAPII). Disruption of this mechanism leads to unrestricted gene transcription and is implicated in cancer.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-scientists-fundamental-mechanism-fine-tunes-gene.html
6/6/2021 8:00 AMA team including Northwestern University astrophysicists has developed the most realistic, highest-resolution 3D simulation of star formation to date. The result is a visually stunning, mathematically-driven marvel that allows viewers to float around a colorful gas cloud in 3D space while watching twinkling stars emerge.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-stunning-simulation-stars-born-realistic.html
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6/6/2021 12:00 PMAstronomers have found 20 new moons orbiting Saturn, bumping its total up to 82 moons. That surpasses Jupiter, which was the prior reigning champion with 79 moons.https://astronomy.com/news/2019/10/20-new-moons-discovered-orbiting-saturn
6/6/2021 2:00 PMWhile U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken draws attention to climate change in the Arctic at meetings with other national officials this week in Iceland, an even greater threat looms on the other side of the planet. New research shows it is Antarctica that may force a reckoning between the choices countries make today about greenhouse gas emissions and the future survival of their coastlines and coastal cities, from New York to Shanghai.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-antarctica-climate-catastrophic-carbon-emissions.html
6/6/2021 4:00 PMWhile examining the prevalence of listeria in agricultural soil throughout the U.S., Cornell University food scientists have stumbled upon five previously unknown and novel relatives of the bacteria. The discovery, researchers said, will help food facilities identify potential growth niches that until now, may have been overlooked—thus improving food safety.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-scientists-species-listeria-food-safety.html
6/6/2021 6:00 PMThe last ice age ended almost 12,000 years ago in Norway. The land rebounded slowly as the weight of the ice disappeared and the land uplift caused many bays to become narrower and form lakes.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-small-fish-coped-isolated-sea.html
6/7/2021 8:00 AMA suborbital launch created violet and green lights in the sky in a larger effort to understand spaceborne energy transport. The “series finale” of the KiNET-X mission successfully launched on May 16 at 8:44 p.m. EDT on a Black Brant XII rocket, from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, the agency announced via Twitter. The pictures probably showed more intense colors than the naked eye, as violet doesn’t show up well to humans against the black background of the night sky.https://www.space.com/nasa-kinet-x-sounding-rocket-launch-colorful-clouds
6/7/2021 10:00 AMT10
6/7/2021 12:00 PMA sample-return mission to Saturn’s moon Titan could discover unexpected forms of life and bring back chemical compounds that cannot be found on Earth. A team of NASA researchers is designing a mission concept that would use Titan’s lakes of methane as a source of fuel to power the spacecraft’s trip back home.https://www.space.com/saturn-moon-titan-sample-return-mission
6/7/2021 2:00 PMMultimessenger observations of neutron stars have been used by astrophysicists in the US to put Einstein’s general theory of relativity to the test – and the 106 year old theory has passed with flying colours.https://physicsworld.com/a/general-relativity-passes-crucial-neutron-star-test/
6/7/2021 4:00 PMA huge ice block has broken off from western Antarctica into the Weddell Sea, becoming the largest iceberg in the world and earning the name A-76. It is the latest in a series of large ice blocks to dislodge in a region acutely vulnerable to climate change, although scientists said in this case it appeared to be part of a natural polar cycle.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-world-largest-iceberg-antarctica-european.html
6/7/2021 6:00 PMA new study led by researchers from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, University of Oxford and the University of Birmingham for Current Biology has used new methods to analyze the variability of mammal fossils, revealing extraordinary results: it was not dinosaurs, but possibly other mammals, that were the main competitors of modern mammals before and after the mass extinction of dinosaurs.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-mammals-dinosaurs-held.html
6/8/2021 8:00 AMCarbon exists in various forms. In addition to diamond and graphite, there are recently discovered forms with astonishing properties. For example graphene, with a thickness of just one atomic layer, is the thinnest known material, and its unusual properties make it an extremely exciting candidate for applications like future electronics and high-tech engineering. In graphene, each carbon atom is linked to three neighbors, forming hexagons arranged in a honeycomb network. Theoretical studies have shown that carbon atoms can also arrange in other flat network patterns, while still binding to three neighbors, but none of these predicted networks had been realized until now.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-graphene-atomically-thin-carbon-material.html
6/8/2021 10:00 AMT10
6/8/2021 12:00 PMAstronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have traced the locations of five brief, powerful radio blasts to the spiral arms of five distant galaxies. Called fast radio bursts (FRBs), these extraordinary events generate as much energy in a thousandth of a second as the sun does in a year. Because these transient radio pulses disappear in much less than the blink of an eye, researchers have had a hard time tracking down where they come from, much less determining what kind of object or objects is causing them. Therefore, most of the time, astronomers don’t know exactly where to look.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-hubble-tracks-fast-radio-galaxies.html
6/8/2021 2:00 PMIf humanity wants to travel between stars, people are going to need to travel faster than light. New research suggests that it might be possible to build warp drives and beat the galactic speed limit.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/04/warp-drives-physicists-investigate-faster-than-light-space-travel
6/8/2021 4:00 PMFirefly Aerospace announced May 20 it selected SpaceX to launch its first lunar lander mission for NASA, the latest in a series of contract wins by SpaceX for lunar missions. Firefly said that a SpaceX Falcon 9 will launch its Blue Ghost lunar lander in 2023 on a mission to land in Mare Crisium on the near side of the moon. The lander will be carrying 10 payloads for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program under a contract it won in February, along with additional commercial payloads.https://spacenews.com/firefly-selects-spacex-to-launch-its-lunar-lander/
6/8/2021 6:00 PMAs first pointed out by the German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, black holes bend space-time to an extreme degree due to their extraordinary concentration of mass, and heat up the matter in their vicinity so that it begins to glow. New Zealand physicist Roy Kerr showed rotation can change the black hole’s size and the geometry of its surroundings. The ‘edge’ of a black hole is known as the event horizon, the boundary around the concentration of mass beyond which light and matter cannot escape and which makes the black hole black. Black holes, theory predicts, can be described by a handful of properties: mass, spin, and a variety of possible charges.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-theories-black-hole-m87.html
6/9/2021 8:00 AMAdvanced materials with more novel properties are almost always developed by adding more elements to the list of ingredients. But quantum research suggests some simpler materials might already have advanced properties that scientists just couldn’t see, until now.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-neutrons-piece-year-puzzle-iron-iodide.html
6/9/2021 10:00 AMT10
6/9/2021 12:00 PMWith CRISPR’s meteoric rise as a gene editing marvel, it’s easy to forget its lowly origins: it was first discovered as a quirk of the bacterial immune system. It seems that bacteria have more to offer. This month, a team led by the famed synthetic biologist Dr. George Church at Harvard University hijacked another strange piece of bacteria biology. The result is a powerful tool that can—in theory—simultaneously edit millions of DNA sequences, with a “bar code” to keep track of changes. All without breaking a single delicate DNA strand.https://singularityhub.com/2021/05/11/a-new-gene-editing-tool-rivals-crispr-and-can-make-millions-of-edits-at-once/
6/9/2021 2:00 PMA new study of ancient DNA from horse fossils found in North America and Eurasia shows that horse populations on the two continents remained connected through the Bering Land Bridge, moving back and forth and interbreeding multiple times over hundreds of thousands of years.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-ancient-horse-dna-reveals-gene.html
6/9/2021 4:00 PMA team of researchers has found that a western European ant lives much longer if it is infected with tapeworms. In their paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the group describes their study of the ants and tapeworms and what they discovered about both.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-tapeworms-lifespan-worker-ants-western.html
6/9/2021 6:00 PMIn 2018, Cornell researchers built a high-powered detector that, in combination with an algorithm-driven process called ptychography, set a world record by tripling the resolution of a state-of-the-art electron microscope. As successful as it was, that approach had a weakness. It only worked with ultrathin samples that were a few atoms thick. Anything thicker would cause the electrons to scatter in ways that could not be disentangled.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-atoms-resolution.html
6/10/2021 8:00 AMFlorida State University researchers have more insight into a strange sea creature found in oceans around the world and what their presence means for the health of a marine ecosystem. Scientists have thought that salps—small marine organisms that look like clear, gelatinous blobs—competed for resources with krill, shrimp-like creatures that are an important food source for many marine animals. But new research published in Limnology and Oceanography suggests that salps are actually competing for food with an organism known as a protist.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-uncover-role-strange-ocean-food.html
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6/10/2021 12:00 PMThe European Space Agency (ESA) has kicked off the development of a future satellite constellation that will orbit the moon and provide navigation and telecommunication services to lunar explorers. If all goes according to plan, the new system could be in place in the late 2020s, only a few years after the expected landing of NASA’s crewed Artemis 3 mission near the lunar south pole.https://www.space.com/europe-plans-lunar-navigation-constellation
6/10/2021 2:00 PMResearchers from University of Copenhagen have investigated what happened to a specific kind of plasma—the first matter ever to be present—during the first microsecond of Big Bang. Their findings provide a piece of the puzzle to the evolution of the universe, as we know it today. About 14 billion years ago, our universe changed from a much hotter and denser state to expanding radically—a process that scientists have named the Big Bang.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-reveals-microsecond-big.html
6/10/2021 4:00 PMFlying lizards with giraffe-like necks and wing spans up to nearly 40 feet once ruled the skies while dinosaurs roamed below. These impressive albeit bizarre beasts, the azhdarchid pterosaurs, lived from the Late Triassic period until near the end of the Cretaceous period, and are the largest known vertebrates to ever take flight.https://www.popsci.com/story/animals/ancient-flying-lizards-giraffe-like-necks/
6/10/2021 6:00 PMWhen Charles Darwin published “Descent of Man” 150 years ago, he launched scientific investigations on human origins and evolution. This week, three leading scientists in different, but related disciplines published “Modern theories of human evolution foreshadowed by Darwin’s ‘Descent of Man’,” in Science, in which they identify three insights from Darwin’s opus on human evolution that modern science has reinforced.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-darwin-foreshadowed-modern-scientific-theories.html
6/11/2021 8:00 AMFor centuries, pelagic Sargassum, floating brown seaweed, have grown in low nutrient waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, supported by natural nutrient sources like excretions from fishes and invertebrates, upwelling and nitrogen fixation. Using a unique historical baseline from the 1980s and comparing it to samples collected since 2010, researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and collaborators have discovered dramatic changes in the chemistry and composition of Sargassum, transforming this vibrant living organism into a toxic “dead zone.”https://phys.org/news/2021-05-surge-nitrogen-sargassum-world-largest.html
6/11/2021 10:00 AMA new map of dark matter in the local universe reveals several previously undiscovered filamentary structures connecting galaxies. The map, developed using machine learning by an international team including a Penn State astrophysicist, could enable studies about the nature of dark matter as well as about the history and future of our local universe.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-local-cosmic-web-dark-reveals.html
6/11/2021 12:00 PMAn investigation carried out by the astrophysicists of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) Žofia Chrobáková, a doctoral student at the IAC and the University of La Laguna (ULL), and Martín López Corredoira, questions one of the most interesting findings about the dynamics of the Milky Way in recent years: the precession, or the wobble in the axis of rotation of the disc warp is incorrect.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-milky.html
6/11/2021 2:00 PMHow materials behave depends on the interactions between countless atoms. You could see this as a giant group chat in which atoms are continuously exchanging quantum information. Researchers from Delft University of Technology in collaboration with RWTH Aachen University and the Research Center Jülich have now been able to intercept a chat between two atoms.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-scientists-atoms-chatting.html
6/11/2021 4:00 PMSouth Korea has joined NASA’s moon-exploration coalition. South Korea became the 10th country to sign the Artemis Accords, a set of principles laying out the responsible exploration of the moon, on May 24 during a ceremony in Seoul. The Accords take their name from NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to establish a sustainable human presence on and around the moon by the end of the 2020s.https://www.space.com/south-korea-artemis-accords-moon-exploration
6/11/2021 6:00 PMCloudy days are rare in the thin, dry atmosphere of Mars. Clouds are typically found at the planet’s equator in the coldest time of year, when Mars is the farthest from the Sun in its oval-shaped orbit. But one full Martian year ago—two Earth years—scientists noticed clouds forming over NASA’s Curiosity rover earlier than expected.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-curiosity-rover-captures-clouds-mars.html
6/12/2021 8:00 AMThe use of many chemical fumigants in agriculture have been demonstrated to be harmful to human health and the environment and therefore banned from use. Now, in an effort to reduce waste from the agricultural industry and reduce the amounts of harmful chemicals used, researchers have investigated using organic byproducts from beer production and farming as a potential method to disinfest soils, preserve healthy soil microorganisms and increase crop yields.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-beer-byproduct-manure-excellent-pesticide.html
6/12/2021 10:00 AMAs more dissolved organic matter enters lakes across the northeast United States, darkening the lakes in a phenomena called “browning,” new research shows that these waters may be growing less productive and able to sustain less life. In a study published today in Limnology and Oceanography Letters, scientists found that, rather than enriching lakes with nutrients as had previously been assumed, water more heavily laden with dissolved organic matter blocks sunlight and limits plant growth.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-browning-lakes-productive-affecting-food.html
6/12/2021 12:00 PMThe water oxidation reaction (WOR) is one of the most important reactions on the planet since it is the source of nearly all the atmosphere’s oxygen. Understanding its intricacies can hold the key to improve the efficiency of the reaction. Unfortunately, the reaction’s mechanisms are complex and the intermediates highly unstable, thus making their isolation and characterisation extremely challenging. To overcome this, scientists are using molecular catalysts as models to understand the fundamental aspects of water oxidation—particularly the oxygen-oxygen bond-forming reaction.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-isolating-elusive-link.html
6/12/2021 2:00 PMThe Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has announced on its website that the agency has plans to put a Transformable Lunar Robot on the moon. In their announcement, they note that the goal of the robot deployment is to learn more about the surface of the moon as part of preparation for the deployment of a future crewed rover.https://phys.org/news/2021-05-japanese-space-agency-lunar-robot.html
6/12/2021 4:00 PMThe morning of August 20, 2014 was a quiet one in Earth’s ionosphere. The solar wind was calm and slack, and the orientation of the Sun’s magnetic field was stable, not conducive to producing much space weather. But then, hundreds of miles above the North Pole, the ionosphere suddenly whipped itself into a fury, spawning a massive space hurricane some 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) wide — a cyclone of plasma swirling above Earth for eight hourshttps://astronomy.com/news/2021/03/space-hurricane-of-whirling-plasma-spotted-above-earths-north-pole
6/12/2021 6:00 PMIt might seem like a given that mothers take extra risks to protect their children, but have you ever wondered why? A new study led by Kumi Kuroda at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS) in Japan shows that in mice, this and other nurturing behaviors are driven in part by neurons in a small part of the forebrain that contains a protein called the calcitonin receptor.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-moms-infants.html
6/13/2021 8:00 AMDeep inside some of NASA’s most venerable space probes lie plutonium-filled hearts beating to warm and power the robots, which include the twin Voyager spacecraft, Cassini before its daring plunge through Saturn’s rings and New Horizons trekking through the rubble of the Kuiper Belt.https://www.space.com/nuclear-power-spacecraft-after-perseverance-rover
6/13/2021 10:00 AMScientists have gained the best view yet of the brightest explosions in the universe: A specialized observatory in Namibia has recorded the most energetic radiation and longest gamma-ray afterglow of a so-called gamma-ray burst (GRB) to date. The observations with the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) challenge the established idea of how gamma-rays are produced in these colossal stellar explosions which are the birth cries of black holes, as the international team reports.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-front-row-view-reveals-exceptional-cosmic.html
6/13/2021 12:00 PMAll cells on Earth are made of phospholipid membranes. Now astronomers have found the component molecules in interstellar space.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/05/first-evidence-of-cell-membrane-molecules-in-space
6/13/2021 2:00 PMWith the massive proliferation of data-heavy services, including high-resolution video streaming and conferencing, cloud services infrastructure growth in 2021 is expected to reach a 27% CAGR. Consequently, while 400 gigabit ethernet (GbE) is currently enjoying widespread deployment, 800 GbE is poised to rapidly follow to address these bandwidth demands.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-lasers-capable-transmitting-gigabits-gigabit.html
6/13/2021 4:00 PMA team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has completed the first census of molecular clouds in the nearby universe, revealing that contrary to previous scientific opinion, these stellar nurseries do not all look and act the same. In fact, they’re as diverse as the people, homes, neighborhoods and regions that make up our own world.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-cosmic-cartographers-nearby-universe-revealing.html
6/13/2021 6:00 PMA research team from the University of Massachusetts Amherst has created an electronic microsystem that can intelligently respond to information inputs without any external energy input, much like a self-autonomous living organism. The microsystem is constructed from a novel type of electronics that can process ultralow electronic signals and incorporates a device that can generate electricity “out of thin air” from the ambient environment.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-self-sustaining-intelligent-electronic-microsystems-green.html
6/14/2021 8:00 AMUsing the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), astronomers have conducted near-ultraviolet through near-infrared observations of a young planetary nebula (PN) known as NGC 6302. Results of the monitoring campaign, presented May 28 on arXiv.org, could help us better understand the nature of this PN.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-astronomers-probe-planetary-nebula-ngc.html
6/14/2021 10:00 AMThe speed of water flow is a limiting factor in many membrane-based industrial processes, including desalination, molecular separation and osmotic power generation.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-friction-2d-materials-smart-membranes.html
6/14/2021 12:00 PMThe “miracle of life” is most obvious at the very beginning: When the fertilized egg cell divides by means of furrows into blastomeres, envelops itself in an amniotic sac, and unfolds to form germ layers. When the blastomeres begin to differentiate into different cells—and when they eventually develop into a complete organism.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-tracking-rna-space.html
6/14/2021 2:00 PMResearchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have developed a novel continuous-flow microfluidic device that may help scientists and pharmaceutical companies more effectively study drug compounds and their crystalline shapes and structures, which are key components for drug stability.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-paves-next-generation-crystalline-material-screening.html
6/14/2021 4:00 PMOn the 14th of August 2019, the LIGO-Virgo collaboration detected a gravitational wave signal believed to be associated with the merging of a binary stellar system composed of a black hole with a mass of 23 times the mass of the sun (M⊙) and a compact object with a mass of about 2.6 M⊙. The nature of GW190814ʼs secondary star is enigmatic, since, according to the current astronomical observations, it could be the heaviest neutron star or the lightest black hole ever observed.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-source-gw190814-event-black-hole-strange.html
6/14/2021 6:00 PMDrink in this factoid: water is the weirdest liquid of all. Most fluids have predictable and similar behaviors. But unlike other fluids, water is most dense as a liquid, not a solid. Aquatic life survives the winter because ice floats instead of sinking and expanding into one huge solid glacier. Water’s unique but strange properties help support life.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-laser-focused-supercooled.html
6/15/2021 8:00 AMScientists from the University of Bristol have pioneered a new approach to help biological engineers both harness and design the evolutionary potential of new biosystems. Their concept of the “evotype” lays a foundation for the next generation of stable, safe and self-improving biotechnologies.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-scientists-evotype-power-evolution-biology.html
6/15/2021 10:00 AMSlow-moving arctic soils form patterns that, from a distance, resemble those found in common fluids such as drips in paint and birthday cake icing. Los Alamos researchers and their collaborators analyzed existing arctic soil formations and compared them to viscous fluids, determining that there is a physical explanation for this pattern that is common to both Earth and Mars landscapes.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-arctic-soil-slip-sliding.html
6/15/2021 12:00 PMMonarch butterflies raised indoors still know how to fly south if given enough time to orient themselves, according to new University of Guelph research. The finding is good news for the many nature lovers and school students who raise monarchs and then set them free to help boost struggling numbers.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-monarchs-captivity-migration-reveals.html
6/15/2021 2:00 PMFinancing a sustainable global ocean economy may require a Paris Agreement-type effort, according to a new report from an international team of researchers led by the University of British Columbia. That’s because a significant increase in sustainable ocean finance will be required to ensure a sustainable ocean economy that benefits society and businesses in both developing and developed countries.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-major-barriers-sustainable-ocean-economy.html
6/15/2021 4:00 PMFor those who live on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, or New York State and New England, as well as southern portions of Ontario and Quebec, the sunrise of Thursday (June 10) will bring a striking image of a crescent sun rising in the east-northeast. That’s because the moon will be passing across a portion of the sun in the first solar eclipse of the year.https://www.space.com/sunrise-ring-of-fire-solar-eclipse-june-2021
6/15/2021 6:00 PMA fully reusable, 3D-printed rocket will be launching satellites to orbit three years from now, if all goes according to plan. On June 8, Relativity Space revealed details of Terran R, a new two-stage rocket that’s key to the Southern California startup’s bold off-Earth goals, which include helping humanity get a foothold on Mars.https://www.space.com/relativity-space-reusable-terran-r-rocket
6/16/2021 8:00 AMBdelloid rotifers are multicellular animals so small you need a microscope to see them. Despite their size, they’re known for being tough, capable of surviving through drying, freezing, starvation, and low oxygen. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on June 7 have found that not only can they withstand being frozen, but they can also persist for at least 24,000 years in the Siberian permafrost and survive.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-arctic-rotifer-years-frozen-state.html
6/16/2021 10:00 AMA team of archaeologists with the Glacier Archaeology Program in Innlandet have discovered a candle box in the Lendbreen glacier in Norway’s Breheimen National Park. The find was one of hundreds the team has reported as they scour the edges of the melting glacier. Prior to finding the candle box, the team found objects such as spears, horse snowshoes, walking sticks, dog leashes, mittens, and in one case, the remains of a pet dog. Some of the items have been dated as far back as 1,000 years ago. The candle box drew attention right away because at first discovery, it was not known what was inside. Opening and testing showed it to hold a beeswax candle and that it was from a time between 1475 and 1635, making it between 386 and 546 years old. The box was constructed from pine wood.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-candle-years-glacier-norway.html
6/16/2021 12:00 PMPhysicists have proved that a subatomic particle can switch into its antiparticle alter-ego and back again, in a new discovery revealed today. The extraordinarily precise measurement was made by UK researchers using the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment at CERN.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-subatomic-particle-antiparticle.html
6/16/2021 2:00 PMGanymede, get ready for your close-up. No probe has gotten a good view of Jupiter’s largest moon since 2000, when NASA’s Galileo spacecraft swung past the strange world, which is the largest moon in the whole solar system. But on Monday (June 7), at 1:35 p.m. EDT (1735 GMT), NASA’s Juno spacecraft will skim just 645 miles (1,038 kilometers) above Ganymede’s surface, gathering a host of observations as it does so.https://www.space.com/juno-mission-flyby-jupiter-moon-ganymede
6/16/2021 4:00 PMA more reliable way of estimating the size of megalodon shows the extinct shark may have been bigger than previously thought, measuring up to 65 feet, nearly the length of two school buses. Earlier studies had ball-parked the massive predator at about 50 to 60 feet long.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-school-lesson-wrong-bigger-megalodon.html
6/16/2021 6:00 PMThe U.S. Air Force launched a new rocket cargo program with the Space Force Friday (June 4) to study the use of commercial spacecraft to ship supplies around the world — and they may look to NASA’s lunar lander program for ideas.https://www.space.com/air-force-rocket-cargo-vanguard-commercial-rockets
6/17/2021 8:00 AMResearchers have created tiny bubbles in high-pressure water via intense focused lasers. Under these conditions, the bubbles expand at supersonic speed and push a shockwave consisting of a spherical shell of highly compressed water. The research team led by the University of Göttingen, together with the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchroton (DESY) and the European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser (European XFEL) used an innovative technique involving holographic flash imaging and nanofocused X-ray laser pulses.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-x-ray-imaging-laser-induced-shockwaves.html
6/17/2021 10:00 AMResearchers based at the University of Manchester have demonstrated a new method for imaging live chemical reactions with atomic resolution using nanoscale test tubes created using two-dimensional (2D) materials.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-solutions-world-smallest-tubes.html
6/17/2021 12:00 PMDNA testing Australian honey can reveal where it was produced and its main floral sources, according to research published today by Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, and partners at the University of Melbourne and Curtin University.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-sticky-fingerprints-reveal-true-honey.html
6/17/2021 2:00 PMOne of the most powerful tools available to biologists these days is CRISPR-Cas9, a combination of specialized RNA and protein that acts like a molecular scalpel, allowing researchers to precisely slice and dice pieces of an organism’s genetic code.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-efficiency-accessibility-crispr.html
6/17/2021 4:00 PMBoulders on asteroids can be three-quarters hollow or more, a discovery that could help yield insights on the way in which Earth and other planets formed, a new study finds.https://www.space.com/asteroid-ryugu-porous-planetesimals
6/17/2021 6:00 PMThe widely studied metallic asteroid known as 16 Psyche was long thought to be the exposed iron core of a small planet that failed to form during the earliest days of the solar system. But new University of Arizona-led research suggests that the asteroid might not be as metallic or dense as once thought, and hints at a much different origin story.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-asteroid-psyche-scientists.html
6/18/2021 8:00 AMThe U.S. Senate passed a spending bill on Tuesday (June 8) that would allocate nearly $250 billion to American scientific and technical research — including $10 billion for the development of private crewed moon landers for NASA.https://www.space.com/senate-passes-funding-bill-nasa-moon-landers
6/18/2021 10:00 AMThe world’s first wooden satellite is on the way, in the shape of the Finnish WISA Woodsat. ESA materials experts are contributing a suite of experimental sensors to the mission as well as helping with pre-flight testing. WISA Woodsat is a 10x10x10 cm ‘CubeSat’ – a type of nanosatellite built up from standardised boxes – but with surface panels made from plywood. Woodsat’s only non-wooden external parts are corner aluminium rails used for its deployment into space plus a metal selfie stick.https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/ESA_flying_payloads_on_wooden_satellite
6/18/2021 12:00 PMhttps://www.nasa.gov/feature/citizen-scientists-discover-two-gaseous-planets-around-a-bright-sun-like-star
6/18/2021 2:00 PMAlbert Einstein’s theory of general relativity has aced another test. Following nearly 3 decades of monitoring, researchers have detected a subtle shift in the orbit of the closest known star to the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way—and the movement matches Einstein’s theory precisely.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/star-s-strange-path-around-black-hole-proves-einstein-right-again
6/18/2021 4:00 PMCells contain machinery that duplicates DNA into a new set that goes into a newly formed cell. That same class of machines, called polymerases, also build RNA messages, which are like notes copied from the central DNA repository of recipes, so they can be read more efficiently into proteins. But polymerases were thought to only work in one direction DNA into DNA or RNA. This prevents RNA messages from being rewritten back into the master recipe book of genomic DNA. Now, Thomas Jefferson University researchers provide the first evidence that RNA segments can be written back into DNA, which potentially challenges the central dogma in biology and could have wide implications affecting many fields of biology.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-discovery-human-cells-rna-sequences.html
6/18/2021 6:00 PMAlmost 3,000 operational spacecraft orbit our Earth. This number is growing constantly, thanks to cheaper materials and smaller satellites. Having this many satellites in orbit can create problems, including space junk and the way they change our view of the night sky. But satellites provide a vital service.https://www.space.com/six-ways-satellites-make-the-world-better
6/19/2021 8:00 AMA combined team of researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and the California Institute of Technology in the U.S. has calculated the weight of all the SARS-CoV-2 viruses infecting people around the world at any given time. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes how they made their calculations and explain how their work can help to better understand what happens in the human body during viral infections.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-global-weight-sars-cov-viruses-kilograms.html
6/19/2021 10:00 AMA new high-performance plastic foam developed from whey proteins can withstand extreme heat better than many common thermoplastics made from petroleum. A research team in Sweden reports that the material, which may be used for example in catalysts for cars, fuel filters or packaging foam, actually improves its mechanical performance after days of exposure to high temperatures.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-protein-plastic-foam-tough-environment.html
6/19/2021 12:00 PMThroughout Earth’s history, there have been many instances of near-Earth objects (NEOs) impacting our planet, either reaching the surface or exploding above ground from the intense energy released as the object passed through the atmosphere. Asteroid impacts are natural processes that shape the surface of our planet, like volcanoes. The vast majority of these impacts were from very small objects, but there have been some remarkable exceptions.https://www.planetary.org/notable-asteroid-impacts-in-earths-history
6/19/2021 2:00 PMSome of the first modern humans to settle in East Asia more than 40,000 years ago ranged across the vast northern China Plateau for thousands of years, where they hunted red deer and may have encountered Neanderthals and other archaic humans. But sometime before the end of the last ice age, they vanished. By 19,000 years ago, the landscape was populated by another group of modern humans—the hunter-gatherers who were the ancestors of today’s East Asians, a new study of ancient genomes reveals. That group replaced the early modern humans in northern East Asia, the researchers suggest.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/last-ice-age-wiped-out-people-east-asia-well-europe
6/19/2021 4:00 PMWith biodiversity in decline around the world, researchers are desperate to catalog all of Earth’s insects and other invertebrates, which represent 90% of the 9 million species yet to be named. To do so, scientists typically face long hours in the lab sorting through the specimens they collected. Enter DiversityScanner. The approach involves a robot, which plucks individual insects and other small creatures one at a time from trays and photographs them. A computer then uses a type of artificial intelligence known as machine learning to compare each one’s legs, antennae, and other features to known specimens.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/artificial-intelligence-could-help-biologists-classify-world-s-tiny-creatures
6/19/2021 6:00 PMFor the first time, the boundary of the heliosphere has been mapped, giving scientists a better understanding of how solar and interstellar winds interact.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-boundary-heliosphere.html
6/20/2021 8:00 AMSome of the gigantic filaments that make up the “cosmic web” — an unfathomably massive network of tendril-like structures linking the universe’s galaxies together — seem to be spinning.https://futurism.com/the-byte/largest-structures-universe-spin
6/20/2021 10:00 AMJapanese researchers found mouse sperm exposed to high levels of cosmic radiation for nearly six years produced a large brood of healthy, unremarkable “space pups.”https://phys.org/news/2021-06-space-pups-mouse-sperm-iss.html
6/20/2021 12:00 PMAlthough Jupiter is large as planets go, it would need to be about 75 times its current mass to ignite nuclear fusion in its core and become a star.https://astronomy.com/magazine/greatest-mysteries/2019/07/48-is-jupiter-a-failed-star
6/20/2021 2:00 PMSolar physicists around the world have long been searching for satisfactory explanations for the sun’s many cyclical, overlapping activity fluctuations. In addition to the most famous, approximately 11-year “Schwabe cycle”, the sun also exhibits longer fluctuations, ranging from hundreds to thousands of years. It follows, for example, the “Gleissberg cycle” (about 85 years), the “Suess-de Vries cycle” (about 200 years) and the quasi-cycle of “Bond events” (about 1500 years), each named after their discoverers. It is undisputed that the solar magnetic field controls these activity fluctuations.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-sun-clock-planetary-hypothesis.html
6/20/2021 4:00 PMWith Oskar Aszmann and his team at the Department of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery, MedUni Vienna has long been regarded as a world leader in bionic limb reconstruction. It was only last year that the world’s first fully integrated bionic arm prosthesis was developed at MedUni Vienna. This is ready-to-use and is described as “Plug and Play.” Although all bionic aids have so far been used in humans, the technique known as osseointegration (direct skeletal attachment) has now been used for the very first time in a bearded vulture—the creature was given a new foot.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-bionic-reconstruction-foot-mia-bearded.html
6/20/2021 6:00 PMFlorida’s most recent winter dealt a blow to its West Indian manatees, iconic marine mammals that are a big tourist attraction. In the first 5 months of this year, 761 manatees wintering in one Florida lagoon died, according to the state’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). The number represents about 10% of Florida’s population of Trichechus manatus latirostris, the subspecies found there, and is more than the total number of the manatees that died across the whole state in 2020.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/cloudy-waters-are-driving-florida-s-massive-manatee-die
6/21/2021 8:00 AMAstronomers have spotted a giant ‘blinking’ star towards the center of the Milky Way, more than 25,000 light years away. An international team of astronomers observed the star, VVV-WIT-08, decreasing in brightness by a factor of 30, so that it nearly disappeared from the sky. While many stars change in brightness because they pulsate or are eclipsed by another star in a binary system, it’s exceptionally rare for a star to become fainter over a period of several months and then brighten again.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-astronomers-giant-center-galaxy.html
6/21/2021 10:00 AMHumanity has yet to find extraterrestrial life, but a new study suggests that the exomoons of ‘rogue planets’ could be a good place to look. The research notes that rogue exoplanets – planets outside the Solar System that are not associated with a star – that have their own moon could have conditions that are ripe for atmospheres and liquid water, thanks to cosmic radiation and the planet’s tidal forces.https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9684357/The-moons-rogue-exoplanets-liquid-water-good-place-life.html
6/21/2021 12:00 PMSolar flares jetting out from the sun and thunderstorms generated on Earth impact the planet’s ionosphere in different ways, which have implications for the ability to conduct long range communications.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-first-of-its-kind-lightning-impacts-edge-space.html
6/21/2021 2:00 PMTendrils of galaxies up to hundreds of millions of light-years long may be the largest spinning objects in the universe, a new study finds. Celestial bodies often spin, from planets to stars to galaxies. However, giant clusters of galaxies often spin very slowly, if at all, and so many researchers thought that is where spinning might end on cosmic scales, study co-author Noam Libeskind, a cosmologist at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam in Germany, told Space .com.https://www.space.com/largest-spinning-structures-universe-discovered
6/21/2021 4:00 PMIn a world-first, Monash University scientists have developed a new, environmentally friendly process that could drive the future production of green ammonia. Ammonia (NH3) is a globally important commodity for fertilizer production to help sustain food production. It is currently produced via a metal catalyzed reaction between nitrogen gas and hydrogen from natural gas, using an established technology known as the Haber-Bosch process.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-world-first-discovery-fuel-green-ammonia.html
6/21/2021 6:00 PMThe core is losing heat faster under Indonesia than it is under Brazil, and that’s messing with the seismic waves passing through it.https://www.space.com/earth-inner-core-lopsided-crystal-growth
6/22/2021 8:00 AMBalanced rocks, poised in position for 24,000 years, have been used to assess the current seismic integrity of the Clyde Dam in a University of Otago-led study.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-strength.html
6/22/2021 10:00 AMResearchers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) discovered a titanic galactic wind driven by a supermassive black hole 13.1 billion years ago. This is the earliest example yet observed of such a wind to date and is a telltale sign that huge black holes have a profound effect on the growth of galaxies from the very early history of the universe.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-alma-earliest-gigantic-black-hole.html
6/22/2021 12:00 PMPolynesian seafarers likely reached Antarctica hundreds of years before the Western explorers usually credited with discovering the frozen continent, a new study has concluded.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-pacific-islanders-antarctica.html
6/22/2021 2:00 PMWhen continental plates smashed together about 12 million years ago, they didn’t just raise new mountains in central Europe—they created the largest lake the world has ever known. This vast body of water—the Paratethys Sea—came to host species found nowhere else, including the world’s smallest whales. Two new studies reveal how the ancient body of water took shape and how surrounding changes helped give rise to elephants, giraffes, and other large mammals that wander the planet today.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/rise-and-fall-world-s-largest-lake
6/22/2021 4:00 PMThe Boker Tachtit archaeological excavation site in Israel’s central Negev desert holds clues to one of the most significant events in human history: the spread of modern humans, Homo sapiens, from Africa into Eurasia, and the subsequent demise of Neanderthal populations in the region. Researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Max Planck Society, led by Prof. Elisabetta Boaretto, together with Dr. Omry Barzilai of the Israel Antiquities Authority, returned to Boker Tachtit nearly 40 years after it was first excavated. Using advanced sampling and dating methods, they offer a new chronological framework for this important chapter in our anthropological evolution. The study suggests that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals were far from strangers.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-negev-archaeological-site-illuminates-important.html
6/22/2021 6:00 PMResearchers from The Australian National University (ANU) have developed new technology that allows people to see clearly in the dark, revolutionizing night-vision.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-thin-film-tech-revolutionize-night-vision.html
6/23/2021 8:00 AMRecord-breaking astronaut Peggy Whitson will return to space to command a commercial mission for Texas-based Axiom Space, three years after her retirement from NASA in 2018.https://www.space.com/peggy-whitson-nasa-astronaut-axiom-spaceflight
6/23/2021 10:00 AMEarly migrations of humans to the Americas from Siberia around 12,000 years ago have been traced using the bacteria they carried by an international team including scientists at the University of Warwick.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-early-migrations-siberians-america-tracked.html
6/23/2021 12:00 PMNorth Carolina State University researchers continue to track the evolution of different strains of the plant pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine in the 1840s, which set down roots in the United States before attacking Europe.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-irish-potato-famine-pathogen-stoked.html
6/23/2021 2:00 PMResearchers from the Graduate School of Engineering and the Center for Quantum Information and Quantum Biology at Osaka University unveiled a new solid state second-harmonic generation (SHG) device that converts infrared radiation into blue light. This work may lead to a practical daily-use deep ultraviolet light source for sterilization and disinfection.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-daily-use-deep-uv-source-sterilization.html
6/23/2021 4:00 PMResearchers have fabricated a magnetically driven rotary microfilter that can be used to filter particles inside a microfluidic device. They made the tiny turning filter by creating a magnetic material that could be used with a very precise 3D printing technique known as two-photon polymerization.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-3d-print-rotating-microfilter-lab-on-a-chip-applications.html
6/23/2021 6:00 PMA NASA satellite designed to hunt for potentially dangerous asteroids and comets just took a big step toward the launch pad.https://www.space.com/nasa-asteroid-hunting-satellite-neo-surveyor-milestone
6/24/2021 8:00 AMResearch led by the University of Kent and the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory has resulted in the discovery of a new rare topological superconductor, LaPt3P. This discovery may be of huge importance to the future operations of quantum computers.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-rare-superconductor-vital-quantum.html
6/24/2021 10:00 AMPhotoemission is a property of metals and other materials that emit electrons when struck by light. Electron emission after light absorption was already explained by Albert Einstein. But since this effect is a highly complex process, scientists have still not been able to fully elucidate its details. Prof. Dr. Bernd von Issendorff and his team at the University of Freiburg’s Institute of Physics have now succeeded in detecting a previously unknown quantum effect in the angular distributions of photoelectrons from cryogenic mass-selected metal clusters. The angular distributions resemble those of classical particles, a behavior that is surprisingly explainable by the strong electron-electron interaction in these many-electron systems.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-electron-merry-go-round-mechanism-classical-behavior.html
6/24/2021 12:00 PMAn underwater archaeologist from The University of Texas at Arlington is part of a research team studying 9,000-year-old stone tool artifacts discovered in Lake Huron that originated from an obsidian quarry more than 2,000 miles away in central Oregon.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-underwater-site-team-year-old-stone.html
6/24/2021 2:00 PMPhysicists have long been unable to crack the mystery of what happened in the moments when a vanishingly small seed ballooned into the universe. Now, one scientist thinks he knows why they can’t come up with a physical description of this phenomenon called inflation: The universe won’t let us.https://www.space.com/why-physicists-cant-see-inflation-big-bang.html
6/24/2021 4:00 PMResearchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have successfully used graphene—one of the strongest, thinnest known materials—to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus in laboratory experiments. The researchers say the discovery could be a breakthrough in coronavirus detection, with potential applications in the fight against COVID-19 and its variants.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-graphene-covid-quickly-accurately.html
6/24/2021 6:00 PMSupermassive black holes, or SMBHs, are black holes with masses that are several million to billion times the mass of our sun. The Milky Way hosts an SMBH with mass a few million times the solar mass. Surprisingly, astrophysical observations show that SMBHs already existed when the universe was very young. For example, a billion solar mass black holes are found when the universe was just 6% of its current age, 13.7 billion years. How do these SMBHs in the early universe originate? A team led by a theoretical physicist at the University of California, Riverside, has come up with an explanation: A massive seed black hole that the collapse of a dark matter halo could produce.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-seed-black-hole-dark-halo.html
6/25/2021 8:00 AMA ball of 4,000-year-old hair frozen in time tangled around a whalebone comb led to the first ever reconstruction of an ancient human genome just over a decade ago.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-ten-years-ancient-genome-analysis.html
6/25/2021 10:00 AMThe relentless march of time can be a source of anxiety. Who hasn’t sometimes wished for the ability to freeze themselves in a happy moment or even prevent a loved one from slipping away. Every once in a while, a science-fiction book, movie or TV show will feature characters who can do what we all wish: Stop time.https://www.space.com/can-time-stop
6/25/2021 12:00 PMScientists at Weill Cornell Medicine have developed a computational technique that greatly increases the resolution of atomic force microscopy, a specialized type of microscope that “feels” the atoms at a surface. The method reveals atomic-level details on proteins and other biological structures under normal physiological conditions, opening a new window on cell biology, virology and other microscopic processes.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-super-resolution-microscopy-method-approaches-atomic.html
6/25/2021 2:00 PMThe most accurate distance measurement yet of ultra-diffuse galaxy (UDG) NGC1052-DF2 (DF2) confirms beyond any shadow of a doubt that it is lacking in dark matter. The newly measured distance of 22.1 +/-1.2 megaparsecs was obtained by an international team of researchers led by Zili Shen and Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University and Shany Danieli, a NASA Hubble Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-hubble-galaxies-lacking-dark.html
6/25/2021 4:00 PMIn the mid-14th century Europe was devastated by a major pandemic—the Black Death—which killed between 40 and 60 per cent of the population. Later waves of plague then continued to strike regularly over several centuries. Plague kills so rapidly it leaves no visible traces on the skeleton, so archaeologists have previously been unable to identify individuals who died of plague unless they were buried in mass graves. Whilst it has long been suspected that most plague victims received individual burial, this has been impossible to confirm until now.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-evidence-medieval-plague-victims-considerable.html
6/25/2021 6:00 PMWoods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) climate modeler Dr. Alan Condron and United States Geological Survey (USGS) research geologist Dr. Jenna Hill have found evidence that massive icebergs from roughly 31,000 years ago drifted more than 5000km (> 3,000 miles) along the eastern United States coast from Northeast Canada all the way to southern Florida.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-icebergs-drifting-canada-southern-florida.html
6/26/2021 8:00 AMIf the genome is the recipe of life, base pairs are the individual ingredients listed. These chemical structures form DNA, and every living organism on Earth has just four. The specific arrangements of these four base pairs—A, T, C, G—make us who and what we are.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-cells-artificial-ingredients-tossed-genetic.html
6/26/2021 10:00 AMThe future of clean energy is hot. Temperatures hit 800 Celsius in parts of solar energy plants and advanced nuclear reactors. Finding materials that can stand that type of heat is tough. So experts look to Mark Messner for answers.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-artificial-intelligence-doors-materials-discovery.html
6/26/2021 12:00 PMThe Milky Way rotates at a whopping 130 miles (210 kilometers) per second, but a new study has found that dark matter has slowed the rotation of its bar by at least 24% since its formation nearly 14 billion years ago. “Astrophysicists have long suspected that the spinning bar at the center of our galaxy is slowing down, but we have found the first evidence of this happening,” study co-author Ralph Schoenrich, an astrophysicist at University College London, said.https://www.space.com/dark-matter-slows-milky-way-rotation
6/26/2021 2:00 PMAn incredibly light new material that can reduce aircraft engine noise and improve passenger comfort has been developed at the University of Bath. The graphene oxide-polyvinyl alcohol aerogel weighs just 2.1kg per cubic metre, making it the lightest sound insulation ever manufactured. It could be used as insulation within aircraft engines to reduce noise by up to 16 decibels—reducing the 105-decibel roar of a jet engine taking off to a sound closer to that of a hair-dryer.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-meringue-like-material-aircraft-quiet-hairdryer.html
6/26/2021 4:00 PMIn November of 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will make its long-awaited journey to space. This next-generation observatory will observe the cosmos using its advanced infrared suite and reveal many never-before-seen things. By 2024, it will be joined the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (RST), the successor to the Hubble mission that will have 100 times Hubble’s field of view and faster observing time. These instruments will make huge contributions to many fields of research, not the least of which is the discovery and characterization of extrasolar planets.https://www.universetoday.com/151540/a-new-technique-for-seeing-exoplanet-surfaces-based-on-the-content-of-their-atmospheres/
6/26/2021 6:00 PMStartup space company Launcher has a new satellite platform that will carry stacks of CubeSats into space, the company announced after a nearly $12 million funding round. The platform, called Orbiter, will send up to 330 pounds (150 kg) of mass to orbit. Initially, it will be used for rideshare missions that send fleets of small satellites into orbit, with a larger satellite riding aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Launcher’s debut mission will take off aboard a Falcon 9 in October 2022.https://www.space.com/launcher-startup-orbiter-platform-cubesat-spacex-launch
6/27/2021 8:00 AMDiamond may be just a phase carbon goes through when exposed to a flash of heat, but that makes it far easier to obtain. The Rice University lab of chemist James Tour is now able to “evolve” carbon through phases that include valuable nanodiamond by tightly controlling the flash Joule heating process they developed 18 months ago. Best of all, they can stop the process at will to get product they want.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-nanodiamonds-phase-team.html
6/27/2021 10:00 AMVenus may still be geologically active today, which could mean that Earth’s planetary sibling is a good place for scientists to learn about early Earth and faraway worlds. An international team of scientists used old radar images from NASA’s Magellan mission, which ended operations in 2004, to study the Venusian surface. They found places where chunks of crust were sliding and turning like “pack ice,” according to the researchers.https://www.space.com/venus-surface-geological-activity-flowing-mantle
6/27/2021 12:00 PMNASA is one step closer to the moon. The space agency’s next megarocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) is coming together ahead of its first planned launch later this year.https://www.space.com/nasa-artemis-1-sls-moon-rocket-stacked-photos
6/27/2021 2:00 PMLead levels in London’s atmosphere have dropped drastically since lead additives in petrol were phased out, and currently meet UK air quality targets. However despite this drop, airborne particles in London are still highly lead-enriched compared to natural background levels, according to new research.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-petrol-persists-london-air-90s.html
6/27/2021 4:00 PMThree Chinese astronauts have begun making China’s new space station their home for the next three months, after their launch and arrival at the station Thursday marked further advances in the country’s ambitious space program.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-chinese-crew-space-station-month.html
6/27/2021 6:00 PMTurkey plans to send a rover to the moon by the end of the decade using a domestically built rocket engine that will first fly to the moon in a test mission in 2023.https://www.space.com/turkey-moon-rover-rocket-plans
6/28/2021 8:00 AMThe most severe mass extinction event in the past 540 million years eliminated more than 90 percent of Earth’s marine species and 75 percent of terrestrial species. Although scientists had previously hypothesized that the end-Permian mass extinction, which took place 251 million years ago, was triggered by voluminous volcanic eruptions in a region of what is now Siberia, they were not able to explain the mechanism by which the eruptions resulted in the extinction of so many different species, both in the oceans and on land.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-geochemical-end-permian-mass-extinction-event.html
6/28/2021 10:00 AMA team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, the University of Naples Federico II, the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences has found that making food from air would be far more efficient than growing crops. In their paper, the group describes their analysis and comparison of the efficiency of growing crops (soybeans) and using a food-from-air technique.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-food-air-solar-power-efficient.html
6/28/2021 12:00 PMA newly discovered crescent of galaxies spanning 3.3 billion light-years is among the largest known structures in the universe and challenges some of astronomers’ most basic assumptions about the cosmos.https://www.space.com/giant-arc-in-space
6/28/2021 2:00 PMRoscosmos is looking at ways to send its cosmonauts to the Chinese space station, launching from sites in either Russia or French Guiana. During a press conference at the recently concluded Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX) in St. Petersburg, Russia, on June 15, Dmitry Rogozin, director general of Roscosmos, revealed that Russia is in discussions with China about crewed flights to the Chinese space station.https://www.space.com/russia-cosmonauts-may-visit-china-space-station
6/28/2021 4:00 PMIf human eyes could see radio waves, the night sky would periodically light up with flashes thanks to fast radio bursts (FRBs). It would, that is, if we looked quick: These pulses last less than a blink of an eye and then vanish without a trace.https://www.space.com/chime-telescope-fast-radio-burst-catalog
6/28/2021 6:00 PMFor many years now, astronomers and physicists have been in a conflict. Is the mysterious dark matter that we observe deep in the Universe real, or is what we see the result of subtle deviations from the laws of gravity as we know them? In 2016, Dutch physicist Erik Verlinde proposed a theory of the second kind: emergent gravity. New research, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, pushes the limits of dark matter observations to the unknown outer regions of galaxies, and in doing so re-evaluates several dark matter models and alternative theories of gravity. Measurements of the gravity of 259,000 isolated galaxies show a very close relation between the contributions of dark matter and those of ordinary matter, as predicted in Verlinde’s theory of emergent gravity and an alternative model called Modified Newtonian Dynamics. However, the results also appear to agree with a computer simulation of the Universe that assumes that dark matter is ‘real stuff’.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-dark-real-misunderstood-gravity.html
6/29/2021 8:00 AMDozens of baby squid from Hawaii are in space for study. The baby Hawaiian bobtail squid were raised at the University of Hawaii’s Kewalo Marine Laboratory and were blasted into space earlier this month on a SpaceX resupply mission to the International Space Station.https://apnews.com/article/hawaii-squid-health-business-oddities-4dd935225d85dbe1000297032882863b
6/29/2021 10:00 AMIf you’ve ever been in a city’s central core in the middle of summer, you know the heat can be brutal—and much hotter than in the surrounding region.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-urban-cooling-strategies-surfaces.html
6/29/2021 12:00 PMScientists from the University of Liverpool have uncovered the atomic structure of a special photosynthetic supercomplex to determine how it forms and performs efficient electron transfer.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-intriguing-revealed-photosynthetic-supercomplex-bacteria.html
6/29/2021 2:00 PMTo understand what role an individual gene plays, biologists have, for 100 years, been using a trick of nature: While in principle, the genome in all cells of an organism is the same, mutations arise in individual cells. These mutations differentiate a cell from its neighbors, forming a ‘genetic mosaic.” Now, Simon Hippenmeyer, Professor at IST Austria, has advanced genetic mosaic analysis, making almost all genes in the mouse genome accessible to single-cell genetic mosaic analysis.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-boost-mouse-genetic-analysis.html
6/29/2021 4:00 PMMuch of the brittle, upper crust of Venus is broken into fragments that jostle and move – and the slow churning of Venus’ mantle beneath the surface might be responsible.https://theconversation.com/the-surface-of-venus-is-cracked-and-moves-like-ice-floating-on-the-ocean-likely-due-to-tectonic-activity-162984
6/29/2021 6:00 PMChina’s Chang’e 5 spacecraft returned fresh moon rock samples late last year, but the main science of the mission is still just getting underway.https://www.space.com/china-moon-rock-chang-e-5-science-update
6/30/2021 8:00 AMLarge thunderstorms in the Southern Great Plains of the U.S. are some of the strongest on Earth. In recent years, these storms have increased in frequency and intensity, and new research shows that these shifts are linked to climate variability.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-intense-frequent-thunderstorms-linked-global.html
6/30/2021 10:00 AMOne of Stephen Hawking’s most famous theorems has been proven right, using ripples in space-time caused by the merging of two distant black holes.https://www.space.com/stephen-hawking-black-holes-theory-confirmed
6/30/2021 12:00 PMAt the edge of the solar system is a violent frontier where two cosmic powers clash. On one side is the solar wind, the constant flood of hot, charged particles flowing out of the sun at hundreds of miles per second. On the other side are the winds of space, blowing with the radiation of billions upon billions of nearby stars.https://www.space.com/heliosphere-map-solar-wind
6/30/2021 2:00 PMSpacecraft operators will be able to apply for sustainability rating beginning next year to prove their satellites don’t present unnecessary risk in the orbital environment and contribute to the problem of space junk.https://www.space.com/space-sustainability-rating-tackles-space-junk
6/30/2021 4:00 PMA single measurement result is not a proof—this has been shown again and again in science. We can only really rely on a research result when it has been measured several times, preferably by different research teams, in slightly different ways. In this way, errors can usually be detected sooner or later.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-exotic-superconductors-secret-wasnt.html
6/30/2021 6:00 PMFree-space optical communication, the communication between two devices at a distance using light to carry information, is a highly promising system for achieving high-speed communication. This system of communication is known to be immune to electromagnetic interference (EMI), a disturbance generated by external sources that affects electrical circuits and can disrupt radio signals.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-quantum-cascade-lasers-private-free-space.html
7/1/2021 8:00 AMWastewater is a grab bag of chemicals. There’s industrial run-off, bits of animal and viral DNA, and then there are compounds that trickle out from our households. The medicines we’re flushing down the toilet or releasing through urine are making their way into countless bodies of water.https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/what-can-crayfish-tell-us-about-drugs-in-our-waterways/
7/1/2021 10:00 AMT10
7/1/2021 12:00 PMFour exoplanets in a nearby solar system could pinball off each other and careen off into outer space when the star they orbit dies, astronomers predict.https://www.space.com/planets-sent-pinballing
7/1/2021 2:00 PMIn the past 5,000 years, more than 1,700 nearby stars could have seen Earth and potentially detected life here, and four of those stars are known to possess rocky planets of their own, a new study finds.https://www.space.com/finding-planets-that-see-earth-transit
7/1/2021 4:00 PMA fair society has evolved in banded mongooses because parents don’t know which pups are their own, new research shows. Mothers in banded mongoose groups all give birth on the same night, creating a “veil of ignorance” over parentage in their communal crèche of pups.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-mongooses-inequality-problem.html
7/1/2021 6:00 PMScientists have spent the last few years tracking a curious space rock called 2014 UN271, which is a little too big to be a comet and a little too small to be a planet, as it careens through the solar system. And pretty soon, they’ll finally be able to get an even better look at it, according to New Atlas, when 2014 UN271 reaches the closest point to Earth in its orbit in 2031, when it will reach about the same distance from the Sun as Saturn — not a day trip, but strikingly close to Earth in the scale of the solar system.https://futurism.com/the-byte/tiny-planet-earth
7/2/2021 8:00 AMScientists have found evidence parts of Venus’s surface move around like pieces of continent on Earth. And while this activity is probably not driven by plate tectonics, as on Earth, it could be a “cousin” of that process.https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57567577
7/2/2021 10:00 AMT10
7/2/2021 12:00 PMA team of scientists has found a gigantic structure in space, called the Giant Arc, that’s way too big to exist based on what we thought we knew about the universe.https://futurism.com/the-byte/giant-arc-galaxies
7/2/2021 2:00 PMNew research published today in Nature posits that roughly 1,700 stars are in the right position to have spotted life on Earth as early as 5,000 years ago. These stars, within 100 parsecs (or about 326 light-years) of the sun, were found using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission.https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/06/23/1026947/radio-waves-earth-stars-exoplanets/
7/2/2021 4:00 PMSome of the earliest bands of modern humans who ventured out of Africa and into the Middle East 120,000 to 140,000 years ago might have met a strange-looking character with the look of a primitive Neanderthal, but a stone toolkit as modern as their own. New fossils of this individual, found over the past decade in Israel, are stirring intense debate among paleoanthropologists: Was it the earliest known Neanderthal in the Middle East, or a late remnant of a previously unknown Neanderthal ancestor?https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/new-fossils-reveal-strange-looking-neanderthal-israel
7/2/2021 6:00 PMThe stink of ammonia in urine, sweat, and rotting meat repels humans, but many insects find ammonia alluring. Now, UConn researchers have figured out how the annoying insects smell it, a discovery that could lead to better ways to make them buzz off.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-odd-flies-ammonia-science.html
7/3/2021 8:00 AMAbout 2.2 billion people globally lack reliable access to clean drinking water, according to the United Nations, and the growing impacts of climate change are likely to worsen this reality.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-synthetic-tree-solar-steam-harvesting.html
7/3/2021 10:00 AMT10
7/3/2021 12:00 PMA pair of gas-giant exoplanets was found orbiting a distant sun-like star, thanks to the help of citizen scientists around the world.https://www.space.com/citizen-scientists-discover-two-gas-giant-exoplanets
7/3/2021 2:00 PMNewspapers regularly carry stories of terrifying shark attacks, but in a paper published today, Oxford-led researchers reveal their discovery of a 3,000-year-old victim—attacked by a shark in the Seto Inland Sea of the Japanese archipelago.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-year-old-shark-victim.html
7/3/2021 4:00 PMBest known for its presence in house cats and a tendency to infect and alter the behaviors of rodents and humans, the parasite Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is also associated with bold behavior among wild hyena cubs and risk of death during interactions with lions, finds new research from the University of Colorado Boulder.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-cat-born-parasite-toxoplasma-fatally-bold.html
7/3/2021 6:00 PMResearchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have discovered a 120-million-year-old partial fossil skeleton of a tiny extinct bird that fits in the palm of the hand and preserves a unique skull with a mix of dinosaurian and bird features.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-tiny-ancient-bird-china-skull.html
7/4/2021 8:00 AMA strange new species may have joined the human family. Human fossils found in a cave on Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines, include tiny molars suggesting their owners were small; curved finger and toe bones hint that they climbed trees. Homo luzonensis, as the species has been christened, lived some 50,000 to 80,000 years ago, when the world hosted multiple archaic humans, including Neanderthals and Denisovans, and when H. sapiens may have been making its first forays into Southeast Asia.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/new-species-ancient-human-unearthed-philippines
7/4/2021 10:00 AMT10
7/4/2021 12:00 PMClimate change will fundamentally reshape life on Earth in the coming decades, even if humans can tame planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, according to a landmark draft report from the UN’s climate science advisors obtained by AFP. Species extinction, more widespread disease, unliveable heat, ecosystem collapse, cities menaced by rising seas—these and other devastating climate impacts are accelerating and bound to become painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-climate-impacts-sooner.html
7/4/2021 2:00 PMChina’s space program is making impressive progress. The country only launched its first crewed flight in 2003, more than 40 years after the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. China’s first successful Mars mission launched in 2020, half a century after the U.S. Mariner 9 probe flew past the Red Planet.https://www.space.com/china-tiangong-space-station
7/4/2021 4:00 PMChina’s first-ever Mars rover was on the move earlier this month, imagery by a NASA spacecraft shows. The rover, named Zhurong, is part of Tianwen-1, China’s first fully homegrown Red Planet mission, which arrived in orbit around Mars in February. Zhurong separated from the Tianwen-1 orbiter on May 14 and touched down on the vast plain Utopia Planitia a few hours later.https://www.space.com/china-mars-rover-zhurong-nasa-hirise-photo
7/4/2021 6:00 PMPlanet Earth is now trapping twice as much heat as it did 14 years ago, according to findings of a new study, which raise concerns about the possible acceleration of climate change.https://www.space.com/earth-trapping-more-heat-energy-imbalance-doubled
7/5/2021 8:00 AMResearchers have detected an earthquake using instruments flying in a balloon above California, and the technology could one day detect quakes on Venus.https://www.space.com/earthquake-detected-by-balloon-venus-implications
7/5/2021 10:00 AMT10
7/5/2021 12:00 PMA new study by engineers at MIT, Caltech, and ETH Zürich shows that “nanoarchitected” materials—materials designed from precisely patterned nanoscale structures—may be a promising route to lightweight armor, protective coatings, blast shields, and other impact-resistant materials.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-ultralight-material-supersonic-microparticle-impacts.html
7/5/2021 2:00 PMAn international study has discovered a coronavirus epidemic broke out in the East Asia region more than 20,000 years ago, with traces of the outbreak evident in the genetic makeup of people from that area.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-genome-reveals-east-asian-coronavirus.html
7/5/2021 4:00 PMMore than 49,000 years ago, a family of Neanderthals set up camp in a cave high in Siberia’s Altai Mountains, overlooking a river valley where bison, red deer, and wild horses roamed. In the cave’s main gallery, a teenage girl lost a tooth, perhaps while gnawing on bison that her father or his kin had hunted in the sweeping grasslands.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/ancient-genomes-offer-rare-glimpse-neanderthal-family-groups
7/5/2021 6:00 PMConsider the American lobster—a bottom-dwelling crustacean that lives up to 100 years in the wild. Scientists have long wondered at its astonishing longevity: Lobsters do not grow weaker with age and only rarely suffer from cancers. Now, researchers have published the first high-quality draft of the lobster genome, yielding surprising insights about the animal’s immune system and genomic stability that may one day help answer fundamental questions about aging—not only in lobsters, but also in humans.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/how-do-most-lobsters-stay-cancer-free-newly-sequenced-genome-could-reveal-their-secrets
7/6/2021 8:00 AMAn object of unusual size will make its closest approach to the Sun in 2031, during which time it will swing past the orbit of Saturn and possibly turn into an exceptionally large comet. Astronomers are already looking forward to the potential “fireworks” display.https://gizmodo.com/incoming-visitor-from-the-oort-cloud-could-be-among-the-1847149513
7/6/2021 10:00 AMT10
7/6/2021 12:00 PMA near-perfectly preserved ancient human fossil known as the Harbin cranium sits in the Geoscience Museum in Hebei GEO University. The largest of known Homo skulls, scientists now say this skull represents a newly discovered human species named Homo longi or “Dragon Man.” Their findings suggest that the Homo longi lineage may be our closest relatives—and has the potential to reshape our understanding of human evolution.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-dragon-fossil-neanderthals-closest-relative.html
7/6/2021 2:00 PMUnited Airlines plans to add faster speeds to its passenger airliner fleet within the decade, after agreeing in principle to buy aircraft from Boom Supersonic. Earlier this month, the American air service giant said it has entered a commercial agreement with Boom to buy 15 “Overture” aircraft capable of flying faster than the speed of sound, as long as the new aircraft meet safety, operating and environmental sustainability requirements, according to United. Another 35 aircraft might be purchased, providing the first tranche goes to plan. No financial details were disclosed in a press release.https://www.space.com/united-airlines-boom-supersonic-passenger-aircraft
7/6/2021 4:00 PMAn enormous ghostly hand stretches through the depths of space, its wispy fingers pressing against a glowing cloud. It sounds like science fiction, but it’s quite real, as imagery gathered by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shows.https://www.space.com/giant-space-hand-gas-cloud-new-x-ray-photos
7/6/2021 6:00 PMInvisibility is no longer science fiction. Researchers have developed a unique light wave that, when beamed through an object, makes the object appear invisible to cameras and even the human eye.https://www.freethink.com/articles/invisibility
7/7/2021 8:00 AMThe discovery of a huge fossilised skull that was wrapped up and hidden in a Chinese well nearly 90 years ago has forced scientists to rewrite the story of human evolution.https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jun/25/massive-human-head-in-chinese-well-forces-scientists-to-rethink-evolution
7/7/2021 10:00 AMT10
7/7/2021 12:00 PMA new visitor is swinging by the solar system: a never-before-observed comet that hails from the Oort Cloud. This alien object was just designated as a comet Wednesday (June 23), only a week after astronomers first observed it as a tiny, moving dot in archival images from the Dark Energy Camera at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The comet is now known as Comet C/2014 UN271, or Bernardinelli-Bernstein after its discoverers, University of Pennsylvania graduate student Pedro Bernardinelli and astronomer Gary Bernstein.https://www.space.com/huge-new-comet-orbit-toward-earth
7/7/2021 2:00 PMEarth’s climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives.https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
7/7/2021 4:00 PMFor many years now, astronomers and physicists have been in a conflict. Is the mysterious dark matter that we observe deep in the Universe real, or is what we see the result of subtle deviations from the laws of gravity as we know them? In 2016, Dutch physicist Erik Verlinde proposed a theory of the second kind: emergent gravity. New research, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics this week, pushes the limits of dark matter observations to the unknown outer regions of galaxies, and in doing so re-evaluates several dark matter models and alternative theories of gravity. Measurements of the gravity of 259,000 isolated galaxies show a very close relation between the contributions of dark matter and those of ordinary matter, as predicted in Verlinde’s theory of emergent gravity and an alternative model called Modified Newtonian Dynamics. However, the results also appear to agree with a computer simulation of the Universe that assumes that dark matter is ‘real stuff’.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-dark-real-misunderstood-gravity.html
7/7/2021 6:00 PMUnited Launch Alliance (ULA), Boeing, and NASA have all started their final preparations for the second Orbital Flight Test (OFT-2) for the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. OFT-2 will demonstrate all of the changes made to the Starliner spacecraft following the partial failure on the first OFT mission in December 2019. Preparations are also underway for the Starliner Crew Flight Test (CFT), including the delivery of the Atlas V rocket to Cape Canaveral, Florida.https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2021/06/starliner-oft2-perparations/
7/8/2021 8:00 AMCould a devastating comet impact in Earth’s distant past have forever changed human civilization? Scientists think that a cluster of comet shards may have smashed into Earth’s surface 13,000 years ago, in the most catastrophic impact since the Chicxulub event killed off Earth’s large dinosaurs about 66 million years ago. In a new study, a team led by Martin Sweatman, a scientist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, investigated the impact and how it could have shaped the origins of human societies on Earth.https://www.space.com/comet-impact-neolithic-period-human-civilization
7/8/2021 10:00 AMT10
7/8/2021 12:00 PMA new cosmic map revealed hidden structures connecting galaxies, which could help scientists model a future collision between the Milky Way and Andromeda, our galaxy’s nearest neighbor.https://www.space.com/artificial-intelligence-models-milky-way-andromeda-collision
7/8/2021 2:00 PMIf you want to map the tiniest parts of a protein, you only have a few options: You can coax millions of individual protein molecules to align into crystals and analyze them using x-ray crystallography. Or you can flash-freeze copies of the protein and bombard them with electrons, a lower resolution method called cryo–electron microscopy (cryo-EM). Now, for the first time, scientists have sharpened cryo-EM’s resolution to the atomic level, allowing them to pinpoint the positions of individual atoms in a variety of proteins at a resolution that rivals x-ray crystallography’s.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/cryo-electron-microscopy-breaks-atomic-resolution-barrier-last
7/8/2021 4:00 PMVirgin Galactic is one step closer to becoming a fully fledged spaceline. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has updated Virgin Galactic’s space transportation operator license, allowing it to fly paying customers in addition to crewmembers, company representatives announced today.https://www.space.com/virgin-galactic-faa-operator-license-passengers
7/8/2021 6:00 PMTiny water-dwelling creatures called tardigrades known for their ability to survive in the most extreme environments will be subject to a series of experiments at the International Space Station to reveal the secrets of their superpowers.https://www.space.com/tardigrades-on-space-station-extreme-survival
7/9/2021 8:00 AMTwo small, guano-covered islands that peek above the waves in the central North Pacific Ocean are merely the tips of our planet’s largest single volcano, new research reveals.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/world-s-biggest-volcano-barely-visible
7/9/2021 10:00 AMT10
7/9/2021 12:00 PMNone of the potentially habitable Earth-like exoplanets known to astronomers today have the right conditions to sustain life as we know it on Earth, with a rich biosphere of plants, microbes and animals, a new study has found.https://www.space.com/life-conditions-alien-planets-photosynthesis-rare
7/9/2021 2:00 PMAbout 100 million years ago, gigantic flying reptiles with necks longer than those of giraffes cruised the skies of modern-day Morocco. Scientists think this kind of pterosaur, with its large jaw and slim neck, preyed on fish, small mammals, and even baby dinosaurs. But how their necks didn’t snap as they carried their prey has long been a mystery. Now, a new study shows the bones inside had an intricate spokelike structure that made them strong and stable, but light enough for flight.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/04/pterosaur-supported-its-giant-neck-bones-built-bicycle-wheels
7/9/2021 4:00 PMMuch more liquid water may lie beneath the south pole of Mars than scientists had thought — or there may be something going on down there that they don’t fully understand.https://www.space.com/mars-lakes-possible-underground-south-pole
7/9/2021 6:00 PMThe death of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was caused by the impact of a huge asteroid on the Earth. However, palaeontologists have continued to debate whether they were already in decline or not before the impact.https://phys.org/news/2021-06-dinosaurs-decline.html
7/10/2021 8:00 AMDeep drought and early heat waves are setting the western half of the United States up for a dry, fiery summer.https://www.space.com/western-drought-summer-wildfires
7/10/2021 10:00 AMT10
7/10/2021 12:00 PMIt sounds like a bad monster movie plot: A 10-legged mutant creature that reproduces asexually, escapes from confinement in Germany, and quietly begins a global invasion. Within 2 decades, clones of the voracious animal spread through Europe and Africa, bringing devastation to ecosystems and threatening native species.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/aquarium-accident-may-have-given-crayfish-dna-take-over-world
7/10/2021 2:00 PMAt the dark hearts of galaxies like the Milky Way lie supermassive black holes, with millions or even billions of times the sun’s mass. Some of those supermassive black holes are what scientists call active galactic nuclei (AGN), which spew out copious amounts of radiation like X-rays and radio waves. AGN are responsible for the twin jets of ionized gas you see shooting away in pictures of many galaxies. As all things must pass, so too must every AGN one day shut off. But scientists have never quite understood how or when that happens. Now, researchers led by Kohei Ichikawa, an astronomer at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, may have found a clue. Looking at the distant galaxy Arp 187, those researchers have seen what they think is an AGN in its very last days.https://www.space.com/dying-supermassive-black-hole-light-echo
7/10/2021 4:00 PMSince 1880, the Earth’s average surface temperature has risen by 0.07°C (0.13°F) every decade. That number alone may seem negligible, but over time, it adds up. In addition, the rate of temperature change has grown significantly more dramatic over time—more than doubling to 0.18°C (0.32°F) since 1981. As a result of this global warming process, environmental crises have become the most prominent risks of our time. In this global temperature graph, climate data scientist Neil R. Kaye breaks down how monthly average temperatures have changed over nearly 170 years. Temperature values have been benchmarked against pre-industrial averages (1850–1900).https://www.visualcapitalist.com/global-temperature-graph-1851-2020/
7/10/2021 6:00 PMThe news that the Milky Way and Andromeda are going to collide is not a very headline-causing piece of information, since it is due to take place in about 5 billion years. But, new research published in the peer-reviewed Astrophysical Journal reveals that the timeline has been revised: The collision has already started!https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/earths-night-sky-milky-way-andromeda-merge/
7/11/2021 8:00 AMPhysicists just put Apple’s latest iPhone to shame, taking the most detailed image of atoms to date with a device that magnifies images 100 million times, Scientific American reports. The researchers, who set the record for the highest resolution microscope in 2018, outdid themselves with a study published last month. Using a method called electron ptychography, in which a beam of electrons is shot at an object and bounced off to create a scan that algorithms use to reverse engineer the above image, were used to visualize the sample.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/physicists-take-most-detailed-image-atoms-date
7/11/2021 10:00 AMThe United Nations on Thursday recognised a new record high temperature for the Antarctic continent, confirming a reading of 18.3 degrees Celsius (64.9 degrees Fahrenheit) made last year. The record heat was reached at Argentina’s Esperanza research station on the Antarctic Peninsula on February 6, 2020, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization said.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-183c-antarctica.html
7/11/2021 12:00 PMPlenty of probiotic yogurts, pickles, and kombuchas claim to boost our digestive health with armies of microbes, but some scientists have more ambitious therapeutic plans for the “bugs” that colonize us. They hope to leverage these microbes as living therapeutics for a range of health conditions, including ulcerative colitis, multiple sclerosis, eczema, and asthma. Our guts, skin, and other regions of the body harbor trillions of microbes, as many as we have cells of our own. Each of these microbes – bacteria, viruses, microscopic fungi, and others – that make up the human microbiome brings with it a unique genome.https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2021/06/420911/microbiome-medicine-scientists-harness-bodys-bugs-treat-asthma-ms-and-more
7/11/2021 2:00 PMThe United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Hope Mars mission made its first major finding just a couple months after arriving at the Red Planet when it snagged unprecedented observations of a tricky aurora. Also known as the Emirates Mars Mission (EMM), Hope is designed to study Mars’ atmosphere across all its layers and at a global scale throughout the course of the year. But the new finding is outside that main science purview and occurred even before the probe’s formal science mission had begun, when scientists were testing the instruments on the spacecraft. In images from one of those instruments, scientists easily spotted the highly localized, nightside aurora that scientists have struggled to study at Mars for decades.https://www.space.com/mars-aurora-discovery-uae-hope-mission
7/11/2021 4:00 PMA probe sent by the United Arab Emirates to study the Martian atmosphere has caught an exceedingly elusive event on camera, Space.com reports: a nightside aurora on Mars.https://futurism.com/images-auroras-mars-uae
7/11/2021 6:00 PMCould gas escaping the gravitational grasp of supermassive black holes be forming “tsunamis” in space? In a new, NASA-funded study, astrophysicists used computer simulations to model the environment around supermassive black holes in deep space. They found that there could be massive, tsunami-like structures forming near these black holes that are essentially massive, swirling walls of gas that have narrowly escaped the intense gravitational pull of the black hole. They even think that supermassive black holes could host the largest tsunami-like structures in the universe.https://www.space.com/supermassive-black-hole-tsunamis-quasar
7/12/2021 8:00 AMCurrent rates of plastic emissions globally may trigger effects that we will not be able to reverse, argues a new study by researchers from Sweden, Norway and Germany published on July 2nd in Science. According to the authors, plastic pollution is a global threat, and actions to drastically reduce emissions of plastic to the environment are “the rational policy response”.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-global-plastic-pollution-nearing-irreversible.html
7/12/2021 10:00 AMIt all started with a joy ride in a wind-powered vehicle. Science YouTuber Derek Muller claimed he could use the car to cruise faster than the wind while traveling directly downwind, using only the power of the wind. Alexander Kusenko, a professor of physics at the University of California, said such a feat would break the laws of physics. The pair made a $10,000 bet to see if Muller could prove it.https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvzyx8/science-youtuber-wins-dollar10000-bet-with-physicist
7/12/2021 12:00 PMNASA’s Perseverance rover is picking up the pace on Mars thanks to technology that helps the robot avoid running into trouble on its otherworldly drives. That technology, called AutoNav, is a navigation system that maps terrain and plans routes without the rover needing to rely as heavily on guidance from Earth. AutoNav is four or five times more powerful than equivalent technology tested on NASA’s previous Mars rover, Curiosity, which means Perseverance will be able to take more direct routes and travel faster, in turn allowing the rover to do more science in the same amount of time.https://www.space.com/perseverance-rover-self-driving-on-mars
7/12/2021 2:00 PMSpaceX’s first civilian crew is poised to enjoy what may be the best bathroom views in human history. It’s not clear how the toilet facilities work on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship — the design is shrouded in proprietary secrecy. But we do know that the toilet is on the ceiling. That area of the spaceship will also feature a glass dome, called a cupola, that SpaceX is installing at the nose of the capsule. We think they should call it the ‘poop deck’.https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-civilian-crew-view-from-spaceship-toilet-2021-6
7/12/2021 4:00 PMRockets may help humanity explore the solar system in more ways than one. Three companies — Masten Space Systems, Lunar Outpost and Honeybee Robotics — are developing a new system that would use rockets to mine water ice on the moon.https://www.space.com/rockets-may-mine-moon-water-ice
7/12/2021 6:00 PMAt the Cascadia subduction zone, which has generated some of North America’s greatest earthquakes, the silence is deafening. Lying off the Pacific Northwest, where a plate of ocean crust dives beneath North America and into the mantle, Cascadia is best known for a mammoth magnitude 9 earthquake in 1700 that sent a tsunami all the way to Japan. But in modern times, it has been ominously quiet, with almost none of the small, daily earthquakes that are common at other subduction zones. Stress building up at the fault seemingly has had no release. “It’s just way, way, way too quiet,” says Chris Goldfinger, a marine geologist at Oregon State University, Corvallis.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/megaquake-will-someday-strike-pacific-northwest-ship-could-figure-out-how-bad-it-will
7/13/2021 8:00 AMIn 2011, scientists confirmed a suspicion: There was a split in the local cosmos. Samples of the solar wind brought back to Earth by the Genesis mission definitively determined oxygen isotopes in the sun differ from those found on Earth, the moon and the other planets and satellites in the solar system.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-sculpted-starlight-meteorite-witness-solar.html
7/13/2021 10:00 AMOriginally built to speed up calculations, a machine-learning system is now making shocking progress at the frontiers of experimental quantum physics.https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-designs-quantum-physics-experiments-beyond-what-any-human-has-conceived/
7/13/2021 12:00 PMEarth is losing ice at a rapid rate, with a frozen area the size of Lake Superior melting every year.https://www.space.com/earth-ice-extent-shrinks.html
7/13/2021 2:00 PMMost of us are familiar with the fact that women live longer than men. But fellas, if we told you there was one thing that could be done to increase your lifespan, would you do it?https://phys.org/news/2021-07-castration-male-sheep-aging-dna.html
7/13/2021 4:00 PMThe “Last Ice Area,” an Arctic region known for its thick ice cover, may be more vulnerable to climate change than scientists suspected, a new study has found. This frozen zone, which lies to the north of Greenland, earned its dramatic name because even though its ice grows and shrinks seasonally, much of the sea ice here was thought to be thick enough to persist through summer’s warmth.https://www.space.com/arctic-last-ice-area-melting
7/13/2021 6:00 PMThe design may be simple, but a chevron pattern etched onto a deer bone more than 50,000 years ago suggests that Neanderthals had their own artistic tradition before modern humans arrived on the scene, researchers said Monday.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-ancient-bone-neanderthals.html
7/14/2021 8:00 AMTantalizing evidence has been uncovered for a mysterious population of “free-floating” planets, planets that may be alone in deep space, unbound to any host star. The results include four new discoveries that are consistent with planets of similar masses to Earth.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-kepler-telescope-glimpses-population-free-floating.html
7/14/2021 10:00 AMThe speed with which the Greenland ice sheet is melting is too quick to be part of a natural cycle, scientists say. If the entire sheet went away, it would add 24 feet to global sea levels.https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/greenland-could-lose-more-ice-this-century-than-it-has-in-12000-years
7/14/2021 12:00 PMThe astronomers at the National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Telescope (GBT) discovered a massive, previously unknown structure in the Milky Way Galaxy that is quite eye-opening.https://www.wowktv.com/weather/massive-invisible-galactic-structure-discovered-by-accident-with-green-bank-telescope-in-west-virginia/
7/14/2021 2:00 PMAstronomers have apparently found the closest known black hole to Earth, a weirdly tiny object dubbed “The Unicorn” that lurks just 1,500 light-years from us. The nickname has a double meaning. Not only does the black hole candidate reside in the constellation Monoceros (“the unicorn”), its incredibly low mass — about three times that of the sun — makes it nearly one of a kind.https://www.space.com/tiny-black-hole-unicorn-closest-to-earth
7/14/2021 4:00 PMGalaxy clusters are the largest structures in the universe bound together by gravity. They can contain thousands of galaxies, enormous oceans of hot gas, invisible islands of dark matter and — sometimes — the glowing ghost of a jellyfish or two.https://www.space.com/radio-jellyfish-galaxy-cluster-phoenix
7/14/2021 6:00 PMIt’s far from a done deal, but plans by European physicists to build a huge new gravitational wave observatory with a radical design received a boost this week. The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), which advises European governments on research priorities, added the €1.9 billion observatory, called the Einstein Telescope, to a road map of large science projects ripe for progress. Developers hope the move will give them the political validation needed to transform the Einstein Telescope idea into a project.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/european-plan-gigantic-new-gravitational-wave-detector-passes-milestone
7/15/2021 8:00 AMA pilot project in Lake Søllerød has successfully used electrodes to oxygenate lake bed. The method should now be tested in a large demonstration trial.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-method-oxygenating-lakes-results.html
7/15/2021 10:00 AMA massive explosion from a previously unknown source—10 times more energetic than a supernova—could be the answer to a 13-billion-year-old Milky Way mystery.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-massive-explosion-mystery-star.html
7/15/2021 12:00 PMEarth’s orbit is becoming increasingly littered with our leftover garbage. More than 27,000 pieces of orbital debris of varying sizes are being tracked by the Department of Defense’s global Space Surveillance Network. That could make launching rockets increasingly difficult in the future, let alone the danger space debris poses to space travelers.https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-chomp-space-junk
7/15/2021 2:00 PMHuman activities, such as burning fossil fuels for transportation and electricity, have worsened the intensity of extreme rainfall and snowfall over land in recent decades, not just in a few areas but on a global scale, new research shows.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-global-evidence-links-extreme-precipitation.html
7/15/2021 4:00 PMThe icy crust enveloping Saturn’s moon Enceladus has long fascinated astronomers. Evidence collected by NASA and the European Space Agency’s Cassini-Huygens spacecraft suggests the shell could be hiding a massive subsurface ocean made up of briny water underneath it — which, tantalizingly, could potentially harbor life.https://futurism.com/scientists-signs-life-saturn-moon
7/15/2021 6:00 PMNASA’s next big space telescope just took a big step forward toward its planned launch this fall. The $9.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope mission has passed a key launch review, keeping it on track to lift off atop an Ariane 5 rocket before the end of the year, European Space Agency (ESA) officials announced last week.https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-passes-launch-review
7/16/2021 8:00 AMThe pumpkin toadlet (Brachycephalus ephippium) of Brazil is flaming orange, smaller than a nickel, and deaf to the mating calls of its own species. How the diminutive amphibians found mates amid the leafy chaos of the rainforest floor was a mystery. Now, scientists searching for answers to this acoustic riddle have discovered something unexpected: This toadlet glows, Mongabay reports. The pumpkin toadlet’s back and head glowed blue under ultraviolet (UV) light, researchers reported last week in Scientific Reports. This UV light show could help these toadlets find love in the dark, but researchers still need to figure out whether the frogs can see it. The glow also comes from a surprising source: a fluorescent skeleton shining through translucent patches of the frog’s skin. If the pumpkin toadlet can’t see UV light, researchers speculate that the glowing bones may serve to warn would-be predators of the toadlet’s toxicity.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/scientists-discover-frog-glowing-bones
7/16/2021 10:00 AMIn a series of breakthrough papers, theoretical physicists have come tantalizingly close to resolving the black hole information paradox that has entranced and bedeviled them for nearly 50 years. Information, they now say with confidence, does escape a black hole. If you jump into one, you will not be gone for good. Particle by particle, the information needed to reconstitute your body will reemerge. Most physicists have long assumed it would; that was the upshot of string theory, their leading candidate for a unified theory of nature. But the new calculations, though inspired by string theory, stand on their own, with nary a string in sight. Information gets out through the workings of gravity itself—just ordinary gravity with a single layer of quantum effects.https://www.wired.com/story/the-black-hole-information-paradox-comes-to-an-end/
7/16/2021 12:00 PMChina is preparing a follow-up to its audacious Chang’e 5 lunar sample return mission by sending a similar spacecraft to collect material from the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin on the far side of the moon.https://www.space.com/china-chang-e-6-moon-sample-return-preparations
7/16/2021 2:00 PMMost biological traits are inherited via genes, but there are exceptions to this rule. Two teams from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) have been investigating the location of centromeres—specific sites on chromosomes that are essential for cell division. They found that in the small worm Caenorhabiditis elegans, the transmission of the correct location of these sites to the offspring is not mediated by genes, but by an epigenetic memory mechanism.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-inherited-memories-chromosomal-site.html
7/16/2021 4:00 PMFor the hundreds of millions of people living in coastal regions around the world, rising seas driven by climate change pose a direct threat. In order for authorities to plan appropriate protection strategies, accurate information on sea-level rise close to the coast is imperative. For various reasons, these measurements are difficult to get from satellites. However, new ESA-funded research demonstrates how a specific way of processing satellite altimetry data now makes it possible to determine sea-level change in coastal areas with millimetre per year accuracy, and even if the sea is covered by ice.https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/New_satellite_data_techniques_reveal_coastal_sea-level_rise
7/16/2021 6:00 PMNo matter how good a design humans have come up with, chances are nature has beaten us to it, and done a better job to boot. The latest innovation to join that list is lubricant, with researchers discovering that beetles naturally lubricate their knees with a strange substance that works better than Teflon.https://newatlas.com/materials/beetle-knee-lubricant-teflon/
7/17/2021 8:00 AMThe methane wafting from Enceladus may be a sign that life teems in the Saturn moon’s subsurface sea, a new study reports. In 2005, NASA’s Cassini Saturn orbiter discovered geysers blasting particles of water ice into space from “tiger stripe” fractures near Enceladus’ south pole. That material, which forms a plume that feeds Saturn’s E ring (the planet’s second-outermost ring), is thought to come from a huge ocean of liquid water that sloshes beneath the moon’s icy shell.https://www.space.com/methane-plume-enceladus-possible-sign-alien-life
7/17/2021 10:00 AMAmphipods—small, shrimplike crustaceans in most aquatic ecosystems—start to fall apart once they hit depths of 4500 meters. There, a combination of crushing pressures, low temperature, and higher acidity causes the calcium carbonate in their exoskeletons to dissolve, making them vulnerable to pressure and predators. Now, scientists have discovered how one species, Hirondellea gigas, can survive in the deepest part of the ocean: with aluminum suits of armor.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/shrimplike-creature-makes-aluminum-armor-survive-deep-sea-s-crushing-pressure
7/17/2021 12:00 PMA team of physicists from the Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms and other universities has developed a special type of quantum computer known as a programmable quantum simulator capable of operating with 256 quantum bits, or “qubits.”https://phys.org/news/2021-07-team-quantum-simulator-qubits-largest.html
7/17/2021 2:00 PMNASA’s groundbreaking Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has sent back stunning photos it took on July 5 while flying over the Red Planet’s rocky landscape — and this time, they’re in color.https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-mars-helicopter-color-photos
7/17/2021 4:00 PMEvidence from an ancient eggshell has revealed important new information about the extreme climate change faced by human early ancestors. The research shows parts of the interior of South Africa that today are dry and sparsely populated, were once wetland and grassland 250,000 to 350,000 years ago, at a key time in human evolution.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-ancient-ostrich-eggshell-reveals-evidence.html
7/17/2021 6:00 PMWhen NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter hovered above the Red Planet April 19 on its maiden voyage, the moment was hailed as the first instance of powered, controlled flight on another planet. Figuring out how to fly on Mars, where the air is thin but gravity is about a third of that on Earth, took years of work. Along with the challenge of developing a craft that was up to the task, the mission needed software to make the unprecedented flights possible.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-open-source-software-powering-nasa-ingenuity.html
7/18/2021 8:00 AMIn a critical next step toward room-temperature superconductivity at ambient pressure, Paul Chu, Founding Director and Chief Scientist at the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston (TcSUH), Liangzi Deng, research assistant professor of physics at TcSUH, and their colleagues at TcSUH conceived and developed a pressure-quench (PQ) technique that retains the pressure-enhanced and/or -induced high transition temperature (Tc) phase even after the removal of the applied pressure that generates this phase.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-pressure-high-temperature-superconductivity.html
7/18/2021 10:00 AMThe plates of the Earth’s crust perform complicated movements that can be attributed to quite simple mechanisms. That is the short version of the explanation of a rift that began to tear the world apart 105 million years ago over a length of several thousand kilometers.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-continental-pirouettes-supervolcano-fed-earth.html
7/18/2021 12:00 PMPlanets which are tilted on their axis, like Earth, are more capable of evolving complex life. This finding will help scientists refine the search for more advanced life on exoplanets. This NASA-funded research is presented at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-goldilocks-planets-tilt-complex-life.html
7/18/2021 2:00 PMScientists know that the Earth was bombarded by huge impactors in distant time, but a new analysis suggests that the number of these impacts may have been 10 times higher than previously thought. This translates into a barrage of collisions—similar in scale to that of the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs—on average every 15 million years between 2.5 and 3.5 billion years ago. Some of these individual impacts may have been much bigger, possibly ranging from city-sized to small province sized. Researchers are also considering what effect the impacts may have had on the Earth’s evolving near-surface chemistry. This work is presented at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-early-earth-bombarded-series-city-sized.html
7/18/2021 4:00 PMEvidence suggests that what happens in one generation—diet, toxin exposure, trauma, fear—can have lasting effects on future generations. Scientists believe these effects result from epigenetic changes that occur in response to the environment and turn genes on or off without altering the genome or DNA sequence.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-combination-parents-gene-indefinitely.html
7/18/2021 6:00 PMNASA has awarded a contract worth $935 million to Northrop Grumman to build and integrate the first habitation module for the lunar Gateway.https://spacenews.com/nasa-awards-contract-to-northrop-grumman-to-build-gateway-module/
7/19/2021 8:00 AMBug experts are dropping the common name of a destructive insect because it’s considered an ethnic slur: the gypsy moth. The Entomological Society of America, which oversees the common names of bugs, is getting rid of the common name of that critter and the lesser-known gypsy ant. The group this week announced that for the first time it changed a common name of an insect because it was offensive. In the past they’ve only reassigned names that weren’t scientifically accurate.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-bug-experts-destructive-gypsy-moths.html
7/19/2021 10:00 AMFish literally get brainier when they have to think harder, and less brainy when they don’t. At least, that is the implication of two studies by Frederic Laberge at the University of Guelph in Canada and colleagues that show fish brains grow larger relative to their body size in more challenging environments and shrink in less challenging ones.https://www.newscientist.com/article/2283715-fish-brains-grow-when-they-have-to-think-more-and-shrink-if-they-dont/
7/19/2021 12:00 PMIn the vicinity of black holes, space is so warped that even light rays may curve around them several times. This phenomenon may enable us to see multiple versions of the same thing. While this has been known for decades, only now do we have an exact, mathematical expression, thanks to Albert Sneppen, student at the Niels Bohr Institute. The result, which even is more useful in realistic black holes, has just been published.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-universe-black-holes.html
7/19/2021 2:00 PMIn the last decade, we have devised amazing instruments to glare unflinchingly at the stars and discovered that other planets are common around them. These exoplanet discoveries have thrown gasoline on the fire of the astrobiology field, where scientists seek to explore whether life might exist beyond Earth. But they have also fueled SETI, or the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. If life does evolve on other worlds, then we may very well find more than just biosignatures like oxygen.https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkbq7z/nasa-is-quietly-funding-a-hunt-for-alien-megastructures
7/19/2021 4:00 PMOn June 7, 2021, NASA’s Juno spacecraft flew closer to Jupiter’s ice-encrusted moon Ganymede than any spacecraft in more than two decades. Less than a day later, Juno made its 34th flyby of Jupiter, racing over its roiling atmosphere from pole to pole in less than three hours. Using the spacecraft’s JunoCam imager, the mission team has put together an animation to provide a “starship captain” point of view of each flyby.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-juno-flies-solar-biggest-moon.html
7/19/2021 6:00 PMA team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in China, working at the University of Science and Technology of China, has achieved another milestone in the development of a usable quantum computer. The group has written a paper describing its latest efforts and have uploaded it to the arXiv preprint server.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-chinese-milestone-qubit.html
7/20/2021 8:00 AMA stunning new image from the South African MeerKAT telescope captures powerful radio emissions woven through space. The radio emissions emanate from an enormous rotating black hole that lies at the center of an elliptical galaxy known as IC 4296. Energy released by matter falling into the black hole generates two radio jets of high energy gas on opposite sides of the galaxy — creating what is also known as a double-lobed radio galaxy.https://www.space.com/south-african-meerkat-telescope-galaxy-image
7/20/2021 10:00 AMFor 30 years, University of Tokyo Associate Professor Hisayoshi Nozaki has traveled an hour west of Tokyo to visit the Sagami River and collect algal samples to understand how living things evolved different sexes. Through new analysis of samples collected in 2007 and 2013 from dam lakes along the river, Lake Sagami and Lake Tsukui, researchers identified a species of freshwater algae that evolved three different sexes, all of which can breed in pairs with each other.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-quest-sexes-evolved.html
7/20/2021 12:00 PMDark matter could be even weirder than anyone thought, say cosmologists who are suggesting this mysterious substance that accounts for more than 80% of the universe’s mass could interact with itself.https://www.space.com/self-interacting-dark-matter-higher-dimensional-universe
7/20/2021 2:00 PMAfter the now-infamous scientist He Jiankui experimentally gene-hacked several human embryos and allowed them to be born as babies, the genetics research community began to scramble to for new ground rules.https://futurism.com/neoscope/who-gene-hacking-superhumans-illegal
7/20/2021 4:00 PMMost birds that swoop over ocean waters have one thing in common: dark wings. Now scientists think they know why. Dark feathers absorb more heat, which improves flight efficiency, allowing these birds to fly faster and longer than those with lighter-colored wings.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/dark-wings-supercharge-seabird-flight
7/20/2021 6:00 PMScientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Wisconsin–Madison have discovered that genetically distinct populations within the same species of fungi can produce unique mixes of secondary metabolites, which are organic compounds with applications in medicine, industry and agriculture. The finding could open new avenues for drug discovery and provide a deeper understanding of fungal evolution.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-population-specific-diversity-fungi-species-enable.html
7/21/2021 8:00 AMYou know your dog gets your gist when you point and say “go find the ball” and he scampers right to it. This knack for understanding human gestures may seem unremarkable, but it’s a complex cognitive ability that is rare in the animal kingdom. Our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, can’t do it. And the dogs’ closest relative, the wolf, can’t either.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-snuggle-wolf-pups-wont-dog.html
7/21/2021 10:00 AMIn 2015, 170 countries worldwide adopted the Paris Agreement, with the goal limiting the average global temperature increase to 1.5°C. Following the agreement, many countries and cities proposed targets for greenhouse gas mitigation. However, the UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2020 shows that, without drastic and strict actions to mitigate the climate crisis, we are still heading for a temperature increase of more than 3°C by the end of the 21st century.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-mega-cities-world-urban-greenhouse-gas.html
7/21/2021 12:00 PMFor years, scientists have worried about what to do if or when a killer asteroid comes our way. With some coordination, the scientists said, the satellites we’re building today could be enough to stave off apocalypse tomorrow.https://futurism.com/the-byte/smash-satellites-killer-asteroid
7/21/2021 2:00 PMA team of researchers working at Zhejiang University in China has developed a way to grow water ice that is elastic and bendable. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes how they grew their single-crystal microfibers and suggest possible uses for them. Erland Schulson with Dartmouth College, has published a Perspective piece in the same journal issue outlining the work done by the team in China.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-bendable-ice-single-crystal-microfibers.html
7/21/2021 4:00 PMChinese scientists are planning to fire more than 20 rockets into space to divert an asteroid impact that has a small chance of one day ending life on Earth.https://www.space.com/china-rocket-fleet-divert-asteroid-bennu
7/21/2021 6:00 PMAstronomers have spotted more strange “free-floating” planets that could roam deep space untethered to any star.https://www.space.com/possible-rogue-alien-planets-detected-kepler
7/22/2021 8:00 AMThe solar system is constantly bathed by a sea of charged particles that emanate from the sun, and one research team spent 14 years chasing solar eclipses to learn more about this stellar spray.https://www.space.com/sun-scientists-chase-eclipses-solar-wind
7/22/2021 10:00 AMAll matter in the universe — no matter how big, small, young or old — is made up of atoms. So, if everything is made of atoms, do we know how many atoms are in the universe?https://www.livescience.com/how-many-atoms-in-universe.html
7/22/2021 12:00 PMClimate change has already increased the frequency and severity of hurricanes and other extreme weather events around the world. — But there’s a smaller, less splashy threat on the horizon that could wreak havoc on America’s coasts.https://www.space.com/high-tide-flooding-climate-change-2030
7/22/2021 2:00 PMIn recent years, physicists and electronics engineers have been trying to devise strategies to control or produce quantum states of matter in different materials. Such strategies could ultimately prove valuable for the development of new technological devices.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-ultrafast-insulating-like-metastable-state.html
7/22/2021 4:00 PMhttps://stm.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/07/12/scitranslmed.abi8452
7/22/2021 6:00 PMA decade after scientists discovered that lab rats will rescue a fellow rat in distress, but not a rat they consider an outsider, new UC Berkeley research pinpoints the brain regions that drive rats to prioritize their nearest and dearest in times of crisis. It also suggests humans may share the same neural bias.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-rats-kindhumans-similarly-wired.html
7/23/2021 8:00 AMAstronomers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and elsewhere report the detection of a new ultra-high energy (UHE) gamma-ray source in the Galactic plane. The newly identified source, designated LHAASO J0341+5258, is extended and emission from it reaches up to 200 TeV.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-astronomers-ultra-high-energy-gamma-ray-source.html
7/23/2021 10:00 AMRapid filling of a giant dam at the headwaters of the Nile River—the world’s biggest waterway that supports millions of people—could reduce water supplies to downstream Egypt by more than one-third, new USC research shows.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-dire-impacts-downstream-nile-river.html
7/23/2021 12:00 PMResearchers were ecstatic 2 years ago when, after decades of effort, they devised drugs that could block a tumor-promoting protein in cancer patients called KRAS, which previously seemed impervious to treatment. But many of these KRAS inhibitors—the first of which was approved by U.S. regulators in May—quickly lost their luster, like other targeted cancer drugs: Most patients’ tumors resumed growing after a few months, as their cancer cells became resistant to the inhibitors. Now, a study finds that the roots of this resistance are surprisingly complex, with tumors using an array of escape routes to evade the attack on KRAS.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/tumors-find-many-ways-evade-groundbreaking-cancer-drug
7/23/2021 2:00 PMScientists have discovered a novel way to classify magnetized plasmas that could possibly lead to advances in harvesting on Earth the fusion energy that powers the sun and stars. The discovery by theorists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) found that a magnetized plasma has 10 unique phases and the transitions between them might hold rich implications for practical development.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-discovery-plasma-insights-fusion-science.html
7/23/2021 4:00 PMBRCA1, a protein that is well-known for its role in hereditary breast cancer, is an important part of the cellular system that repairs double-strand DNA breaks. Now, researchers from Japan have discovered a new way in which cells protect these broken DNA ends to make sure that they are repaired correctly.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-pathway-dna-double-strand.html
7/23/2021 6:00 PMChicken eggs are so delicate they might not survive your shopping trip, let alone the journey home. That explains archaeologists’ surprise when they dug up an unbroken chicken egg in a ­thousand-year-old cesspit dating from the Byzantine era.https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/byzantine-chicken-egg-archaeology/2021/06/17/f516a946-cecf-11eb-8014-2f3926ca24d9_story.html
7/24/2021 8:00 AMAn Australian start-up has launched two computers on small satellites to test in-orbit processing of Earth-observation images in hopes of making insights from space more accessible.https://www.space.com/satellite-image-processing-earth-observations-spiral-blue
7/24/2021 10:00 AMA world just over 300 light-years away has yielded the first ever detection of isotopes in an exoplanet’s atmosphere. In the haze around a gaseous exoplanet named TYC 8998-760-1 b, astronomers detected a form of carbon known as carbon-13. This discovery suggests that the exoplanet formed far from its parent star, in the cold reaches of its system beyond a specific snow line.https://www.sciencealert.com/for-the-first-time-isotopes-have-been-detected-in-the-atmosphere-of-an-exoplanet
7/24/2021 12:00 PMWhen a giant space rock struck the waters near Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula 66 million years ago, it sent up a blanket of dust that blotted out the Sun for years, sending temperatures plummeting and killing off the dinosaurs. The impact also generated a tsunami in the Gulf of Mexico that some modelers believe sent an initial tidal wave up to 1500 meters (or nearly 1 mile) high crashing into North America, one that was followed by smaller pulses. Now, for the first time, scientists have discovered fossilized megaripples from this tsunami buried in sediments in what is now central Louisiana.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/giant-tsunami-dino-killing-asteroid-impact-revealed-fossilized-megaripples
7/24/2021 2:00 PMMany of us swing through gates every day—points of entry and exit to a space like a garden, park or subway. Electronics have gates too. These control the flow of information from one place to another by means of an electrical signal. Unlike a garden gate, these gates require control of their opening and closing many times faster than the blink of an eye.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-coherent-gate.html
7/24/2021 4:00 PMA trio of researchers at the University of British Columbia has found that froghoppers are capable of sucking with enough force to draw up liquid in a vertical straw 100 meters long. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Elisabeth Bergman, Emma Green and Philip Matthews, describe their study of the unique insects and what they learned about their ability to generate extremely strong suction forces.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-froghoppers-liquid-vertical-straw-100m.html
7/24/2021 6:00 PMhttps://stm.sciencemag.org/content/13/600/eabd6892
7/25/2021 8:00 AMThe universe started with a bang — but how will it end? With astonishing visuals, cosmologist and TED Fellow Katie Mack takes us to the theoretical end of everything, some trillions of years in the future, in a profound meditation on existence, wonder and the legacy of humanity within the immensity of time and space.https://www.ted.com/talks/katie_mack_the_death_of_the_universe_and_what_it_means_for_life/up-next
7/25/2021 10:00 AMMars is a planet of extremes – it’s bitterly cold, has high radiation, and is bone-dry. But billions of years ago, Mars was home to lake systems that could have sustained microbial life. As the planet’s climate changed, one such lake – in Mars’ Gale Crater – slowly dried out. Scientists have new evidence that super salty water, or brines, seeped deep through the cracks, between grains of soil in the parched lake bottom and altered the clay mineral-rich layers beneath.https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/curiosity-rover-finds-patches-of-rock-record-on-mars-erased/
7/25/2021 12:00 PMResearchers have found evidence for an anomalous phase of matter that was predicted to exist in the 1960s. Harnessing its properties could pave the way to new technologies able to share information without energy losses.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-evidence-anomalous-phase-energy-efficient-technologies.html
7/25/2021 2:00 PMLong believed to be one of the blandest regions of any of the giant gas planets, the southern hemisphere of Uranus indicates a flurry of previously unknown atmospheric phenomena, hinting at an unusual feature in the interior of the planet.https://news.arizona.edu/story/clues-revealed-about-hidden-interior-of-uranus
7/25/2021 4:00 PMResearchers are taking a closer look at this science-fiction staple—and bringing the idea a little closer to reality.https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/star-treks-warp-drive-leads-to-new-physics/
7/25/2021 6:00 PMAstronomers have discovered the smallest yet most massive white dwarf star ever seen.https://www.cbsnews.com/news/white-dwarf-star-smallest-massive-astronomers/
7/26/2021 8:00 AMAs we carefully map the stars of our Milky Way, we’re able to identify features that tell us of its history. These include local details, such as the stars that have passed through an area from which something would be able to detect Earth. And it includes far larger structures, like the trails of stars left behind by smaller galaxies that have merged with our own.https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/cluster-full-of-black-holes-may-be-spitting-out-stars/
7/26/2021 10:00 AMAs a documentary about a cephalopod contends for an Oscar, a new study reveals the sophistication of the animals’ inner experiences.https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/octopus-teachers-demonstrate-they-feel-emotional-pain/
7/26/2021 12:00 PMIf you didn’t have a brain, could you still figure out where you were and navigate your surroundings? Thanks to new research on slime molds, the answer may be “yes.” Scientists from the Wyss Institute at Harvard University and the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University have discovered that a brainless slime mold called Physarum polycephalum uses its body to sense mechanical cues in its surrounding environment, and performs computations similar to what we call “thinking” to decide in which direction to grow based on that information. Unlike previous studies with Physarum, these results were obtained without giving the organism any food or chemical signals to influence its behavior.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-brain-brainless-slime-molds-reveal.html
7/26/2021 2:00 PMResearchers at ETH Zurich have trapped a tiny sphere measuring a hundred nanometres using laser light and slowed down its motion to the lowest quantum mechanical state. This technique could help researchers to study quantum effects in macroscopic objects and build extremely sensitive sensors.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-optical-levitation-glass-nanosphere-enables.html
7/26/2021 4:00 PMWith its global subsurface water ocean, Saturn’s moon Enceladus is considered to be one of the best places to search for life. Now, new research from a team of biologists suggests life on Enceladus might indeed be quite possible … and that we might already have evidence for it. Something is producing a lot of methane on Enceladus, or rather in its subsurface ocean. And methane can be a life sign. Charlie Wood discussed these curious results on June 8, 2021, in Popular Science. Intriguingly, according to Wood’s article, initial analysis suggests the methane is being produced in a way similar to methanogenic microbes in oceans on Earth.https://earthsky.org/space/methane-on-enceladus-methanogens/
7/26/2021 6:00 PMThe icy crust enveloping Saturn’s moon Enceladus has long fascinated astronomers. Evidence collected by NASA and the European Space Agency’s Cassini-Huygens spacecraft suggests the shell could be hiding a massive subsurface ocean made up of briny water underneath it — which, tantalizingly, could potentially harbor life.https://futurism.com/scientists-signs-life-saturn-moon
7/27/2021 8:00 AMTo date, there are no effective antidotes against most viral infections. An interdisciplinary research team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now developed a new approach: they engulf and neutralize viruses with nano-capsules tailored from genetic material using the DNA origami method. The strategy has already been tested against hepatitis and adeno-associated viruses in cell cultures. It may also prove successful against corona viruses.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-hollow-nano-objects-dna-viruses-harmless.html
7/27/2021 10:00 AMA collaborative research team, led by the University of Liverpool, has discovered a new inorganic material with the lowest thermal conductivity ever reported. This discovery paves the way for the development of new thermoelectric materials that will be critical for a sustainable society.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-inorganic-material-lowest-thermal.html
7/27/2021 12:00 PMA new study has shown that it is possible to create tiny, self-powered swimming robots from three simple ingredients. By combining oil drops with water containing a detergent-like substance, the scientists found they could produce artificial swimmers that are able to swim independently and even harvest energy to recharge.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-scientists-rechargeable-microrobots-oil.html
7/27/2021 2:00 PMTwo-dimensional ‘nanosheets’ made of bonds between metal atoms and organic molecules are attractive candidates for photoelectric conversion, but get corroded easily. In a new study, scientists from Japan and Taiwan present a new nanosheet design using iron and benzene hexathiol that exhibits record stability to air exposure for 60 days, signaling the commercial optoelectronic applications of these 2D materials in the future.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-efficient-light-energy-conversion-stable-nanosheets.html
7/27/2021 4:00 PMScientists hunting for elusive gravitational waves across the universe may be able to supercharge their discoveries with a new tool: artificial intelligence.https://www.space.com/artificial-intelligence-gravitational-waves-discoveries
7/27/2021 6:00 PMScientists have uncovered a way to control many genes in engineered yeast cells, opening the door to more efficient and sustainable production of bio-based products.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-bioengineering-paves-production-bio-based-goods.html
7/28/2021 8:00 AMA trio of researchers from Slovenia’s Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Slovenia at the Centre for Preventive Archaeology and Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, in Germany, has found evidence of the oldest known use of cosmetics at a dig site in the Balkans. In their paper, Bine Kramberger, Christoph Berthold and Cynthianne Spiteri describe the ceramic bottles that held the cosmetics and what they found inside them.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-oldest-cosmetics-ceramic-bottles-balkan.html
7/28/2021 10:00 AMScientists have waited months for access to highly accurate protein structure prediction since DeepMind presented remarkable progress in this area at the 2020 Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction, or CASP14, conference. The wait is now over.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-artificial-intelligence-software-protein-minutes.html
7/28/2021 12:00 PMElectronic circuits that compute and store information contain millions of tiny switches that control the flow of electric current. A deeper understanding of how these tiny switches work could help researchers push the frontiers of modern computing.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-scientists-snapshots-ultrafast-quantum-electronic.html
7/28/2021 2:00 PMCells, like many of us, fend off germs with cleaning products. Researchers have discovered that a molecule made throughout much of the body wipes out invading bacteria like a detergent attacking an oily stain.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-human-cells-harness-power-detergents.html
7/28/2021 4:00 PMOne of Earth’s greatest mysteries is how it transformed itself, ever so gradually, from a barren ball of rock into a launching pad for life.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-earth-climate-life-story-billion.html
7/28/2021 6:00 PMLittle bits of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot seem to be flaking off. Is it a sign of the demise of this enigmatic red cloud, or just a consequence of atmospheric chaos we can’t see from above?https://astronomy.com/news/2019/11/jupiters-great-red-spot-is-not-disappearing
7/29/2021 8:00 AMThe sky isn’t falling, but scientists have found that parts of the upper atmosphere are gradually contracting in response to rising human-made greenhouse gas emissions.https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/nasa-satellites-see-upper-atmosphere-cooling-contracting-climate-change
7/29/2021 10:00 AMJumping spiders can distinguish living from non-living objects in their peripheral vision using the same cues used by humans and other vertebrate animals, according to a study publishing 15th July 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Massimo De Agrò of Harvard University in the United States.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-spiders-distinguish-non-living-motion-based-visual.html
7/29/2021 12:00 PMSpotting the first signs of activity on a record-setting comet of gargantuan size came down to a time-zone advantage.https://www.space.com/giant-comet-bernardinelli-bernstein-activity-beyond-saturn
7/29/2021 2:00 PMA newly discovered visitor to the outer edges of our solar system has been shown to be the largest known comet ever, thanks to the rapid response telescopes of Las Cumbres Observatory. The object, which is named Comet C/2014 UN271 Bernardinelli-Bernstein after its two discoverers, was first announced on Saturday, June 19th, 2021. C/2014 UN271 was found by reprocessing four years of data from the Dark Energy Survey, which was carried out using the 4-m Blanco telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile between 2013 and 2019. At the time of the announcement, there was no indication that this was an active world. Anticipation was immediately high among astronomers. C/2014 UN271 was inbound from the cold outer reaches of the solar system, so rapid imaging was needed to find out: when would the big new-found world start to show a comet’s tail?https://phys.org/news/2021-07-largest-comet.html
7/29/2021 4:00 PMThe Juno Waves instrument “listened” to the radio emissions from Jupiter’s immense magnetic field to find their precise locations.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-juno-tunes-radio-noise-triggered.html
7/29/2021 6:00 PMOn June 5, 2019, a massive, ice-covered lake sat atop East Antarctica’s Amery Ice Shelf. Within six days, all 600 million to 750 million cubic meters of lake water had vanished, leaving a deep sinkhole filled with fractured ice.https://www.sciencenews.org/article/satellite-images-how-massive-lake-antarctica-vanished-drained-days
7/30/2021 8:00 AMImagine you sit down and pick up your favourite book. You look at the image on the front cover, run your fingers across the smooth book sleeve, and smell that familiar book smell as you flick through the pages. To you, the book is made up of a range of sensory appearances.https://www.iflscience.com/physics/is-reality-a-game-of-quantum-mirrors-a-new-theory-suggests-it-might-be/
7/30/2021 10:00 AMArchaeologists have discovered a rare stone delineating the city limits of ancient Rome that dates from the age of Emperor Claudius in 49 A.D. and was found during excavations for a new sewage system.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-rare-stone-outlining-ancient-rome.html
7/30/2021 12:00 PMFor the first time ever, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine discovered that phages—tiny viruses that attack bacteria—are key to initiating rapid bacterial evolution leading to the emergence of treatment-resistant “superbugs.”https://phys.org/news/2021-07-bacterial-parasites-super-bugs.html
7/30/2021 2:00 PMWhat makes humans unique? Scientists have taken another step toward solving an enduring mystery with a new tool that may allow for more precise comparisons between the DNA of modern humans and that of our extinct ancestors.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-dna-unique-modern-humans.html
7/30/2021 4:00 PMWhile working on his doctorate in theoretical physics in the early 1970s, Saul Teukolsky solved a problem that seemed purely hypothetical. Imagine a black hole, the ghostly knot of gravity that forms when, say, a massive star burns out and collapses to an infinitesimal point. Suppose you perturb it, as you might strike a bell. How does the black hole respond?https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/after-decades-effort-scientists-are-finally-seeing-black-holes-or-are-they
7/30/2021 6:00 PMCannabis was first domesticated around 12,000 years ago in China, researchers found, after analyzing the genomes of plants from across the world.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-cannabis-domesticated-years.html
7/31/2021 8:00 AMCancer cell death is triggered within three days when X-rays are focused on tumor tissue containing iodine-carrying nanoparticles. The iodine releases electrons that break the tumor’s DNA, leading to cell death. The findings, by scientists at Kyoto University’s Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) and colleagues in Japan and the US, were published in the journal Scientific Reports.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-quantum-physics-cancer-cells.html
7/31/2021 10:00 AMNASA engineers installed a time capsule on the Lucy spacecraft late last week, intended for future astro-archaeologists to retrieve and interpret. The time capsule is a plaque that includes messages from Nobel Laureates and musicians, among others, as well as a depiction of the solar system’s configuration on October 16, 2021, the date the spacecraft is expected to launch.https://gizmodo.com/nasa-s-lucy-spacecraft-will-carry-a-time-capsule-for-fu-1847281672
7/31/2021 12:00 PMJupiter may have formed in a shadow that kept the planet’s birthplace colder than Pluto. The frigid temperature could explain the giant world’s unusual abundance of certain gases, a new study suggests.https://www.sciencenews.org/article/jupiter-chemistry-shadow-origin-planet-space-temperature
7/31/2021 2:00 PMClimate change is driving a large increase in intense, slow-moving storms, a new study by Newcastle University and the Met Office has found.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-climate-intense-storms-europe.html
7/31/2021 4:00 PMA mysterious whiff of an unstable chemical in the skies of Venus may not be a sign of life but the result of explosive volcanic eruptions, a new study finds.https://www.space.com/venus-volcanoes-could-create-phosphine-not-life
7/31/2021 6:00 PMDark matter could be even weirder than anyone thought, say cosmologists who are suggesting this mysterious substance that accounts for more than 80% of the universe’s mass could interact with itself.https://www.space.com/self-interacting-dark-matter-higher-dimensional-universe
8/1/2021 8:00 AMIn the TV series Star Trek, the Borg are cybernetic aliens that assimilate humans and other creatures as a means of achieving perfection. So when Jill Banfield, a geomicrobiologist at the University of California, Berkeley, sifted through DNA in the mud of her backyard and discovered a strange linear chromosome that included genes from a variety of microbes, her Trekkie son proposed naming it after the sci-fi aliens. The new type of genetic material was a mystery. Maybe it was part of a viral genome. Maybe it was a strange bacterium. Or maybe it was just an independent piece of DNA existing outside of cells. Whatever it is, it’s “pretty exciting,” says W. Ford Doolittle, an evolutionary biologist at Dalhousie University who was not involved with the work.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/mysterious-dna-sequences-known-borgs-recovered-california-mud
8/1/2021 10:00 AMT10
8/1/2021 12:00 PMSea level is rising worldwide, thanks in large part to climate change. Rising seas threaten coastal communities and ecosystems, including marshes that lie at the interface between salt water and freshwater. Tidal marsh ecosystems feature distinct plants and play key ecological roles, such as serving as nurseries for fish. It is known that some tidal marshes can avoid destruction by migrating inland or through formation of new soil that raises their elevation, but a better understanding of how they are affected by rising seas could inform efforts to plan for and mitigate the effects.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-tidal-marsh-areas-vulnerable-seas.html
8/1/2021 2:00 PMBy uprooting carbon trapped in soil, wild pigs are releasing around 4.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually across the globe, the equivalent of 1.1 million cars.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-climate-impact-wild-pigs-greater.html
8/1/2021 4:00 PMA new approach to analyze satellite measurements of Earth’s cloud cover reveals that clouds are very likely to enhance global heating.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-global-satellite-clouds-amplify.html
8/1/2021 6:00 PMOne of the topics investigated in recent physics studies is strong-field quantum electrodynamics (SF-QED). So far, this area has rarely been explored before, mainly because the experimental observation of SF-QED processes would require extremely high light intensities (>1025W/cm2), over three orders of magnitude higher than those attained using the most intense PetaWatt (PW)-class lasers available today.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-relativistic-mirrors-high-power-laser-pulses.html
8/2/2021 8:00 AMThe drone fleet used by SpaceX to catch falling rockets now has a third autonomous ship, whimsically called “A Shortfall of Gravitas.” Founder Elon Musk unveiled the newest floating rocket landing pad on Twitter Friday (July 9) along with a dramatic video from a flying drone circling the ship.https://www.space.com/spacex-drone-ship-a-shortfall-of-gravitas
8/2/2021 10:00 AMT10
8/2/2021 12:00 PMFor decades, researchers around the world have searched for ways to use solar power to generate the key reaction for producing hydrogen as a clean energy source—splitting water molecules to form hydrogen and oxygen. However, such efforts have mostly failed because doing it well was too costly, and trying to do it at a low cost led to poor performance.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-hydrogen-hard-major-hurdle.html
8/2/2021 2:00 PMAn amater astronomer has discovered a previously unknown moon around Jupiter after poring over old telescope images, a major first. “I’m proud to say that this is the first planetary moon discovered by an amateur astronomer!” moon searcher Kai Ly said in a July 8 Sky and Telescope report that details the discovery.https://www.space.com/amateur-astronomer-jupiter-moon-discovery
8/2/2021 4:00 PMA research team from Osnabrück University and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has, for the first time, observed lethal attacks by chimpanzees on gorillas in the wild. Whether this behavior is due to competition for food or to the decline of the rainforest’s productivity caused by climate change will now be investigated in more detail.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-lethal-chimpanzees-gorillas.html
8/2/2021 6:00 PMUnlike early human species, chimpanzees do not seem to be able to spontaneously make and use sharp stone tools, even when they have all the materials and incentive to do so. That was the finding of a study of a total of eleven chimpanzees at a zoo in Kristiansand, Norway, and Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage, a sanctuary in Zambia. The study was conducted by Dr. Elisa Bandini and Dr. Alba Motes-Rodrigo of the University of Tübingen as part of the STONECULT project led by Dr. Claudio Tennie and funded by the European Research Council.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-chimpanzees-stone-age.html
8/3/2021 8:00 AMScientists have long agreed that the Moon formed when a protoplanet, called Theia, struck Earth in its infancy some 4.5 billion years ago. Now, a team of scientists has a provocative new proposal: Theia’s remains can be found in two continent-size layers of rock buried deep in Earth’s mantle.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/remains-impact-created-moon-may-lie-deep-within-earth
8/3/2021 10:00 AMT10
8/3/2021 12:00 PMScientists who study glacier ice have found viruses nearly 15,000 years old in two ice samples taken from the Tibetan Plateau in China. Most of those viruses, which survived because they had remained frozen, are unlike any viruses that have been cataloged to date.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-year-old-viruses-tibetan-glacier-ice.html
8/3/2021 2:00 PMImagine a universe where you could point a spaceship in one direction and eventually return to where you started. If our universe were a finite donut, then such movements would be possible and physicists could potentially measure its size.https://www.space.com/universe-three-dimensional-donut
8/3/2021 4:00 PMPalaeontologist Tim Ewin is standing in a quarry, recalling the calamity that’s written in the rocks under his mud-caked boots. “They tried to protect themselves, adopting the stress position of pulling their arms in,” he continues. “But it was all in vain; you can see where their arms got snagged open, right up to the crown. They were pushed into the sediment and buried alive.”https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57853537
8/3/2021 6:00 PMA team of researchers from the University of California, Colorado State University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has discovered a new kind of extrachromosomal element (ECE) living inside of a methane-metabolizing archaea. The paper describing their findings is available on the bioRxiv preprint server.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-giant-extrachromosomal-elements-methane-metabolizing-archaea.html
8/4/2021 8:00 AMIt’s been roughly 80 years since the Xerces blue butterfly was last spotted flitting about on pastel wings across coastal California sand dunes. But scientists are still learning about the insect.https://www.sciencenews.org/article/xerxes-blue-butterfly-first-human-caused-us-insect-extinction
8/4/2021 10:00 AMT10
8/4/2021 12:00 PMA joint European-Russian spacecraft orbiting Mars has found no signs of gases related to the existence of life in the atmosphere of Mars, according to three new studies.https://www.space.com/exomars-orbiter-no-methane-on-mars
8/4/2021 2:00 PMManipulating RNA can allow plants to yield dramatically more crops, as well as increasing drought tolerance, announced a group of scientists from the University of Chicago, Peking University and Guizhou University.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-rna-breakthrough-crops-potatoes-rice.html
8/4/2021 4:00 PMUsing information obtained from around a dozen earthquakes detected on Mars by the Very Broad Band SEIS seismometer, developed in France, the international team of NASA’s InSight mission has unveiled the internal structure of Mars.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-insight-mission-mars-unveiled.html
8/4/2021 6:00 PMNASA’s Juno spacecraft is “listening” in on radio emissions from Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, allowing researchers to discover what triggers the strange radio waves.https://www.space.com/jupiter-moon-io-radio-signal-juno-spacecraft
8/5/2021 8:00 AMNASA has chosen SpaceX to launch its next alien-hunting mission to a Jupiter moon. The mission, called Europa Clipper, is designed to fly past Jupiter’s moon Europa 45 times, getting as close as 16 miles above its surface. Scientists believe the moon conceals a global ocean beneath its icy crust, and alien life could thrive deep within it.https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-gives-spacex-europa-clipper-launch-contract-jupiter-moon-mission-2021-7
8/5/2021 10:00 AMT10
8/5/2021 12:00 PMPlace one clock at the top of a mountain. Place another on the beach. Eventually, you’ll see that each clock tells a different time. Why? Time moves slower as you get closer to Earth, because, as Einstein posited in his theory of general relativity, the gravity of a large mass, like Earth, warps the space and time around it. Scientists first observed this “time dilation” effect on the cosmic scale, such as when a star passes near a black hole. Then, in 2010, researchers observed the same effect on a much smaller scale, using two extremely precise atomic clocks, one placed 33 centimeters higher than the other. Again, time moved slower for the clock closer to Earth.https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/time-perception
8/5/2021 2:00 PMMore than 99% of the visible universe exists in a superheated state known as plasma—an ionized gas of electrons and ions. The motion of these charged particles produces magnetic fields that form an interstellar magnetic web. These magnetic fields are important for a wide range of processes, from the shaping of galaxies and the formation of stars to controlling the motion and acceleration of high-energy particles like cosmic rays—protons and electrons that zoom through the universe at nearly the speed of light.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-scientists-high-energy-electrons-magnetic-fields.html
8/5/2021 4:00 PMHeatwaves that obliterate temperature records as in western Canada last month and Siberia last year are caused by the rapid pace, rather than the amount, of global warming, researchers said Monday.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-record-shattering-heatwaves-pace.html
8/5/2021 6:00 PMNASA’s highly anticipated mission to Jupiter’s ocean moon Europa now has a rocket ride. The $4.25 billion Europa Clipper spacecraft will launch atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, NASA officials announced. The total value of the contract is about $178 million, they added.https://www.space.com/nasa-picks-spacex-falcon-heavy-for-europa-clipper-launch
8/6/2021 8:00 AMA German-built space telescope is creating the most detailed map of black holes and neutron stars across our universe, revealing more than 3 million newfound objects in less than two years.https://www.space.com/erosita-maps-black-holes-universe
8/6/2021 10:00 AMT10
8/6/2021 12:00 PMA team of researchers at the University of Vienna has found that dogs can sometimes tell when people are lying to them. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes experiments they conducted with hundreds of dogs, and what was learned about their ability to detect deception in unknown people. Adult humans have been found to engage in mental state assessments of others. People determine, based on various clues, the truthfulness of other people, for example. In this new effort, the researchers wondered if the same might be true of dogs. To find out, they carried out simple experiments with 260 dog volunteers of various breeds.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-dogs-people-lying.html
8/6/2021 2:00 PMA team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Italy, the US and Austria has found that changes to the human oral biome during the shift from foraging to farming were not nearly as dramatic as those that have occurred in modern times. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their analysis of dental records covering thousands of years and what it showed them about changes to the microbiome in the human mouth.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-oral-biome-shift-foraging-farming.html
8/6/2021 4:00 PMA crumbling hunk of rock found in a field in England is a rare meteorite from the earliest days of the solar system, dating back about 4.6 billion years.https://www.space.com/rare-carbonaceous-carbonate-meteorite-found
8/6/2021 6:00 PMIt’s not the look in her compound eyes or the shape of her carapace that really attracts the male cockroach to his mate. Instead, it’s all those 29-carbon hydrocarbons in her cuticle that drive him wild. How the female cockroach regulates production of these contact sex pheromones, and what happens when she produces too few, is the subject of a new study publishing on July 27th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Tong-Xian Liu of Northwest A&F University in Yangling, China, and colleagues.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-cockroach-sex-block-enzyme.html
8/7/2021 8:00 AMOn Aug. 26, 2020, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected a pulse of high-energy radiation that had been racing toward Earth for nearly half the present age of the universe. Lasting only about a second, it turned out to be one for the record books—the shortest gamma-ray burst (GRB) caused by the death of a massive star ever seen.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-fermi-supernova-fizzled-gamma-ray.html
8/7/2021 10:00 AMT10
8/7/2021 12:00 PMQuakes on Mars have unveiled its interior to an unprecedented degree, revealing surprising details about the Red Planet’s crust, mantle and core. Measurements taken by NASA’s InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) lander have uncovered details, including a crustal layer that varies dramatically from previous understanding, a mantle less dense than the surface and a core that is larger and less dense than previously estimated, new results reveal. These findings will impact our understanding not only of the Red Planet today, but also how it and other rocky worlds formed and evolved in our solar system, scientists said.https://www.space.com/mars-large-core-thin-crust-insight-results
8/7/2021 2:00 PMStep into the main hall of the Natural History Museum here and you’ll be greeted by a towering dinosaur skeleton, the tallest ever mounted. Nearly four stories high and twice as long as a school bus, the sauropod Giraffatitan brancai was the largest dinosaur known for more than a half-century. It has been a crowd magnet since it was first displayed in 1937.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/03/countries-demand-their-fossils-back-forcing-natural-history-museums-confront-their-past
8/7/2021 4:00 PMScience fiction writers have long featured terraforming, the process of creating an Earth-like or habitable environment on another planet, in their stories. Scientists themselves have proposed terraforming to enable the long-term colonization of Mars. A solution common to both groups is to release carbon dioxide gas trapped in the Martian surface to thicken the atmosphere and act as a blanket to warm the planet.https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/2018/mars-terraforming
8/7/2021 6:00 PMThe ATLAS Collaboration at CERN announces the first observation of “WWW production”: The simultaneous creation of three massive W bosons in high-energy Large Hadron Collider (LHC) collisions.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-atlas-www-production.html
8/8/2021 8:00 AMPerfect hexagonal structures inspired by honeycombs in bee nests are widely used to build everything from airplane wings, boats, and cars, to skis, snowboards, packaging and acoustic dampening materials.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-bees-optimal-honeycomb.html
8/8/2021 10:00 AMT10
8/8/2021 12:00 PMAstronomers have developed the most realistic model to date of planet formation in binary star systems. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and the Max Planck Institute for Extra-terrestrial Physics, have shown how exoplanets in binary star systems—such as the ‘Tatooine’ planets spotted by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope—came into being without being destroyed in their chaotic birth environment.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-astronomers-planets-binary.html
8/8/2021 2:00 PMThroughout the 20th century, a number of discoveries revolutionized our Universe. The discovery of the interior structure of atoms as well as radioactivity led to the quantum revolution, exposing the bizarre and counterintuitive rules that nature plays by at a fundamental level. The birth and growth of experimental particle physics led to enormous theoretical developments, enabling everything we observe to be represented as composites of indivisible quanta. At last, in the late 1960s, the final theoretical pieces of our quantum Universe were put into place, completing what we know today as the Standard Model. More than half a century later, every prediction it’s ever made has been borne out by experiments, with no conflicts at all.https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2021/07/27/the-standard-model-is-an-orphan-theory-now/
8/8/2021 4:00 PMAn international team of astrophysicists from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), the University of La Laguna (ULL) and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI, U.S.) has discovered the presence of transverse rotation (in the plane of the sky) in three dwarf spheroidal galaxies. These are a very faint type of galaxy and are quite difficult to observe. These new findings help to trace their evolutionary history. The finding was made using the most recent data from the GAIA satellite of the European Space Agency.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-dwarf-spheroidal-galaxies-rotate.html
8/8/2021 6:00 PMJennifer Toussaint, chief of animal control in Arlington, Virginia, can’t forget the four baby blue jays. In late May, worried residents had delivered the fledglings to her clinic just outside of Washington, D.C., within just a few hours. Each was plump, indicating “their parents had done a great job caring for them,” Toussaint says. But the birds were lethargic, unable to keep their balance, and blinded by crusty, oozing patches that had grown over their eyes.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/songbirds-are-mysteriously-dying-across-eastern-us-scientists-are-scrambling-find-out
8/9/2021 8:00 AMAncient “megaripples” as tall as five-story buildings are hiding deep under Louisiana, and their unique geology indicates that they formed in the immediate aftermath of the asteroid strike that killed the nonavian dinosaurs, a new study finds.https://www.space.com/megaripples-tsunami-dinosaur-asteroid
8/9/2021 10:00 AMT10
8/9/2021 12:00 PMWhen a star like our sun gets to be old, in another seven billion years or so, it will no longer be able to sustain burning its nuclear fuel. With only about half of its mass remaining it will shrink to a fraction of its radius and become a white dwarf star. White dwarf stars are common; over 95% of all stars will become white dwarfs. The most famous one is the companion to the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, but more particularly all stars known to host exoplanets will also end their lives as white dwarfs.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-planetary-remnants-white-dwarf-stars.html
8/9/2021 2:00 PMFor the past 50 years, manufacturers have considered carbon fiber a dream material: Though individual fibers are thinner than a strand of human hair, they can be twisted together and fused with a matrix material to form a lightweight composite that is stronger than steel, twice as stiff and a good conductor of heat. And, unlike metals, the material doesn’t crack over time. It’s been used in a wide range of applications, including air and spacecraft, cars, buildings, medical devices and sports equipment.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-simple-inexpensive-method-carbon-fiber.html
8/9/2021 4:00 PMUntil recently it was thought neutron-star mergers were the only way heavy elements (heavier than zinc) could be produced. These mergers involve the mashup of the remnants of two massive stars in a binary system. But we know heavy elements were first produced not long after the Big Bang, when the universe was really young. Back then, not enough time had passed for neutron star mergers to have even occurred. Thus, another source was needed to explain the presence of early heavy elements in the Milky Way.https://www.space.com/supernova-explosion-heavy-metals-in-milky-way
8/9/2021 6:00 PMDuring a research expedition that sounds indistinguishable from the first act of a horror movie, a team of intrepid scientists have discovered dozens of ancient, never-before-seen viruses within a sample of Tibetan ice.https://futurism.com/the-byte/dozens-unknown-viruses-frozen-ice
8/10/2021 8:00 AMA group of researchers is using artificial intelligence techniques to calibrate some of NASA’s images of the Sun, helping improve the data that scientists use for solar research.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-artificial-intelligence-nasa-eyes-sun.html
8/10/2021 10:00 AMT10
8/10/2021 12:00 PMNew research describes a new type of liquid in thin films, which forms a high-density glass. Results generated in this study, conducted by researchers in Penn’s Department of Chemistry, demonstrate how these glasses and other similar materials can be fabricated to be denser and more stable, providing a framework for developing new applications and devices through better design.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-thin-film-glass-liquid-phase.html
8/10/2021 2:00 PMAs wildfires currently devastate western North America, a new airborne project team hopes to develop a space solution to stop conflagrations before they get out of control.https://www.space.com/sensor-tracks-wildfires-from-space-and-air
8/10/2021 4:00 PMOn April 30, 2018, on the eastern flank of Hawaii’s Kīlauea volcano, lava suddenly drained from a crater that had been spewing lava for more than three decades. Then the floor of the crater, named Pu’u’ō’ō, dropped out.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-laws-friction-collapsing-crater-erupting.html
8/10/2021 6:00 PMSunlight in, reflected and emitted energy out. That’s the fundamental energy balance sheet for our planet. If Earth’s clouds, oceans, ice caps and land surfaces send as much energy back up to space as the sun shines down on us, then our planet maintains equilibrium.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-probability-earth-energy-imbalance-naturally.html
8/11/2021 8:00 AMImagine a galaxy reflected in a fun house hall of mirrors. You’d see the galaxy, repeated again and again, with each image becoming more grotesque and distorted. That’s how the universe looks near the event horizon of a black hole, one of the most warped places in the cosmos.https://www.space.com/black-hole-mirror-copies
8/11/2021 10:00 AMA team of scientists detected a series of bright flares of X-ray light coming from one of the least expected places: behind a supermassive black hole.https://futurism.com/the-byte/astronomers-detect-light-behind-black-hole
8/11/2021 12:00 PMSome astronomers suggest setting up a “SatHub” to address the growing threat that satellite megaconstellations pose to the night sky — but funding and support are necessary to make it happen. The primary goal of the international SatHub project would be implementing and adapting plans for observations as new satellites go up, team members said. A secondary goal would be training, outreach and analysis concerning low Earth orbit satellites for the greater community.https://www.space.com/sathub-idea-threat-satellite-megaconstellations-astonomy
8/11/2021 2:00 PMSome physical systems, especially in the quantum world, do not reach a stable equilibrium even after a long time. An ETH researcher has now found an elegant explanation for this phenomenon.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-exploring-quantum-dont-equilibrium.html
8/11/2021 4:00 PMUnder normal conditions, pure water is an almost perfect insulator. Water only develops metallic properties under extreme pressure, such as exists deep inside of large planets. Now, an international collaboration has used a completely different approach to produce metallic water and documented the phase transition at BESSY II.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-metal.html
8/11/2021 6:00 PMAn analysis of the blood types of one Denisovan and three Neanderthal individuals has uncovered new clues to the evolutionary history, health, and vulnerabilities of their populations.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-exploring-blood-neanderthal-denisovan-individuals.html
8/12/2021 8:00 AMFrom gaining valuable information to staying safe from predators, moving in a group can benefit animals—but at what cost? Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior have provided rare insight into the physical price that animals pay for moving collectively. Using accelerometers—the equivalent of pedometers, or Fitbits—the team of scientists studied the detailed movement behavior and related energetic costs in a troop of 25 baboons. The study is the first to gain ultra-high resolution data on movement and energetics of a group of wild primates.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-animal-societies-cohesion.html
8/12/2021 10:00 AMBright reflections that radar detected beneath the south pole of Mars may not be underground lakes as previously thought but deposits of clay instead, a new study finds.https://www.space.com/mars-buried-polar-lakes-frozen-clay
8/12/2021 12:00 PMToday, the LHCb experiment at CERN is presenting a new discovery at the European Physical Society Conference on High Energy Physics (EPS-HEP). The new particle discovered by LHCb, labeled as Tcc+, is a tetraquark—an exotic hadron containing two quarks and two antiquarks. It is the longest-lived exotic matter particle ever discovered, and the first to contain two heavy quarks and two light antiquarks.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-exotic-particle-tetraquark.html
8/12/2021 2:00 PMScientists have discovered that the protein ubiquitin plays an important role in the regulation of the aging process. Ubiquitin was previously known to control processes such as signal transduction and metabolism. Prof. Dr. David Vilchez and his colleagues at the CECAD Cluster of Excellence for Aging Research at the University of Cologne performed a comprehensive quantitative analysis of ubiquitin signatures during aging in the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans, a nematode worm broadly used for aging research. This method—called ubiquitin proteomics—measures all changes in ubiquitination of proteins in the cell.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-small-proteins-aging.html
8/12/2021 4:00 PMWe all experience growth, change, and new phases in life, and Earth is no exception. Over the course of its 4.5 billion-year lifespan, our planet has transitioned from an asteroid-battered ball of molten rock, to a life-bearing ocean orb, to the home of the only known technological civilization in the universe.https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgx7nq/watch-four-billion-years-of-earths-evolution-in-four-minutes
8/12/2021 6:00 PMJames Meador, an independent researcher at the California Institute of Technology, has found evidence that suggests the Apollo 11 ascent stage may still be orbiting the moon. He has written a paper outlining his research and findings and has posted it on the arXiv preprint server.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-apollo-ascent-stage-orbiting-moon.html
8/13/2021 8:00 AMDozens of online videos document an unusual behavior among tufted titmice and their closest bird kin. A bird will land on an unsuspecting mammal and, cautiously and stealthily, pluck out some of its hair.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-birds-hair-mammals.html
8/13/2021 10:00 AMToday, being “birdbrained” means forgetting where you left your keys or wallet. But 66 million years ago, it may have meant the difference between life and death—and may help explain why birds are the only dinosaurs left on Earth.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-bird-brains-left-dinosaurs.html
8/13/2021 12:00 PMThree studies published in the past month have cast doubt on the premise of subsurface lakes below the Martian south pole. Where there’s water, there’s life. That’s the case on Earth, at least, and also why scientists remain tantalized by any evidence suggesting there’s liquid water on cold, dry Mars. The Red Planet is a difficult place to look for liquid water: While water ice is plentiful, any water warm enough to be liquid on the surface would last for only a few moments before turning into vapor in Mars’ wispy air.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-clays-source-mars-lakes.html
8/13/2021 2:00 PMGreenland’s ice sheet has experienced a “massive melting event” during a heatwave that has seen temperatures more than 10 degrees above seasonal norms, according to Danish researchers.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-heatwave-massive-greenland-ice-sheet.html
8/13/2021 4:00 PMIn a study published in the US journal Science Advances, a single cell type map of human tissues is presented. An open access atlas has been launched with more than 250,000 interactive plots to allow researchers to explore the expression in individual single cell types for all protein-coding genes in these tissues.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-cell-human-tissues.html
8/13/2021 6:00 PMWithout the benefits of evolutionary genetic variation that accompany meiotic reproduction, how does an asexual invasive species adapt over time to a new environment to survive? In all-female weevil species that produce only female offspring from unfertilized eggs, the insects’ survival techniques have led to the surprising discovery that these creatures can pass down gene regulation changes to future generations.https://phys.org/news/2021-07-absence-genetic-variation-asexual-invasive.html
8/14/2021 8:00 AMEarth is steadily spinning like a top, even if we can’t see, touch, hear or feel it. So, what would happen if Earth were to abruptly stop rotating? If the spinning were to stop, the angular momentum of every object on Earth would rip the surface apart, resulting in a really, really bad day.https://www.space.com/what-if-earth-stopped-spinning.html
8/14/2021 10:00 AMA NASA satellite in space that shoots a laser beam down to Earth has spotted still more subsurface lakes sandwiched between Antarctica’s land and ice.https://www.space.com/icesat2-satellite-laser-finds-antarctica-subsurface-lakes
8/14/2021 12:00 PMRocket engines contain confined combustion systems, which are essentially combustion chambers. In these chambers, nonlinear interactions among turbulent fuel and oxidizer flows, sound waves, and heat produced from chemical reactions cause an unstable phenomenon called “combustion oscillations.” The force of these oscillations on the body of the combustion chamber—the mechanical stress on the chamber— is high enough to threaten catastrophic failure of the engine. What causes these oscillations? The answer remains to be found.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-fatal-problem-rocket-combustors.html
8/14/2021 2:00 PMNeanderthals, long perceived to have been unsophisticated and brutish, really did paint stalagmites in a Spanish cave more than 60,000 years ago, according to a study published on August 2nd, 2021.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-neanderthals-andalusia-cueva-de-ardales.html
8/14/2021 4:00 PMHere’s a new spin on how Earth became an oxygen-rich planet: As our planet’s rotation slowed, microbes were bathed in longer stints of sunlight that revved up their release of oxygen into the atmosphere.https://www.space.com/early-earth-rotation-increase-oxygen
8/14/2021 6:00 PMFrom his perch on the International Space Station, a French astronaut watched a long-running Russian space module break into pieces in a shower of fireworks. What’s more, he caught the event on video.https://www.space.com/space-station-pirs-module-deorbit-video
8/15/2021 8:00 AMIn what could prove to be a momentous accomplishment for fundamental physics and quantum physics, scientists say they’ve finally figured out how to manufacture a scientific oddity called a time crystal.https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-time-crystal-quantum-computer
8/15/2021 10:00 AMA team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, and Western Connecticut State University, has assembled the first draft genome of Phalangium opilio—the daddy longlegs. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes clues they found that explain why the harvestman developed such long legs.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-genetically-daddy-longlegs-short-legs.html
8/15/2021 12:00 PMAmateur astronomer Kai Ly has discovered a “new” moon orbiting Jupiter. Jupiter currently has 53 named moons, with 26 more moons orbiting Jupiter discovered so far awaiting official names. The new discovery raises that number to 27, bringing the total number of Jovian moons to 80.https://scifi.radio/2021/08/03/amateur-astronomer-kai-ly-discovers-jupiters-80th-moon/
8/15/2021 2:00 PMSome kinds of water pollution, such as algal blooms and plastics that foul rivers, lakes, and marine environments, lie in plain sight. But other contaminants are not so readily apparent, which makes their impact potentially more dangerous. Among these invisible substances is uranium. Leaching into water resources from mining operations, nuclear waste sites, or from natural subterranean deposits, the element can now be found flowing out of taps worldwide.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-graphene-foam-filter-toxins.html
8/15/2021 4:00 PMThe rise of oxygen levels early in Earth’s history paved the way for the spectacular diversity of animal life. But for decades, scientists have struggled to explain the factors that controlled this gradual and stepwise process, which unfolded over nearly 2 billion years.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-lake-huron-sinkhole-oxygen-early.html
8/15/2021 6:00 PMBivouacked in the middle of the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf—a five-hour flight from the nearest Antarctic station—nothing comes easy. Even though it was the southern summer, geologist James Smith of the British Antarctic Survey endured nearly three months of freezing temperatures, sleeping in a tent, and eating dehydrated food. The science itself was a hassle: To study the history of the floating shelf, he needed seafloor sediment, which was locked under a half mile of ice.https://www.wired.com/story/scientists-discover-strange-creatures-under-a-half-mile-of-ice/
8/16/2021 8:00 AMRecent record-breaking rainfall across the northeastern United States is part of a larger trend. From Maine to West Virginia, the Northeast has seen an abrupt increase in extreme precipitation—heavy rain and snow resulting in about 1 to 2 inches of water in a day depending on location since 1996, which has coincided with warming sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic. Northeast extreme precipitation is typically caused by tropical cyclones, thunderstorms along fronts, and extratropical cyclones like Nor’easters. A recent study published in Weather and Climate Extremes finds that the increase in extreme precipitation after 1996 was caused by greenhouse gases from human activity and surface temperature variability of the North Atlantic Ocean, known as Atlantic variability.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-extreme-precipitation-northeast-atlantic-variability.html
8/16/2021 10:00 AMUsing NASA’s Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team of astronomers has detected a new sub-Neptune exoplanet orbiting an M dwarf star. The newly found extrasolar world, designated TOI-2406 b, is nearly three times larger than the Earth.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-astronomers-large-sub-neptune-alien-world.html
8/16/2021 12:00 PMEarth is the sixth planet from the edge of the solar system, meaning we’re none too near this cold and inhospitable frontier. But we’ve sent out various spacecraft over the years, so do we have any idea what the edge of the solar system looks like?https://www.space.com/what-does-edge-of-solar-system-look-like
8/16/2021 2:00 PMThe moon’s complex geologic history could act as a pointer to understand other rocky worlds in the universe, including those that are potentially habitable, according to a new pair of research papers.https://www.space.com/moon-mantle-mystery-planet-evolution
8/16/2021 4:00 PMChina’s upcoming exploration mission to the lunar south pole will carry one of more than 500 experiments designed and submitted by students across the country. China is planning to launch its Chang’e 7 spacecraft around 2024. It will include a lander, rover, orbiter, relay satellite and a small hopping spacecraft to explore the rough terrain of lunar craters. The mission is an early part of a grand plan to construct a lunar base in cooperation with Russia.https://www.space.com/china-moon-asteroid-missions-experiments-voting
8/16/2021 6:00 PMThis image features a spectacular set of rings around a black hole, captured using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. The X-ray images of the giant rings reveal information about dust located in our galaxy, using a similar principle to the X-rays performed in doctor’s offices and airports.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-v404-cygni-huge-black-hole.html
8/17/2021 8:00 AMA flood of epic proportions drained at a rate of more than 800 Olympic swimming pools per second from a glacial lake that spanned the Prairie provinces more than 12,000 years ago, according to a University of Alberta-led study.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-massive-ancient-lake-prairies-quickly.html
8/17/2021 10:00 AMPhotos don’t do the northern lights justice. To fully appreciate the glory and grandeur of this celestial display, which is also known as the aurora borealis, you have to settle beneath the ever-changing lights and watch them curve and curl, slither and flicker. Here’s how to see the northern lights.https://www.space.com/32601-where-to-see-northern-lights.html
8/17/2021 12:00 PMDan Caselden was up late on November 3, 2018, playing the video game Counter-Strike, when he made astronomy history. Every time he died, he would jump on his laptop to check in on an automated search he was running of NASA space telescope images. Suddenly, in the early hours of the morning, something bizarre popped into view. “It was very confusing,” said Caselden. “It was moving faster than anything I’ve discovered. It was faint and fast, which made it very weird.”https://www.quantamagazine.org/neither-star-nor-planet-a-strange-brown-dwarf-puzzles-astronomers-20210804/
8/17/2021 2:00 PMThe spacecraft used its infrared instrument during recent flybys of Jupiter’s mammoth moon to create this latest map, which comes out a decade after Juno’s launch.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-nasa-juno-celebrates-years-infrared.html
8/17/2021 4:00 PMSince receiving a $25 million grant in 2019 to become the first National Science Foundation (NSF) Quantum Foundry, UC Santa Barbara researchers affiliated with the foundry have been working to develop materials that can enable quantum information-based technologies for such applications as quantum computing, communications, sensing, and simulation.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-world-candidate-superconductor.html
8/17/2021 6:00 PMA long-lost piece of Stonehenge that was taken by a man performing restoration work on the monument has been returned after 60 years, giving scientists a chance to peer inside a pillar of the iconic monument for the first time.https://www.livescience.com/stonehenge-pillars-mesozoic.html
8/18/2021 8:00 AMTitan is Saturn’s largest moon, nearly the size of Mars, but it’s more than just a moon — it is a laboratory for life unlike anything we see on Earth. In a strange way, Titan may be the most Earth-like world out there. It is the only other place we know of that has liquid on its surface, but in Titan’s case the liquid is mostly methane, which fills up seas, flows in rivers, and even rains down from the sky. It’s so cold there that the mountains and valleys are sculpted from water ice as hard as stone.https://www.planetary.org/worlds/titan
8/18/2021 10:00 AMScientists took a closer look at a rocky exoplanet orbiting a star just 35 light-years from us which, due to its proximity to its host star L 98-59 and its potentially watery environment, seems to be a great candidate in the search for alien life.https://futurism.com/the-byte/ocean-planet-nearby-star-system-life
8/18/2021 12:00 PMGlobally, nights are becoming ever brighter. Increasing urbanization and the installation of new streetlights, security floodlights and outdoor ornamental lighting all contribute to growing light pollution. This light floods directly into the eyes of animals that are active at night and also into the skies. There a proportion of it is redirected back downwards towards an earthbound observer. This is known as “skyglow,” an omnipresent sheet of light across the night sky in and around cities that can block all but the very brightest stars from view.https://www.space.com/skyglow-impairs-urban-dung-beetles-navigation
8/18/2021 2:00 PMScientists already know the oceans are rapidly warming and sea levels are rising. But that’s not all. Now, thanks to satellite observations, we have three decades’ worth of data on how the speeds of ocean surface currents are also changing over time.https://www.space.com/satellites-study-ocean-currents-climate-change
8/18/2021 4:00 PMVirtually all chemical and fuel production relies on catalysts, which accelerate chemical reactions without being consumed in the process. Most of these reactions take place in huge reactor vessels and may require high temperatures and pressures.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-catalyst-carbon-dioxide-fuel-ways.html
8/18/2021 6:00 PMThe threat was invisible to the eye: tonnes of methane billowing skyward, blown out by natural gas pipelines snaking across Siberia. In the past, those plumes of potent greenhouse gas released by Russian petroleum operations last year might have gone unnoticed. But armed with powerful new imaging technology, a methane-hunting satellite sniffed out the emissions and tracked them to their sources.https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210805-the-search-for-the-worlds-largest-methane-sources
8/19/2021 8:00 AMThree dimensional (3D) nano-networks promise a new era in modern solid state physics with numerous applications in photonics, bio-medicine, and spintronics. The realization of 3D magnetic nano-architectures could enable ultra-fast and low-energy data storage devices. Due to competing magnetic interactions in these systems, magnetic charges or magnetic monopoles can emerge, which can be utilized as mobile, binary information carriers. Researchers at University of Vienna have now designed the first 3D artificial spin ice lattice hosting unbound magnetic charges. The results present a first theoretical demonstration that, in the new lattice, the magnetic monopoles are stable at room temperature and can be steered on-demand by external magnetic fields.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-emergent-magnetic-monopoles-room-temperature.html
8/19/2021 10:00 AMTitan is weird. The only known moon with an atmosphere, Saturn’s largest moon has rain, lakes, oceans and ice comprised not of water, but of liquid ethane and methane. It’s chemistry is therefore complex, but also combustible. Could NASA send a spacecraft to scoop-up a sample and return to Earth, using Titan’s freely available methane as propellant? If it could, that mission could bring home to scientists a compound that could hold the secret of how life emerged in the early Solar System.https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2021/07/29/inside-nasas-jaw-dropping-plans-to-fly-to-titan-then-burn-its-lakes-to-bring-home-an-organic-sample/
8/19/2021 12:00 PMA UNSW mathematician has revealed the origins of applied geometry on a 3700-year-old clay tablet that has been hiding in plain sight in a museum in Istanbul for over a century. The tablet—known as Si.427—was discovered in the late 19th century in what is now central Iraq, but its significance was unknown until the UNSW scientist’s detective work was revealed, Most excitingly, Si.427 is thought to be the oldest known example of applied geometry—and in the study released today in Foundations of Science, the research also reveals a compelling human story of land surveying.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-mathematician-reveals-world-oldest-geometry.html
8/19/2021 2:00 PMA new article in Science magazine gives an overview of almost three decades of research into colloidal quantum dots, assesses the technological progress for these nanometer-sized specs of semiconductor matter, and weighs the remaining challenges on the path to widespread commercialization for this promising technology with applications in everything from TVs to highly efficient sunlight collectors.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-decades-quantum-dots-brink-widespread.html
8/19/2021 4:00 PMResearchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have added to evidence that a protein called CaMKII improves strength, endurance, muscle health and fitness in young animals. Their experiments working with mice and fruit flies, however, found that the gene for CaMKII also contributes to an evolutionary tradeoff: increased susceptibility to age-associated diseases, frailty and mortality.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-muscle-protein-vertebrates-linked-limited.html
8/19/2021 6:00 PMThe inability to monitor water uptake inside roots—without damaging the specimen—has been a key stumbling block for researchers seeking to understand the motion of fluids in living plant cells and tissues.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-world-real-time.html
8/20/2021 8:00 AMA new molecule can now officially join the ranks of Club Carbon. The chemical debutante is cyclo[18]carbon, a ring of 18 carbon atoms that’s finally been created, imaged, and analyzed in a report published today in the journal Science. The findings help settle decades of debate on the structure and properties of the molecule, which some researchers doubted could even be stably made in the lab.https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/cyclo18carbon/
8/20/2021 10:00 AMJupiter’s mysterious “energy crisis” that has puzzled astronomers for 50 years could be caused by auroras, new observations suggest. The largest planet in our solar system has long been known to be remarkably warm, despite its great distance from the sun. Jupiter lies more than 5 astronomical units, or sun-Earth distances away (1 AU is million miles (150 million kilometers).https://www.space.com/jupiter-auroras-cause-mystery-heating
8/20/2021 12:00 PMA new NASA video showcases the whirring symphony of stars in our cosmic neighborhood. Although it usually hunts for alien worlds, or exoplanets in the nearby universe, one NASA mission is also capable of measuring the vibrations produced by behemoth celestial bodies known as red giant stars.https://www.space.com/red-giant-sound-waves-celestial-symphony
8/20/2021 2:00 PMNASA’s Sea Level Change Team has created a sea level projection tool that makes extensive data on future sea level rise from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) easily accessible to the public – and to everyone with a stake in planning for the changes to come.https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-international-panel-provide-a-new-window-on-rising-seas
8/20/2021 4:00 PMA stunning Hubble Space Telescope image of three galaxies tearing each other apart has given astronomers an early glimpse into the Milky Way’s fate. Located 389 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Lynx, Arp 195 is a galaxy cluster made up of three galaxies ripping each other apart in a three-way gravitational tug-of-war. It is a destiny that astronomers predict will befall the Milky Way when, in 4.5 billion years’ time, it is set to collide with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, according to an assessment by the European Space Agency.https://www.space.com/three-galaxies-tug-of-war
8/20/2021 6:00 PMA landmark assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change says greenhouse gases are unequivocally driving extreme weather, but nations can still prevent the worst impacts.https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-is-warmer-than-its-been-in-125-000-years/
8/21/2021 8:00 AMPerhaps the most fundamental puzzle in biology—”What is life?”—is addressed in a new paper by Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Oleg Abramov.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-definition-life-implications-cybernetic.html
8/21/2021 10:00 AMSome 7 billion light-years away, two black holes swirled closer and closer together over eons until they crashed together with a furious bang, creating a new black hole in the process. This disturbance in the cosmos caused space-time to stretch, collapse, and even jiggle, producing ripples known as gravitational waves which reached our Earthly abode on May 21st of 2019.https://www.popsci.com/story/science/massive-black-hole-merger-gravitational-waves/
8/21/2021 12:00 PMStars scattered throughout the cosmos look different, but they may be more alike than once thought, according to Rice University researchers. New modeling work by Rice scientists shows that “cool” stars like the sun share the dynamic surface behaviors that influence their energetic and magnetic environments. This stellar magnetic activity is key to whether a given star hosts planets that could support life.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-cool-stars-unique.html
8/21/2021 2:00 PMIn a new study from Skoltech and the University of Kentucky, researchers have found a new connection between quantum information and quantum field theory. This work attests to the growing role of quantum information theory across various areas of physics.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-physicists-built-mathematical-playground-quantum.html
8/21/2021 4:00 PMScientists have genetically engineered the critters known as daddy long legs to create a mutated version with, well, short legs, in an effort to study how arachnids’ genomes evolve over time — and why their creepy legs grow so lengthy in the first place.https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-create-horrifically-mutated-spider-like-creatures
8/21/2021 6:00 PMResearchers from the group of Hans Clevers (Hubrecht Institute) corrected mutations that cause cystic fibrosis in cultured human stem cells. In collaboration with the UMC Utrecht and Oncode Institute, they used a technique called prime editing to replace the ‘faulty’ piece of DNA with a healthy piece. The study shows that prime editing is safer than the conventional CRISPR/Cas9 technique. “We have for the first time demonstrated that this technique really works and can be safely applied in human stem cells to correct cystic fibrosis.”https://phys.org/news/2021-08-crisprcas9-technique-cystic-fibrosis-cultured.html
8/22/2021 8:00 AMArchaeologists from the Universities of Manchester and Cardiff have discovered the origins of Arthur’s Stone, one of the UK’s most famous Stone Age monuments. Manchester’s Professor Julian Thomas, who led the excavation, says the imposing Herefordshire tomb is linked to nearby ‘halls of the dead’, which were discovered in 2013.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-archaeologists-reveal-famous-stone-age.html
8/22/2021 10:00 AMSea lampreys are a destructive invasive species that has threatened native fisheries in the Great Lakes for decades. Multiple teams of Michigan State University researchers are finding ways to harness sea lampreys’ natural instincts to monitor, capture and control them.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-sea-lampreys-natural-instincts.html
8/22/2021 12:00 PMThis deformed bone is the first clear example of a malignant tumor diagnosed in a dinosaur. The partial fibula—a bone from the lower leg—belonged to a horned, plant-eating Centrosaurus that lived roughly 76 million years ago in what is now Dinosaur Park in southern Alberta in Canada.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/doctors-diagnose-advanced-cancer-dinosaur
8/22/2021 2:00 PMIf we wish to colonize another world, finding a planet with a gravitational field that humans can survive and thrive under will be crucial. If its gravity is too strong our blood will be pulled down into our legs, our bones might break, and we could even be pinned helplessly to the ground.https://astronomy.com/news/2018/09/gravity-to-the-max
8/22/2021 4:00 PMUniversity of Minnesota Twin Cities College of Science and Engineering researchers have invented a cheaper, safer, and simpler technology that will allow a “stubborn” group of metals and metal oxides to be made into thin films used in many electronics, computer components, and other applications.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-technology-important-metals-efficiently.html
8/22/2021 6:00 PMIf there’s one defining trait of daddy longlegs, it has to be their legs. Now, scientists have shortened the legs of one species—and turned them into food-handling limbs—by tweaking the arachnids’ DNA expression.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/how-scientists-turned-daddy-longlegs-daddy-shortlegs
8/23/2021 8:00 AMThe interplay between light and matter encompasses a stunning spectrum of phenomena, from photosynthesis to the captivating colors of rainbows and butterfly wings. Diverse as these manifestations may be, they involve very weak light-matter coupling—in essence, light interacts with the material system but does not change its basic properties. A distinctively different set of phenomena arises, however, for systems that are artifically engineered to maximize light-matter coupling. Then intriguing quantum states can emerge that are neither light nor matter, but a hybrid of the two. Such states are of high interest from a fundamental point of view as well as for creating novel functionalities, for instance for enabling interactions between photons. The strongest couplings to date have been realized with semiconductor materials confined to tiny photonic cavities. In these devices the coupling is typically increased by making the cavity ever smaller. But even if associated fabrication challenges can be addressed, the approach is about to encounter fundamental physical limits, as a team led by Professors Giacomo Scalari and Jérôme Faist at the Institute of Quantum Electronics report in a paper published today in Nature Photonics. With this work, they set quantitative limits to the miniaturization of such nanophotonic devices.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-exploring-limits-light-matter-coupling-nanoscale.html
8/23/2021 10:00 AMResearchers have created a new kind of glass that, thanks to an intense manufacturing process and a bizarre chemical structure, they say is just about as hard as natural diamonds.https://futurism.com/the-byte/glass-strong-diamond
8/23/2021 12:00 PMThe Riemann hypothesis raised in 1859 is one of the six unsolved Millennium problems, and its proof greatly facilitate the understanding of the distribution laws of prime numbers. For a long time, there has been a growing academic focus on the non-trivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function. This enables physicists to reproduce prime numbers and inspires them to discover the essence of Riemann hypothesis with a feasible quantum approach.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-riemann-zeros-accurately.html
8/23/2021 2:00 PMA new study using streams of stars has measured the mass of one of the southern hemisphere’s prominent night sky objects – the Large Magellanic Cloud – and found that the mass of the galaxy is much higher than previously reported.https://spaceaustralia.com/news/weighing-large-magellanic-cloud-using-stellar-streams
8/23/2021 4:00 PMWatching a mother mouse gather her pups into the family’s nest trains other female mice without pups to perform the same parenting task, a new study shows. Furthermore, these observations lead to the production of oxytocin in the brains of virgin female mice, biochemically shaping their maternal behaviors even before they have pups of their own.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-experienced-mouse-mothers-females-parent.html
8/23/2021 6:00 PMA team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions across the globe has synthesized an AM-III carbon that is the hardest and strongest amorphous material created to date. In their paper published in the journal National Science Review, the group describes the process they used to create their new material and suggest possible uses for it.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-newly-synthesized-am-iii-carbon-hardest-strongest.html
8/24/2021 8:00 AMOf the many animals Andrew Tilker studies, there are plenty he’s never actually seen in person. It can feel a bit like chasing after mythical beasts, admits the Global Wildlife Conservation biologist. But that’s par for the course, he says, when you’re searching for species considered “lost” to science.https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/silver-backed-chevrotain-rediscovered-vietnam/
8/24/2021 10:00 AMNew computer simulations model an alternate way of thinking about the cosmos: as a cyclic universe that has no beginning or end.https://www.wired.com/story/what-if-the-big-bang-was-actually-a-big-bounce/
8/24/2021 12:00 PMScientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), United States, have developed a new type of ‘chain mail’ fabric that is flexible like cloth but can stiffen on demand.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-chain-mail-fabric-stiffen-demand.html
8/24/2021 2:00 PMCornell researchers are proposing a new way to modulate both the absorptive and the refractive qualities of metamaterials in real time, and their findings open intriguing new opportunities to control, in time and space, the propagation and scattering of waves for applications in various areas of wave physics and engineering.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-metamaterials-fundamental-limits-photonics.html
8/24/2021 4:00 PMIn 2017, astronomers noticed a star streaking out of the Milky Way at nearly 2 million mph (3.2 million km/h) — roughly four times faster than our sun orbits — and flying against the direction in which most stars trek around the galactic center. It’s also made of completely different star stuff, mostly heavy, “metallic” atoms rather than the usual light elements. LP 40-365, as it was called, was as eye-catching as a wooden car barreling up the interstate against traffic at hundreds of miles per hour.https://www.livescience.com/runaway-star-streaks-milky-way.html
8/24/2021 6:00 PMMarine bacteria in the frigid waters of the Canadian Arctic are capable of biodegrading oil and diesel fuel, according to a new studyhttps://phys.org/news/2021-08-marine-bacteria-canadian-arctic-capable.html
8/25/2021 8:00 AMFor almost a century, astronomers have known that the universe is expanding. Space-time is stretching itself out over billions of light-years, carrying the galaxies within it apart, like raisins embedded within a rising loaf of bread. This steady expansion, pitted against the cosmos’ urge to collapse under its own gravity, means there are two main scenarios for how the universe will eventually end. These scenarios are dubbed the Big Crunch — where gravity overcomes expansion and the Big Bang occurs in reverse — and the Big Freeze — where gravity loses out to the expansion and all matter is isolated by unfathomable distances.https://astronomy.com/magazine/news/2021/02/the-beginning-to-the-end-of-the-universe-the-mystery-of-dark-energy
8/25/2021 10:00 AMOne of the enduring enigmas of Mercury is why such a small planet, roughly 38 percent of Earth’s diameter, is so dense. From Mariner 10’s 1974–5 flybys of the innermost world and now the orbiting MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft, we know Mercury has an average density of 5.43 grams per cubic centimeter. (Earth’s average density is 5.52 g/cm3.) This value means the planet must hold a high percentage of iron because the rocky surface material is much less dense than the planet’s average. New results from MESSENGER indicate that the metallic core likely makes up more than 80 percent of Mercury’s diameter.https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2012/11/weighty-world
8/25/2021 12:00 PMUranus and Neptune are called ice giants because they are smaller and compositionally different from Jupiter and Saturn, the gas giants. Jupiter and Saturn are composed of mostly hydrogen and helium, with large mantles of metallic hydrogen (which acts like a metal, due to the pressure and temperature within these planets) and only small cores of rock and ice. This is why they are called gas giants: They are mostly gaseous, with very little rock and ice.https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2019/06/why-do-astronomers-call-uranus-and-neptune-ice-giants
8/25/2021 2:00 PMResearchers have shown that human-caused climate change will have important consequences for how volcanic gases interact with the atmosphere.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-climate-cooling-effects-volcanic-eruptions.html
8/25/2021 4:00 PMNew research explains how the nervous system in the gut, known as the enteric nervous system (ENS) causes propulsion along the gut, highlighting how similar it behaves to other neural networks in the brain and spinal cord.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-insights-brain-gut.html
8/25/2021 6:00 PMThe other planets of our solar system aren’t just targets for spacecraft. They’re also worlds you can observe. Even a small telescope will reveal details on the giant planets. Through a medium-sized scope, you’ll see Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn change on a nightly basis. And you won’t need a dark sky to do so: Even under city lights, the planets provide easy objects to watch evolve.https://astronomy.com/observing/observe-the-solar-system/2014/04/how-to-observe-the-planets
8/26/2021 8:00 AMSunflowers face the rising sun because increased morning warmth attracts more bees and also helps the plants reproduce more efficiently, according to a study by researchers at the University of California, Davis.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-sunflowers-east.html
8/26/2021 10:00 AMMeet the Japanese giant hornet: massive, extremely aggressive, and a honey bee’s worst nightmare. A single giant hornet can kill 40 European honey bees in one minute, and a group of 30 could wipe out an entire hive of 30,000 European honey bees in little more than three hours. Growing up to 2 inches in length, with a wingspan of 2.5 inches, these giants are about 5 times larger than the average bee. When they attack a hive, they quickly decapitate and dismember the inhabitants — flying off with the bees’ thoraxes, as well as honey and bee larvae, which they feed to their young.https://roaring.earth/honeybees-vs-hornets/
8/26/2021 12:00 PMMars might be harboring an ecosystem of microbial life underneath its surface that survives on radioactivity-fueled chemical activity, an international team of scientists led by NASA says.https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-scientists-nuclear-life-mars
8/26/2021 2:00 PMResearchers have known from several lines of evidence that the ancient hominins known as the Denisovans interbred with modern humans in the distant past. Now researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on August 12 have discovered that the Philippine Negrito ethnic group known as the Ayta Magbukon have the highest level of Denisovan ancestry in the world. In fact, they carry considerably more Denisovan DNA than the Papuan Highlanders, who were previously known as the present-day population with the highest level of Denisovan ancestry.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-people-philippines-denisovan-dna.html
8/26/2021 4:00 PMThe Oort cloud represents the very edges of our solar system. The thinly dispersed collection of icy material starts roughly 200 times farther away from the sun than Pluto and stretches halfway to our sun’s nearest starry neighbor, Alpha Centauri. We know so little about it that its very existence is theoretical — the material that makes up this cloud has never been glimpsed by even our most powerful telescopes, except when some of it breaks free.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/08/mysteries-of-the-oort-cloud-at-the-edge-of-our-solar-system
8/26/2021 6:00 PMThe world may need to start thinking differently about plants, according to a new report in the journal Science by researchers who took a fresh look at spore-like microfossils with characteristics that challenge our conventional understanding about the evolution of land plants.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-early-evolved-freshwater-algae-fossils.html
8/27/2021 8:00 AMAstronomers think they have a new way to calculate the size of supermassive black holes: by studying the feeding patterns of these invisible giants.https://www.space.com/black-hole-feeding-pattern-mass-size
8/27/2021 10:00 AMQuantum engineers from UNSW Sydney have removed a major obstacle that has stood in the way of quantum computers becoming a reality. They discovered a new technique they say will be capable of controlling millions of spin qubits—the basic units of information in a silicon quantum processor.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-critical-advance-quantum.html
8/27/2021 12:00 PMIn order to feed a projected 9 billion people by 2050, farmers need to grow 50% more food on a limited amount of arable land. As a result, plant scientists are in a race against time to engineer crops with higher yields by improving photosynthesis.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-scientists-crops-photosynthesis-yields.html
8/27/2021 2:00 PMNepalese craftsman, Chandra Bahadur Dangi, holds the record as the world’s shortest adult, at 54.6 cm (1 ft 9 ½ inches). The tallest human is Sultan Kösen, a Turkish farmer, almost five times taller at 2.52 meters (8 feet 3 ¼ inches). In nature, size differences among males of a single species are not uncommon, but in a new paper, a team from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), The University of Auckland and the University of Arizona, discovered a case of male beetles that are not only extremely different in size, but also provide an answer to long-standing puzzle in evolutionary biology: how can larger animals afford the energetic cost of making and maintaining disproportionately large weapons?https://phys.org/news/2021-08-cheaper-bigger-lessons-extreme-weapons.html
8/27/2021 4:00 PMIn a few years, NASA will be sending astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era (1969-1972). As part of the Artemis Program, the long-term goal is to create the necessary infrastructure for a “sustained program of lunar exploration.” The opportunities this will present for lunar research are profound and will likely result in new discoveries about the formation and evolution of the Moon.https://www.universetoday.com/152152/did-the-moon-ever-have-a-magnetosphere/
8/27/2021 6:00 PMAn international team of astronomers has conducted a detailed study of a high-redshift young radio source designated J2102+6015. Results of the research, presented in a paper published August 4 on arXiv pre-print repository, deliver more hints regarding the nature of this source.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-radio-source-j21026015.html
8/28/2021 8:00 AMOur cosmic block is full of neighbors that we know very little about, but scientists have come up with a creative new way to get a peek at the layers of one particular type of planet.https://www.space.com/brown-dwarf-super-jupiter-atmosphere-layer-cake
8/28/2021 10:00 AMThey’re roughly the same size as a coronavirus particle, and 1000 times smaller than a human hair, yet newly engineered nanoparticles developed by scientists at the University of South Australia, are punching well above their weight when it comes to treating drug-resistant fungal infections.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-fungal-infections-giant-smart-nanotech.html
8/28/2021 12:00 PMFor the first time, a machine built with ARM chips has achieved the top ranking as the world’s fastest supercomputer.https://www.pcmag.com/news/japans-arm-based-fugaku-system-now-the-worlds-fastest-supercomputer
8/28/2021 2:00 PMZinc traditionally has a valence of two, meaning two electrons take part in the element’s chemical reaction. A new paper by Virginia Commonwealth University researcher Puru Jena, Ph.D., shows that the chemistry of zinc can be fundamentally changed, making it trivalent—or a valence of three—with the proper reagent.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-zinc-oxidation-state-fundamentally-element.html
8/28/2021 4:00 PMIn the same way that earthquakes cause our planet to rumble, oscillations in the interior of Saturn make the gas giant jiggle around ever so slightly. Those motions, in turn, cause ripples in Saturn’s rings.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-saturn.html
8/28/2021 6:00 PMInvisibly small carbon nanotubes aligned as fibers and sewn into fabrics become a thermoelectric generator that can turn heat from the sun or other sources into energy.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-woven-nanotube-fibers-power.html
8/29/2021 8:00 AMInternational research by Tel Aviv University, the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Rome, and the University of California San Diego uncovered findings regarding the magnetic field that prevailed in the Middle East between approximately 10,000 and 8,000 years ago. Researchers examined pottery and burnt flints from archeological sites in Jordan, on which the magnetic field during that time period was recorded. Information about the magnetic field during prehistoric times can affect our understanding of the magnetic field today, which has been showing a weakening trend that has been cause for concern among climate and environmental researchers.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-magnetic-field-years-today.html
8/29/2021 10:00 AMMore than a decade ago, the world’s most energetic laser started to unleash its blasts on tiny capsules of hydrogen isotopes, with managers promising it would soon demonstrate a route to limitless fusion energy. Now, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) has taken a major leap toward that goal. Last week, a single laser shot sparked a fusion explosion from a peppercorn-size fuel capsule that produced eight times more energy than the facility had ever achieved: 1.35 megajoules (MJ)—roughly the kinetic energy of a car traveling at 160 kilometers per hour. That was also 70% of the energy of the laser pulse that triggered it, making it tantalizingly close to “ignition”: a fusion shot producing an excess of energy.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/explosive-new-result-laser-powered-fusion-effort-nears-ignition
8/29/2021 12:00 PMA wave of exploding stars may have provided the conditions required to build the solar system.https://www.space.com/supernovas-seed-solar-system-planets-ophiuchus-aluminum
8/29/2021 2:00 PMIgnition is a key process that amplifies the energy output from nuclear fusion and could provide clean energy and answer some huge physics questions.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-major-nuclear-fusion-milestone-ignition.html
8/29/2021 4:00 PMCuttlefish can remember what, where, and when specific events happened—right up to their last few days of life, researchers have found. The results, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, are the first evidence of an animal whose memory of specific events does not deteriorate with age.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-humans-cuttlefish-retain-sharp-memory.html
8/29/2021 6:00 PMThough hand-washing is proven effective in combating the spread of disease and infection, the physics behind it has rarely been studied. But in Physics of Fluids, researchers from Hammond Consulting Limited describe a simple model that captures the key mechanics of hand-washing.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-seconds-physics.html
8/30/2021 8:00 AMRoughly 5 billion years from now, the Sun will exhaust the hydrogen fuel in its core and start burning helium, forcing its transition into a red giant star. During this shift, its atmosphere will expand out to somewhere around 1 astronomical unit — the current average Earth-Sun distance. Then what?https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2020/09/what-will-happen-to-the-planets-when-the-sun-becomes-a-red-giant
8/30/2021 10:00 AMScientists have spotted a previously unrecognized feature of our Milky Way galaxy: A contingent of young stars and star-forming gas clouds is sticking out of one of the Milky Way’s spiral arms like a splinter poking out from a plank of wood. Stretching some 3,000 light-years, this is the first major structure identified with an orientation so dramatically different than the arm’s.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-astronomers-milky-spiral-arms.html
8/30/2021 12:00 PMAmong our solar system’s many moons, Saturn’s Titan stands out – it’s the only moon with a substantial atmosphere and liquid on the surface. It even has a weather system like Earth’s, though it rains methane instead of water. Might it also host some kind of life? NASA’s Dragonfly mission, which will send a rotorcraft relocatable lander to Titan’s surface in the mid-2030s, will be the first mission to explore the surface of Titan, and it has big goals.https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/08/dragonfly-mission-titan-announces-big-science-goals
8/30/2021 2:00 PMThe findings of a new study by the University of Liverpool provides further evidence of an approximately 200 million-year long cycle in the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-evidence-million-year-earth-magnetic-field.html
8/30/2021 4:00 PMSquirting a jet of water through a drop of liquid may sound like idle fun, but if done precisely, and understood thoroughly, the splashy exercise could help scientists identify ways to inject fluids such as vaccines through skin without using needles.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-high-speed-camera-captures-jet-splashy.html
8/30/2021 6:00 PMA team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in China and Canada has identified a turtle egg fossil from the Cretaceous period that contains an embryo. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes where the egg was found and what they learned about it during their examination.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-thick-shelled-turtle-egg-embryo-cretaceous.html
8/31/2021 8:00 AMThe planets in our solar system formed from the solar nebula of gas and dust that surrounded our infant Sun. The material in this nebula was spinning; as the planets formed from this material, they, too, were spinning.https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2019/11/what-makes-earth-spin-on-its-axis-without-slowing-down
8/31/2021 10:00 AMThe 21st century has undoubtedly been the era of quantum science. Quantum mechanics was born in the early 20th century and has been used to develop unprecedented technologies which include quantum information, quantum communication, quantum metrology, quantum imaging, and quantum sensing. However, in quantum science, there are still unresolved and even inapprehensible issues like wave-particle duality and complementarity, superposition of wave functions, wave function collapse after quantum measurement, wave function entanglement of the composite wave function, etc.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-experimental-wave-particle-duality.html
8/31/2021 12:00 PMIn 1998, the journal Nature published a seminal letter concluding that a mysterious signal, which had been discovered while analyzing the polarization of sunlight, implies that the solar chromosphere (an important layer of the solar atmosphere) is practically unmagnetised, in sharp contradiction with common wisdom. This paradox motivated laboratory experiments and theoretical investigations, which instead of providing a solution, raised new issues, and even led some scientists to question the quantum theory of matter-radiation interaction.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-year-old-paradox-solar-physics.html
8/31/2021 2:00 PMA new study predicts that any sea level rise in the world’s most southern continent will be countered by an increase in snowfall, associated with a warmer Polar atmosphere. Using modern methods to calculate projected changes to sea levels, researchers discovered that the two ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica respond differently, reflecting their very distinct local climates.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-snowfall-offset-sea-antarctic-ice.html
8/31/2021 4:00 PMRattlesnakes increase their rattling rate as potential threats approach, and this abrupt switch to a high-frequency mode makes listeners, including humans, think they’re closer than they actually are, researchers report.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-rattlesnake-rattles-human-ears.html
8/31/2021 6:00 PMScientists around the world are developing new hardware for quantum computers, a new type of device that could accelerate drug design, financial modeling, and weather prediction. These computers rely on qubits, bits of matter that can represent some combination of 1 and 0 simultaneously. The problem is that qubits are fickle, degrading into regular bits when interactions with surrounding matter interfere. But new research at MIT suggests a way to protect their states, using a phenomenon called many-body localization (MBL).https://phys.org/news/2021-08-peculiar-state-layers-semiconductors.html
9/1/2021 8:00 AMA new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder reveals the complex history behind one of the Grand Canyon’s most well-known geologic features: A mysterious and missing gap of time in the canyon’s rock record that covers hundreds of millions of years. The research comes closer to solving a puzzle, called the “Great Unconformity,” that has perplexed geologists since it was first described nearly 150 years ago.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-geologists-grand-canyon-mysterious-gap.html
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9/1/2021 12:00 PMAs you age, your brain slows down. You may forget where you left your glasses or have trouble picking up a new skill. Now there’s hope from rodent experiments that some of these declines could be reversed—but it takes guts. New research shows a transplant of gut microbes, in the form of feces, from young mice to old ones can turn back the clock on the aging brain.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/new-poo-new-you-fecal-transplants-reverse-signs-brain-aging-mice
9/1/2021 2:00 PMTens of thousands of hydraulic fracturing wells drilled over the past few years from Pennsylvania to Texas to North Dakota have made unconventional oil and gas production part of everyday life for many Americans. This raises questions about the impacts to local communities and human health. While some studies document that hydraulic fracturing can contaminate groundwater, new evidence shows the practice can also reduce surface water quality.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-hydraulic-fracturing-impact-surface-quality.html
9/1/2021 4:00 PMA team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions across China has found that a site on the Tibetan Plateau shows promise as a home for a next-generation large telescope. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the researchers describe features and attributes of the site that suggest it could provide a good setting for a next-generation telescope.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-site-tibetan-plateau-next-generation-large.html
9/1/2021 6:00 PMPhysicists have created the first ever two-dimensional supersolid — a bizarre phase of matter that behaves like both a solid and a frictionless liquid at the same time.https://www.space.com/first-2d-supersolid
9/2/2021 8:00 AMThe most detailed radio images of galaxies outside the Milky Way have been captured by a network of 70,000 radio antennas spread over nine European countries. The images reveal a side of the universe invisible to optical telescopes and provide a glimpse into some of the most mysterious cosmic phenomena, such as the activity of supermassive black holes at galactic centers.https://www.space.com/galaxies-most-detailed-radio-images
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9/2/2021 12:00 PMThe twin Voyager spacecraft first observed Saturn’s north polar hexagon in 1980 and 1981. This highly geometric feature in Saturn’s atmosphere has had significant speculation about its origin and nature.https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2013/01/saturnian-shape
9/2/2021 2:00 PMGood news: Major print media in five countries have been representing climate change very factually, hitting a 90 percent accuracy rate in the last 15 years, according to an international study out today with University of Colorado Boulder and Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) authors. Scientifically accurate coverage of man-made climate change is becoming less biased—headlining the idea that print media are no longer presenting climate change as controversy. But there’s one place where the team did find biased coverage: conservative media.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-majority-climate-news-coverage-accurate.html
9/2/2021 4:00 PMSometime around the year 1837, a strange object passed an invisible cosmic mile marker: 1,000 astronomical units from the Sun. (One astronomical unit, or AU, is the average Earth-Sun distance.) For more than a century, it continued undetected toward our star. Finally, on October 19, 2017, humans noticed the visitor.https://astronomy.com/magazine/2020/02/our-first-interstellar-visitor
9/2/2021 6:00 PMComet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is half the density of water. This density implies a high porosity in the range of 70 to 80 percent, depending on the assumed dust-to-ice ratio. (You can use 0.9 gram per centimeter for ice and 1.5 to 2 grams per centimeter density for the dust.) Other comets show densities similar to 67P, but those have been less accurately determined during high-velocity spacecraft flybys and via the plume ejected by the impactor of NASA’s Deep Impact mission. Thus, we can infer that cometary material is made of weakly bonded icy dust aggregates with high porosity and low strength.https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2015/06/boulders-on-comets
9/3/2021 8:00 AMThroughout coastal North Carolina, evidence of forest die-off is everywhere.https://www.space.com/sea-level-rise-ghost-forests-from-space
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9/3/2021 12:00 PMThe liquid outer core of Earth might be the largest reservoir of carbon on the planet. The percentage sounds small, somewhere between 0.3% and 3%, but once you take into account the size of the outer core (1,355 miles (2,180 km) thick) it equates to a colossal quantity of carbon — somewhere between 5.5 and 36.8 yottagrams. (That’s the number followed by 24 zeros!)https://www.space.com/earth-outer-core-carbon-reservoir
9/3/2021 2:00 PMEvery year, thousands of lives and billions of dollars are spent worldwide as a result of health-care associated and waterborne illnesses. Sterilization is a critical preventative measure and it can be achieved by a number of techniques including irradiation using ultraviolet (UV) light. This need has gained greater urgency because of the global coronavirus pandemic, as effective sterilization practices can curtail the spread of infectious diseases.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-high-efficiency-ultraviolet-emitting-diodes-sterilize.html
9/3/2021 4:00 PMAlbert Einstein’s theory of general relativity has aced another test. Following nearly 3 decades of monitoring, researchers have detected a subtle shift in the orbit of the closest known star to the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way—and the movement matches Einstein’s theory precisely.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/star-s-strange-path-around-black-hole-proves-einstein-right-again
9/3/2021 6:00 PMThanks to data from three different Mars orbiters, scientists have determined that small, local dust storms, like their much larger counterparts, play a key role in drying out the Red Planet.https://www.space.com/mars-small-dust-storms-dry-water
9/4/2021 8:00 AMMosquitos spread viruses that cause potentially deadly diseases such as Zika, dengue fever and yellow fever. New U.S. Army-funded research uses gene editing to render certain male mosquitoes infertile and slow the spread of these diseases.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-gene-mosquitos-infertile-disease.html
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9/4/2021 12:00 PMAn interplanetary mission led by the University of California, Berkeley, to put two satellites—dubbed “Blue” and “Gold”—into orbit around Mars has been officially authorized to prepare for launch in October 2024.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-blue-gold-satellites-mars.html
9/4/2021 2:00 PMTheoretical research suggests a black hole could never grow big enough to swallow a galaxy. This is because black holes limit their own growth through a dynamic feedback process. As the black hole consumes stars and gas, it releases radiation. At some point, the radiation’s outward pressure cuts off the black hole from its own food supply and growth ceases.https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2009/02/can-a-black-hole-swallow-an-entire-galaxy
9/4/2021 4:00 PMA newfound asteroid zips around the sun faster than any of its known kin. The space rock, known as 2021 PH27, completes one lap around our star every 113 Earth days, its discoverers determined. That’s the shortest orbital period of any known solar system object except the planet Mercury, which takes just 88 days to loop around the sun.https://www.space.com/solar-system-fastest-orbiting-asteroid-2021-ph27
9/4/2021 6:00 PMA new method for hunting minor planets uncovered more than a hundred small, distant worlds. And the novel technique could even help resolve the mystery of Planet Nine.https://astronomy.com/news/2020/03/astronomers-find-139-new-minor-planets-in-the-outer-solar-system
9/5/2021 8:00 AMIn addition to antibodies and white blood cells, the immune system deploys peptides to fight viruses and other pathogens. Synthetic peptides could reinforce this defense but don’t last long in the body, so researchers are developing stable peptide mimics. Today, scientists report success in using mimics known as peptoids to treat animals with herpes virus infections. These small synthetic molecules could one day cure or prevent many kinds of infections, including COVID-19.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-antivirals-covid-herpes.html
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9/5/2021 12:00 PMRecent telescope views shed new light on the sun’s elusive middle corona that could prove beneficial to space weather forecasts.https://www.space.com/sun-middle-corona-first-view-space-weather
9/5/2021 2:00 PMOur home galaxy is even more twisted than we thought. Astronomers have created a 3D map of the Milky Way’s disk revealing that it is warped, not flat.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/milky-way-more-warped-astronomers-thought
9/5/2021 4:00 PMCoffee drinkers intuitively recognize the pleasure of swallowing a smooth, rich brew versus a watery one. Aside from added cream or sugar, the coffee itself contributes to this sensation—referred to as body or mouthfeel—but the specific compounds are not well defined. Now, researchers report several coffee compounds that contribute to the feeling of the beverage coating the inside of the mouth, as well as astringency and chalkiness sensations. The results could be used to tune processing and roasting conditions for specialty coffees.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-compounds-coffee-distinctive-mouthfeel.html
9/5/2021 6:00 PMA 3D model of a 400-million-year-old fossil has shed light on an enduring mystery about how some of Earth’s first plants evolved and helped make the planet liveable.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-fossil-root-earth-early.html
9/6/2021 8:00 AMResearchers have developed a prototype display that uses projection to create large-scale 3D images with ultra-high definition. The new approach helps overcome the limitations of light-field projection, which can create natural-looking 3D images that don’t require special 3D glasses for viewing.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-technology-groundwork-large-scale-high-resolution-3d.html
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9/6/2021 12:00 PMIgnition is a key process that amplifies the energy output from nuclear fusion and could provide clean energy and answer some huge physics questions.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-major-nuclear-fusion-milestone-ignition.html
9/6/2021 2:00 PMWhat is PSR J1748–2446’s claim to weirdness fame? Simple. It’s the universe’s fastest-spinning celestial object. It’s also a star whose surface is not just solid, but harder than a diamond. Its density is 50 trillion times greater than lead. Its magnetic field sizzles a trillion times more intensely than our Sun’s. In a nutshell, it’s the most extreme example of a neutron star.https://astronomy.com/magazine/weirdest-objects/2015/05/31-neutron-star-psr-j17482246
9/6/2021 4:00 PMThere’s been an age-old question going back to Darwin’s time about the relationships among the world’s five living rhinoceros species. One reason answers have been hard to come by is that most rhinos went extinct before the Pleistocene. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Cell on August 24 have helped to fill the gaps in the rhino evolutionary family tree by analyzing genomes of all five living species together with the genomes of three ancient and extinct species.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-geneticists-rhinoceros-family-tree.html
9/6/2021 6:00 PMWest Antarctica is one of the fastest-warming regions on Earth. For evidence, you need look no further than Thwaites Glacier — also known as the “Doomsday Glacier.”https://www.space.com/antarctica-doomsday-glacier-geothermal-heat-map
9/7/2021 8:00 AMA Russian startup is testing a technology that filters out disruptive passes of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites from astronomical observations. Developed by St. Petersbourg, Russia-based Stealth Transit, the technology detects bright approaching satellites and closes the telescope’s shutter to prevent the spacecraft from ruining the image.https://www.space.com/space-tech-filters-starlink-satellites-astronomical-observations
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9/7/2021 12:00 PMA team of scientists was shocked when they accidentally stumbled upon an “exceptionally large” mass of coral in the Great Barrier Reef that they believe to be more than 400 years old.https://futurism.com/the-byte/discovery-enormous-healthy-coral
9/7/2021 2:00 PMThe origin of life is one the great unanswered questions in science. One piece of this puzzle is that life started on Earth 4.5 billion years ago, just a few hundred million years after the formation of the Solar System, and involved numerous critical molecular components. How did all these components come to be available so quickly? One potential explanation is that the Earth was seeded from space with the building blocks for life. The idea is that space is filled with clouds of gas and dust that contain all the organic molecules necessary for life.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/05/first-evidence-of-cell-membrane-molecules-in-space
9/7/2021 4:00 PMStreetlights—particularly those that use white light-emitting diodes (LEDs)—not only disrupt insect behavior but are also a culprit behind their declining numbers, a new study carried out in southern England showed Wednesday.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-streetlights-contribute-insect-population-declines.html
9/7/2021 6:00 PMWater is the most abundant yet least understood liquid in nature. It exhibits many strange behaviors that scientists still struggle to explain. While most liquids get denser as they get colder, water is most dense at 39 degrees Fahrenheit, just above its freezing point. This is why ice floats to the top of a drinking glass and lakes freeze from the surface down, allowing marine life to survive cold winters. Water also has an unusually high surface tension, allowing insects to walk on its surface, and a large capacity to store heat, keeping ocean temperatures stable.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-scientists-capture-quantum-neighboring-molecules.html
9/8/2021 8:00 AMA new class of exoplanet very different to our own, but which could support life, has been identified by astronomers, which could greatly accelerate the search for life outside our Solar System.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-class-habitable-exoplanets-big-life.html
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9/8/2021 12:00 PMSending human travelers to Mars would require scientists and engineers to overcome a range of technological and safety obstacles. One of them is the grave risk posed by particle radiation from the sun, distant stars and galaxies.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-mars-mission-viable-doesnt-years.html
9/8/2021 2:00 PMVenus is Earth’s twisted twin in so many ways, what about on the skywatching front? Alas, stargazing isn’t great from the Venusian surface: The thick carbon-dioxide atmosphere that blankets the planet means there’s no catching a break in the clouds. But above those clouds — where, come to think of it, conditions are rather less lethal for human stargazers anyway — the view of the night sky might be pretty similar to that on Earth.https://www.space.com/venus-comet-flyby-meteor-showers-unlikely
9/8/2021 4:00 PM“The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion,” Albert Einstein wrote. Perhaps this is nowhere more evident than in protein evolution, where past and present versions of the same enzyme exist in different species today, with implications for future enzyme design. Now, researchers have used evolutionary “time travel” to learn how an enzyme evolved over time, from one of Earth’s most ancient organisms to modern-day humans.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-evolutionary-reveals-enzyme-future.html
9/8/2021 6:00 PMBuying a telescope is a big step, especially if you’re not sure what all those terms — f/ratio, magnification, go-to — mean. So, to eliminate confusion and make sure you understand what you’re buying, here’s what to check out before you write the check out.https://astronomy.com/observing/equipment-use/2014/04/telescopes-101
9/9/2021 8:00 AMOver the past few years, many physicists and material scientists worldwide have been investigating the properties and characteristics of magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (MATBG). MATBG is a strongly correlated material that was first experimentally realized in 2018. This unique material hosts a diverse array of highly correlated phases, including metals, semimetals, Chern insulators, quantum anomalous hall states and, perhaps most interestingly, superconductivity.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-unveils-strain-induced-quantum-phase-transitions.html
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9/9/2021 12:00 PMAn object crossing a black hole’s event horizon, the point of no return, will simply pass through from its own perspective, unaffected by time dilation. However, its appearance to outside observers is strongly affected by the black hole’s presence. Light signals sent from the object at even time intervals (from the object’s perspective) will be received further and further apart in time as the object approaches the event horizon. The strong gravitational field near the event horizon curves space, increasing the distance light must travel to reach the observer. The curvature and distance to the observer — and hence the signal’s travel time — approach infinity at the event horizon, so an outside observer will never see an object actually fall into a black hole. The object instead will appear to freeze at the event horizon.https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2014/11/frozen-stars
9/9/2021 2:00 PMFor the first time, Northwestern University engineers have created a double layer of atomically flat borophene, a feat that defies the natural tendency of boron to form non-planar clusters beyond the single-atomic-layer limit.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-layer-borophene.html
9/9/2021 4:00 PMClimate change is happening and accelerating. Earth will continue to warm. And these changes are unequivocally caused by human activities. Those are among the conclusions of the report published by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), with University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Assistant Professor of oceanography Malte Stuecker as a contributing author.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-climate-comprehensive.html
9/9/2021 6:00 PMThe annual influenza vaccine saves lives and spares many people from severe disease, which is why governments and employers promote and subsidize its use. But it’s hardly an ideal vaccine, offering so-so protection that wears off rapidly. A new, one-of-its-kind study, published today in Science, helps explain those shortcomings: A key cell type hidden in bone marrow that quickly kicks into activity after vaccination fades within a few months, researchers found. The discovery could lead to new strategies to increase the vaccine’s durability.https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/why-flu-vaccines-don-t-protect-people-long
9/10/2021 8:00 AMIn the summer of 2018, a hobby drone dropped a small package near the lip of Stromboli, a volcano off the coast of Sicily that has been erupting almost constantly for the past century. As one of the most active volcanoes on the planet, Stromboli is a source of fascination for geologists, but collecting data near the roiling vent is fraught with peril. So a team of researchers from the University of Bristol built a robot volcanologist and used a drone to ferry it to the top of the volcano, where it could passively monitor its every quake and quiver until it was inevitably destroyed by an eruption. The robot was a softball-sized sensor pod powered by microdoses of nuclear energy from a radioactive battery the size of a square of chocolate. The researchers called their creation a dragon egg.https://www.wired.com/story/are-radioactive-diamond-batteries-a-cure-for-nuclear-waste/
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9/10/2021 12:00 PMThe asteroid belt, with its many small rocky bodies, looks in some ways like the whole inner solar system might have looked roughly 10 to 100 million years after the Sun was born. So why doesn’t the asteroid belt condense and form a planet? First of all, there’s not enough total mass in the belt to form a planet. Second, the belt is too close to Jupiter.https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2009/11/why-hasnt-the-asteroid-belt-formed-a-planet
9/10/2021 2:00 PMResearchers from the University of Kent, the Research Institute for Environment Treatment and Vita-Market Ltd have discovered the universal mathematical formula that can describe any bird’s egg existing in nature, a feat which has been unsuccessful until now.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-reveals-ancient-universal-equation-egg.html
9/10/2021 4:00 PMFor the first time, astronomers have discovered evidence for a giant planet orbiting a tiny, dead white dwarf star. And, surprisingly, the Neptune-sized planet is more than four times the diameter of the Earth-sized star it orbits. “This star has a planet that we can’t see directly,” study author Boris Gänsicke from the University of Warwick said in a press release. “But because the star is so hot, it is evaporating the planet, and we detect the atmosphere it is losing.” In fact, the searing star is sending a stream of vaporized material away from the planet at a rate of some 260 million tons per day.https://astronomy.com/news/2019/12/first-giant-planet-discovered-around-a-tiny-white-dwarf-star
9/10/2021 6:00 PMThere are many strange things happening on Venus. Among them is a recognizable weather pattern that scientists now realize has persisted in the planet’s atmosphere for at least 30 years.https://www.space.com/venus-giant-dark-cloud-infrared-study
9/11/2021 8:00 AMWhen the Huygens probe dropped into Titan’s atmosphere January 14, 2005, no one knew what to expect. Would it splash down into a methane ocean? Sink into a tar pit? Crash into sharp rocks or tumble off a ravine? And, most importantly, what manner of world lurked beneath Titan’s thick shroud of haze and clouds?https://astronomy.com/magazine/news/2018/10/touchdown-on-titan-how-we-landed-a-probe-on-another-planets-moon
9/11/2021 10:00 AMNearly 2 miles thick in places, the Greenland ice sheet hides a landscape of canyons, mountains, fjords and gem-like lakes.https://www.space.com/landscapes-hidden-greenland-ice-sheet
9/11/2021 12:00 PMRussian cosmonauts discovered cracks on the Zarya module of the International Space Station (ISS) and are concerned that the fissures could spread over time.https://www.livescience.com/new-cracks-in-iss-module.html
9/11/2021 2:00 PMUsing a quirk of quantum mechanics, researchers have created a beryllium crystal capable of detecting incredibly weak electromagnetic fields. The work could one day be used to detect hypothetical dark matter particles called axions.https://www.livescience.com/quantum-crystal-dark-matter.html
9/11/2021 4:00 PMA team of researchers from Australia, Canada and the U.S. has found that female octopuses sometimes throw silt at males who are attempting to mate with them. The group has written a paper describing their observations and has posted it on the bioRxiv preprint server.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-female-octopuses-males.html
9/11/2021 6:00 PMWhat percentage of extrasolar planets go counterclockwise around their suns? This is an interesting question, and the answer tells us something important about how planets form, as astronomers believe whether a planet travels clockwise or counterclockwise around its star is linked to its history.https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2018/09/counterclockwise-planets
9/12/2021 8:00 AMThere’s no consensus yet on how supermassive black holes form, but a mesmerizing new simulation is taking a crack at that question like never before.https://www.space.com/supermassive-black-hole-feeding-simulation-video
9/12/2021 10:00 AMThe asteroid Vesta is the second largest asteroid in our Solar System. With a diameter of about 330 miles, it orbits the sun between the planets Mars and Jupiter.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-geologists-theory-famous-asteroid.html
9/12/2021 12:00 PMSixty-six million years ago, thanks to the Chicxulub meteor—and possibly additional stressors like volcanic eruptions—85% of the species on Earth went extinct, and the Cretaceous period drew to a close. The loss of species included most dinosaurs, but not all. Today’s birds are the last of the dinosaurs, descendents of ancestors that didn’t just survive this mass extinction, but evolutionarily exploded into thousands of species distributed around the world.https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/birds-dinosaurs-extinction/
9/12/2021 2:00 PMThe food-seeking behavior of a simple organism is helping astronomers trace the universe’s vast cosmic web, dark matter and all.https://astronomy.com/news/2020/03/slime-mold-helps-astronomers-map-the-universes-dark-matter
9/12/2021 4:00 PMThe universe is a vast icebox punctuated by far-flung islands of unbearable heat. Places that could be considered comfortable — neither hot nor cold — are so rare as to be essentially nonexistent. Of course, we happily live on one such planet, the only example of true moderation in the entire known universe.https://astronomy.com/magazine/weirdest-objects/2015/02/46-boomerang-nebula
9/12/2021 6:00 PMScientists have uncovered a fascinating new insight into what caused one of the most rapid and dramatic instances of climate change in the history of the Earth.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-earth-triggered-rapid-climate-million.html
9/13/2021 8:00 AMMysterious repeating pulses of radio waves may come from a hitherto unknown kind of extraordinarily powerful cosmic magnet, and not pairs of stars as previously suggested, a new study finds.https://www.space.com/fast-radio-burst-colors-reveal-origin
9/13/2021 10:00 AMBrown dwarfs aren’t quite stars and aren’t quite planets, and a new study suggests there might be more of them lurking in our galaxy than scientists previously thought.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-accidental-discovery-hints-hidden-population.html
9/13/2021 12:00 PMNew research from North Carolina State University demonstrates that genes are capable of identifying and responding to coded information in light signals, as well as filtering out some signals entirely. The study shows how a single mechanism can trigger different behaviors from the same gene—and has applications in the biotechnology sector.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-genes-coded-signalsor-filter.html
9/13/2021 2:00 PMOur home galaxy, the Milky Way, has been a jumping-off point to our understanding of galaxies throughout the universe. And though our picture of that home galaxy has evolved over time as astronomers have developed better ways to catalog and map its contents, we’ve largely believed the Milky Way was a “typical” example of a spiral galaxy. Now, astronomers are taking steps to determine whether that’s really true.https://astronomy.com/news/2017/09/is-the-milky-way-normal
9/13/2021 4:00 PMWith their compressed bodies and flexible pectoral fins, stingrays evolved to be among nature’s most efficient swimmers. Scientists have long wondered about the role played by their protruding eyes and mouth, which one might expect to be hydrodynamic disadvantages.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-protruding-eyes-mouth-stingrays-hydrodynamically.html
9/13/2021 6:00 PMEver wonder how tiny creatures can so easily slice, puncture, or sting? New research reveals that ants, worms, spiders, and other tiny creatures have a built-in set of tools that would be the envy of any carpenter or surgeon.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-atomic-scale-imaging-reveals-ants-zinc.html
9/14/2021 8:00 AMBlack holes sound pretty scary — dark, powerful, foreboding. And now, astrophysicists have cooked up something else: primordial black holes, forged in the earliest moments of the universe, that flood the present-day cosmos. So, what are the chances that one of these ancient monsters will come wandering toward Earth? One astrophysicist has run the numbers.https://www.space.com/primordial-black-hole-earth-collision-probability
9/14/2021 10:00 AMThe elliptical galaxy M87 sits 55 million light-years away, at the heart of the nearby Virgo Cluster. Deep inside this galaxy lurks a supermassive black hole that weighs 6.5 billion times the mass of our Sun. That black hole instantly became famous in 2019 when the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration released its portrait — the first ever direct image of the shadow of a black hole.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/03/global-telescope-creates-exquisite-map-of-black-holes-magnetic-field
9/14/2021 12:00 PMSupersonic planes are notoriously noisy, but NASA engineers think they can reduce the thunderous boom these planes produce into a barely audible thump by cleverly shaping the aircraft to minimize how it reflects sound waves.https://www.space.com/nasa-quiet-supersonic-plane-x-59-assembly-video
9/14/2021 2:00 PMPhysicists and engineers have found a way to identify and address imperfections in materials for one of the most promising technologies in commercial quantum computing.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-fabrication-technique-paves-quantum-devices.html
9/14/2021 4:00 PMA hair-like protein hidden inside bacteria serves as a sort of on-off switch for nature’s “electric grid,” a global web of bacteria-generated nanowires that permeates all oxygen-less soil and deep ocean beds, Yale researchers report in the journal Nature. “The ground beneath our feet, the entire globe, is electrically wired,” said Nikhil Malvankar, assistant professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at the Microbial Sciences Institute at Yale’s West Campus and senior author of the paper. “These previously hidden bacterial hairs are the molecular switch controlling the release of nanowires that make up nature’s electrical grid.”https://phys.org/news/2021-09-hidden-bacterial-hairs-power-nature.html
9/14/2021 6:00 PMItaly’s Mount Etna volcano erupted for the 50th time this year over the weekend and the European Sentinel 2 satellite captured the epic view from space.https://www.space.com/mount-etna-volcano-eruption-2021-satellite-photo
9/15/2021 8:00 AMWe are all prisoners of our background and experience. What each of us considers normal is based on our lifelong encounters. The materials we relate to and find familiar range from the thinness of mountain air to the high density of iron, as in trying to budge the anchor of a friend’s boat. Rarely do we venture outside this envelope and encounter Earth’s highest-density elements, which are twice iron’s weight. How many of us have ever been asked to lift a bucket of lead pellets or had the unlikely fun of hefting a bar of gold?https://astronomy.com/magazine/weirdest-objects/2015/07/24-the-pup
9/15/2021 10:00 AMEven though neutrons love to partner with protons to make the nucleus of an atom, the particles have always been notorious for their reluctance to bind with each other. But according to a new proposed theory, these particles might communicate under certain circumstances, forming a new sort of ‘unparticle’—which could offer evidence of a new kind of symmetry in physics.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-aloof-neutrons-briefly-kind-symmetry.html
9/15/2021 12:00 PMA research team from the University of Bern has managed to precisely date pile dwellings on the banks of Lake Ohrid in the south-western Balkans for the first time: they came into being in the middle of the 5th millennium BC. The region around the oldest lake in Europe played a key role in the proliferation of agriculture.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-farmers-europe-balkans-date-5th.html
9/15/2021 2:00 PMNearly a century after dark matter was first proposed to explain the motion of galaxy clusters, physicists still have no idea what it’s made of.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/02/the-search-for-dark-matter-gets-a-speed-boost-from-quantum-technology
9/15/2021 4:00 PMIn April of this year, NASA nudged the Cassini spacecraft into an orbit that took it through a narrow gap between Saturn’s innermost ring (the D-ring) and the gas giant itself. Over the next few months, Cassini skimmed the upper atmosphere of the ringed planet nearly two dozen times. During 11 of those orbits, Cassini’s Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument took unprecedented measurements of Saturn’s ionosphere — a shell of charged particles that surrounds the planet and shields it from incoming solar radiation and cosmic rays.https://astronomy.com/news/2017/12/saturns-ionosphere
9/15/2021 6:00 PMGalaxies pollute the environment they exist in, researchers have found. A team of astronomers led by Alex Cameron and Deanne Fisher from the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) used a new imaging system on at the WM Keck Observatory in Hawaii to confirm that what flows into a galaxy is a lot cleaner than what flows out.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-star-making-pollutes-cosmos.html
9/16/2021 8:00 AMAlthough thousands of planets have been discovered in the Milky Way, most reside less than a few thousand light years from Earth. Yet our galaxy is more than 100,000 light years across, making it difficult to investigate the galactic distribution of planets. But now, a research team has found a way to overcome this hurdle.https://phys.org/news/2021-08-cold-planets-galaxy-galactic-bulge.html
9/16/2021 10:00 AMAn international team of researchers led by a group at Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center (MUVPC), has released their long-awaited analysis of a fossil unearthed in Egypt 13 years ago. As they note in their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the fossil represents a new species of ancient four-legged whale.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-analysis-species-ancient-four-legged-whale.html
9/16/2021 12:00 PMThe Native Americans who occupied the area known as Poverty Point in northern Louisiana more than 3,000 years ago long have been believed to be simple hunters and gatherers. But new Washington University in St. Louis archaeological findings paint a drastically different picture of America’s first civilization.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-evidence-idea-america-civilization-sophisticated.html
9/16/2021 2:00 PMVesta, a massive world in the solar system’s asteroid belt, sports two huge trough features that have long puzzled scientists, and it doesn’t look like the mystery will be solved anytime soon, at least not in a new study of the features.https://www.space.com/asteroid-vesta-troughs-impact-basins
9/16/2021 4:00 PMTinnitus has been bothering humanity since Ancient Babylon, plaguing everyone from Leonardo da Vinci to Charles Darwin. Today, roughly one in seven people worldwide experiences this auditory sensation. So what exactly is tinnitus, and where does this persistent sound come from?https://www.ted.com/talks/marc_fagelson_what_s_that_ringing_in_your_ears
9/16/2021 6:00 PMA new method for hunting minor planets uncovered more than a hundred small, distant worlds. And the novel technique could even help resolve the mystery of Planet Nine.https://astronomy.com/news/2020/03/astronomers-find-139-new-minor-planets-in-the-outer-solar-system
9/17/2021 8:00 AMFor the first time, astronomers have captured solid evidence of a rare double cosmic cannibalism — a star swallowing a compact object such as a black hole or neutron star. In turn, that object gobbled the star’s core, causing it to explode and leave behind only a black hole.https://www.sciencenews.org/article/astronomy-star-swallow-black-hole-supernova-cosmology
9/17/2021 10:00 AMResearchers have made a tiny camera, held together with ‘molecular glue’ that allows them to observe chemical reactions in real time.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-nano-camera-molecular-real-time-chemical.html
9/17/2021 12:00 PMA time crystal is a unique and exotic phase of matter first predicted by the American physicist Frank Wilczek in 2012. Time crystals are temporal analogs of more conventional space crystals, as both are based on structures characterized by repeating patterns.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-experimental-dissipative-crystal.html
9/17/2021 2:00 PMHow rare is our solar system? In the 30 years or so since planets were first discovered orbiting stars other than our sun, we have found that planetary systems are common in the galaxy. However, many of them are quite different from the solar system we know.https://www.livescience.com/sunlike-stars-eat-their-own-planets.html
9/17/2021 4:00 PMAstronomers have found dramatic evidence that a black hole or neutron star spiraled its way into the core of a companion star and caused that companion to explode as a supernova. The astronomers were tipped off by data from the Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS), a multi-year project using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA).https://phys.org/news/2021-09-stellar-collision-triggers-supernova-explosion.html
9/17/2021 6:00 PMIn roughly 5 billion years, the Sun will run out of energy and drastically alter the solar system. Oceans will be baked dry. Entire planets will be consumed. And long-icy worlds will finally enjoy their day in the Sun.https://astronomy.com/news/2020/02/the-suns-death-could-mean-new-life-in-the-outer-solar-system
9/18/2021 8:00 AMJust outside the Milky Way, about 210,000 light-years from the Earth, lies the Small Magellanic Cloud. While it may seem a humble shadow of the Milky Way, it’s a galaxy in its own right andfascinates astronomers since it’s a hotbed of star formation.https://www.space.com/hubble-telescope-small-magellanic-cloud-star-cluster-ngc-346-photo
9/18/2021 10:00 AMCurtin scientists are part of an international research team that studied an ancient supervolcano in Indonesia and found such volcanoes remain active and hazardous for thousands of years after a super-eruption, prompting the need for a rethink of how these potentially catastrophic events are predicted.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-reveals-threat-catastrophic-supervolcano-eruptions.html
9/18/2021 12:00 PMIf you stargaze on a clear winter night, it’s hard to miss the constellation Orion the Hunter, with his shield in one arm and the other arm stretched high to the heavens. A bright red dot called Betelgeuse marks Orion’s shoulder, and this star’s strange dimming has captivated skygazers for thousands of years. Aboriginal Australians may have even worked it into their oral histories.https://astronomy.com/news/2020/02/when-betelgeuse-goes-supernova-what-will-it-look-like-from-earth
9/18/2021 2:00 PMIn a discovery published in the journal Nature, an international team of researchers has described a novel molecular device with exceptional computing prowess. Reminiscent of the plasticity of connections in the human brain, the device can be reconfigured on the fly for different computational tasks by simply changing applied voltages. Furthermore, like nerve cells can store memories, the same device can also retain information for future retrieval and processing.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-molecular-device-unprecedented-reconfigurability-reminiscent.html
9/18/2021 4:00 PMQuasars are supermassive black holes actively gobbling material from the galaxy around them. While black holes are known for pulling material in, the turbulent swirl of that whirlpool often also flings material and radiation out at high energies, enabling quasars to be seen from across the universe. They are some of the brightest objects astronomers know.https://astronomy.com/news/2019/06/new-stage-in-galaxy-evolution-cold-quasars
9/18/2021 6:00 PMNew experiments using trapped one-dimensional gases—atoms cooled to the coldest temperatures in the universe and confined so that they can only move in a line—fit with the predictions of the recently developed theory of “generalized hydrodynamics.” Quantum mechanics is necessary to describe the novel properties of these gases. Achieving a better understanding of how such systems with many particles evolve in time is a frontier of quantum physics. The result could greatly simplify the study of quantum systems that have been excited out of equilibrium. Besides its fundamental importance, it could eventually inform the development of quantum-based technologies, which include quantum computers and simulators, quantum communication, and quantum sensors.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-theory-many-particle-quantum.html
9/19/2021 8:00 AMIn a remote galaxy, two neutron stars circled one another in a ballet of ultimate destruction and inevitable creation. Both objects were the remnants of massive stars, probably from a binary system, that had become supernovae long before. Each was incredibly massive, with neutrons so closely packed that their cores became diamond. The dance, alas, could not go on forever and the stars collided, releasing unimaginable energy and sending gravitational waves speeding through the fabric of space-time.https://astronomy.com/magazine/news/2020/11/does-all-the-gold-in-the-universe-come-from-stars
9/19/2021 10:00 AMQuantum sensing is being used to outpace modern sensing processes by applying quantum mechanics to design and engineering. These optimized processes will help beat the current limits in processes like studying magnetic materials or studying biological samples. In short, quantum is the next frontier in sensing technology.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-gold-quantum-qubits-2d-material.html
9/19/2021 12:00 PMSeveral years ago, workers breaking ground for a power plant in New Zealand unearthed a record of a lost time: a 60-ton trunk from a kauri tree, the largest tree species in New Zealand. The tree, which grew 42,000 years ago, was preserved in a bog and its rings spanned 1700 years, capturing a tumultuous time when the world was turned upside down—at least magnetically speaking.https://www.science.org/content/article/ancient-kauri-trees-capture-last-collapse-earth-s-magnetic-field
9/19/2021 2:00 PMYears ago, planetary scientists thought of Venus as Earth’s sister planet. Similar in size, both close to the Sun, both rocky bodies, Earth and Venus were practically considered two of a kind. That abruptly changed, however, when astronomers got their first close-up look at Venus. The moment arrived in 1962, when Mariner 2 flew by the planet, and far more forcefully in 1970, when Venera 7 touched down on the hellishly hot surface. Not only do surface temperatures on our sister planet exceed 750° F (400° C), but Venus’ thick carbon-dioxide atmosphere produces a greenhouse effect that hosts sulfur-dioxide and sulfuric-acid clouds. It’s not a friendly environment for living things of any sort.https://astronomy.com/magazine/greatest-mysteries/2019/07/33-why-did-venus-turn-itself-inside-out
9/19/2021 4:00 PMIf you open a biology textbook and run through the images depicting how DNA is organized in the cell’s nucleus, chances are you’ll start feeling hungry; the chains of DNA would seem like a bowl of ramen: long strings floating in liquid. However, according to two new studies—one experimental and the other theoretical—that are the outcome of the collaboration between the groups of Prof. Talila Volk of the Molecular Genetics Department and Prof. Sam Safran of the Chemical and Biological Physics Department at the Weizmann Institute of Science, this image should be reconsidered. Clarifying it is essential since DNA’s spatial arrangement in the nucleus can affect the expression of genes contained within the DNA molecule, and hence the proteins found in the cell.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-imaging-method-reveals-dna-cell.html
9/19/2021 6:00 PMResearchers used decades-old radar data and found that some low-lying areas of Venus’ crust are moving and jostling. This evidence is some of the strongest yet of tectonic activity on Venus.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/06/the-surface-of-venus-is-cracked-and-moves-like-ice-floating-on-the-ocean–likely-due-to-tectonic-activity
9/20/2021 8:00 AMFor two decades, manipulating materials at the nanoscale to develop efficient catalysts for various applications, including water treatment, has been the gold standard in the field. But a new study goes even smaller—down to a single atom, the theoretical limit in material downsizing. And results show a big improvement in efficiency, with surprising new properties that cannot be achieved by nanomaterials.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-breakthrough-catalysts-smaller-nanoscale.html
9/20/2021 10:00 AMNanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed COVID-19 vaccine candidates that can take the heat. Their key ingredients? Viruses from plants or bacteria.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-fridge-free-covid-vaccines-grown-bacteria.html
9/20/2021 12:00 PMWhy is the sun’s atmosphere hotter than its surface?https://www.space.com/why-sun-atmosphere-hotter-than-surface
9/20/2021 2:00 PMForget the legendary lost continent of Atlantis. Geologists have reconstructed, time slice by time slice, a nearly quarter-of-a-billion-year-long history of a vanished landmass that now lies submerged, not beneath an ocean somewhere, but largely below southern Europe.https://www.science.org/content/article/geologists-uncover-history-lost-continent-buried-beneath-europe
9/20/2021 4:00 PMWhy are the stars, planets and moons round, when comets and asteroids aren’t?https://www.space.com/why-are-stars-planets-moons-round
9/20/2021 6:00 PMWalking with coffee is something most of us do every day without considering the balancing act it requires. In fact, there’s a lot of physics preventing the coffee from spilling over.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-coffee-little-understood-feat-physics.html
9/21/2021 8:00 AMThere’s no 9-to-5 for female northern elephant seals. After the winter breeding season, the animals spend more than 19 hours—and up to 24 hours—per day hunting in the northern Pacific Ocean, killing up to 2000 small fish daily to survive, according to a new study of these elusive animals. The work, made possible by cameras and devices attached to the seals’ heads, could also help scientists monitor other deep-ocean life.https://www.science.org/news/2021/05/female-elephant-seals-hunt-nonstop-sleeping-just-1-hour-night
9/21/2021 10:00 AMPalaeontologists at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) have uncovered the remains of a huge new fossil species belonging to an extinct animal group in half-a-billion-year-old Cambrian rocks from Kootenay National Park in the Canadian Rockies.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-massive-animal-species-half-billion-year-old-burgess.html
9/21/2021 12:00 PMEngineers at the University of Illinois Chicago have created a solar-powered electrochemical reaction that not only uses wastewater to make ammonia—the second most-produced chemical in the world—but also achieves a solar-to-fuel efficiency that is 10 times better than any other comparable technology.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-combining-sunlight-wastewater-nitrate-world.html
9/21/2021 2:00 PMAn international team of astronomers has detected a new peculiar binary as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The newly found object, designated SDSS J133725.26+395237.7, is a nearby double-lined system consisting of two white dwarfs. The finding is reported in a paper published August 26 on the arXiv pre-print server.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-double-lined-white-dwarf-binary-astronomers.html
9/21/2021 4:00 PMYou can’t squeeze water from a rock. But tree roots can—and they’re doing it more frequently than scientists previously thought, with a new study finding that bedrock is a regular source of water for trees across the United States, not just an emergency reserve during droughts.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-bedrock-sustaining-trees-country.html
9/21/2021 6:00 PMThe most powerful tool for scientists studying asteroids in the neighborhood around Earth is planetary radar, a technique astronomers have just used on their 1,001st asteroid to date.https://www.space.com/planetary-radar-observes-1001-asteroids
9/22/2021 8:00 AMIt would take 15 billion years for the clock that occupies Jun Ye’s basement lab at the University of Colorado to lose a second—about how long the universe has existed.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-world-accurate-clock-earth-cosmos.html
9/22/2021 10:00 AMSpectacular ice age landscapes beneath the North Sea have been discovered using 3D seismic reflection technology. Similar to MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) the images reveal in unprecedented detail huge seafloor channels—each one 10 times wider than the River Thames.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-mri-scan-reveals-spectacular-ice.html
9/22/2021 12:00 PMResearchers have discovered a way to use mining waste as part of a potential cheaper catalyst for hydrogen fuel production.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-ingredient-cheaper-hydrogen-fuel-production.html
9/22/2021 2:00 PMNearly 60% of both oil and fossil methane gas and almost 90% of coal must remain in the ground by 2050 in order to keep global warming below 1.5° C, finds a study by UCL researchers.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-limiting-fossil-fuel-global.html
9/22/2021 4:00 PMA meteor was caught on camera lighting up the night sky over the southern coast of England on Sunday, September 5th. In the video, viewers can see a bright, fireball-like object shooting across the sky over the Red Funnel Ferry Terminal in Southampton.https://www.space.com/meteor-over-southern-england-sept-5-2021
9/22/2021 6:00 PMOne of the strangest carnivorous dinosaurs ever discovered has been given a makeover by a pair of Belgian and Australian palaeontologists.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-scientists-reveal-fossilised-skin-bull-like.html
9/23/2021 8:00 AMThe sun is always showering Earth with a mist of magnetized particles known as solar wind. For the most part, our planet’s magnetic shield blocks this electric wind from doing any real damage to Earth or its inhabitants, instead sending those particles skittering toward the poles and leaving behind a pleasant aurora in their wake.https://www.space.com/solar-storm-internet-apocalypse
9/23/2021 10:00 AMPhysicists at the University of Sussex have discovered that black holes exert a pressure on their environment, in a scientific first.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-black-holes-exert-pressure-environment.html
9/23/2021 12:00 PMNew observations of an asteroid shaped like a dog bone and its two tiny moons have given scientists insight into how the strange trio came to be.https://www.space.com/dog-bone-asteroid-kleopatra-moons-photos
9/23/2021 2:00 PMAstronomers know that our solar system formed about 5 billion years ago from material left over from previous generations of stars. However, beyond that, it gets a little murky.https://astronomy.com/news/2018/01/did-the-solar-system-form-in-a-bubble
9/23/2021 4:00 PMAn international team of researchers has developed a way to create non-radiating sources of electromagnetism. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the group describes their technique and how well it worked when they tested a model based on their ideas.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-non-radiating-source-electromagnetism.html
9/23/2021 6:00 PMAstronomers may have captured the best view yet of matter colliding with the surface of a young star, findings that may shed light on what the sun looked like in its youth.https://www.space.com/dense-hot-spots-on-young-star
9/24/2021 8:00 AMIn the 1970s, there was a plan for a passenger module that fit inside the cargo section of the space shuttle – with various configurations able to transport 50 to 86 astronauts per flight.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9cUQgxsOtI
9/24/2021 10:00 AMIn the movie Jurassic Park, reconstructing and tweaking genetic material makes it possible to bring dinosaurs back to life.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-scientists-debate-peril-tweaking-wild.html
9/24/2021 12:00 PMIconic tyrannosauroids like T. rex famously dominated the top of the food web at the end of the reign of the dinosaurs. But they didn’t always hold that top spot.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-king-tyrannosaurus-uzbek-fossil-reveals.html
9/24/2021 2:00 PMNASA’s next crewed space station will be near the moon. The planned lunar Gateway space station will house crews for between one and three months so they can perform a series of ambitious jobs: to conduct science experiments further away from Earth for long periods of time; to support missions on the surface; and perhaps to even do far-out engineering work such as telerobotics.https://www.space.com/nasa-lunar-gateway-moon-space-station-explained-pictures
9/24/2021 4:00 PMHow would you count to 10 on your fingers? Do you start with the thumb or the index finger? Left hand or right? Dactylonomy (counting on your hands) seems like such a simple and natural thing to do that you might assume it’s nearly the same everywhere.https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210902-how-finger-counting-gives-away-your-nationality
9/24/2021 6:00 PMOur galaxy isn’t as thoroughly mixed as scientists sometimes assume, according to a new study.https://www.space.com/milky-way-gas-metals-poorly-mixed
9/25/2021 8:00 AMWhen conditions get tough, some tiny animals enter suspended animation and wait it out. Some might have to wait a long time for conditions to improve. As in 24,000 years, scientists now report. But once revived, these reanimated animals will resume life as normal. They’re called rotifers. And if you have ever inspected a drop of pond water under a microscope, you might have spotted some. These tiny, multicelled animals live in water the world over. That includes ponds that dry up now and again, and anywhere it freezes.https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/tiny-animals-survive-24000-years-in-suspended-animation
9/25/2021 10:00 AMA 2D nanomaterial consisting of organic molecules linked to metal atoms in a specific atomic-scale geometry shows non-trivial electronic and magnetic properties due to strong interactions between its electrons.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-magnetism-2d-material-star-like-molecules.html
9/25/2021 12:00 PMIt’s challenging to make predictions, especially in astronomy. There are however, a few forecasts astronomers can depend on, such as the timing of upcoming lunar and solar eclipses and the clockwork return of some comets.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-astronomers-supernova-timesand-fourth-sighting.html
9/25/2021 2:00 PMLike ripples in a pond, electrons travel like waves through materials, and when they collide and interact, they can give rise to new and interesting patterns.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-confining-electrons-ions-scientists-material.html
9/25/2021 4:00 PMSettlements on the moon and Mars could grow thanks to the blood, sweat and tears of pioneering astronauts — literally. Getting a lasting foothold on other worlds will require living off the land, NASA officials and exploration advocates stress; hauling from Earth everything a human outpost needs would be far too expensive and time-consuming.https://www.space.com/mars-colony-astronaut-blood-concrete
9/25/2021 6:00 PMA new simulation of the universe is a map and a time machine rolled up into one.https://www.livescience.com/simulation-universe-uchuu.html
9/26/2021 8:00 AMOur human ancestors were roaming Earth as far back as 6 million years ago, but what is the earliest site containing archaeological evidence of their existence? It turns out, there are two spots — one in Kenya and the other in Ethiopia — that are considered the top candidates for world’s oldest archaeological sites, according to about a dozen scholars, all with expertise in prehistoric archaeology and anthropology.https://www.livescience.com/oldest-archaeological-site.html
9/26/2021 10:00 AMSpaceX’s big Falcon Heavy rocket just got another gig. NASA has picked Falcon Heavy to launch the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-U (GOES-U), with a planned liftoff in April 2024 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, agency officials announced on Friday (Sept. 10). The total launch cost for NASA will be about $152.5 million, they added.https://www.space.com/nasa-picks-spacex-falcon-heavy-launch-goes-u-satellite
9/26/2021 12:00 PMMagnets formed from a single molecule are of particular interest in data storage, since the ability to store a bit on every molecule could vastly increase the storage capacity of computers. Researchers have now developed a new molecular system with a particular magnetic hardness. The ingredients in this special recipe are rare earth metals and an unusual nitrogen-based molecular bridge.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-hard-single-molecule-magnets-tetranuclear-rare.html
9/26/2021 2:00 PMResearchers working in partnership with Google may have just used the tech giant’s quantum computer to create a completely new phase of matter — a time crystal.https://www.livescience.com/google-invents-time-crystal
9/26/2021 4:00 PMWe now know which companies hitch a ride to the moon with Spaceflight Inc. as part of a robotic lunar landing mission by Intuitive Machines in 2022.https://www.space.com/spaceflight-inc-lunar-flyby-payloads-2022-moon-lander
9/26/2021 6:00 PMA new study, led by researchers at the University of Cambridge and reported in the journal Physical Review D, suggests that some unexplained results from the XENON1T experiment in Italy may have been caused by dark energy, and not the dark matter the experiment was designed to detect.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-dark-energy-scientists-possibility.html
9/27/2021 8:00 AMA six-year search of space beyond the orbit of Neptune has netted 461 newly discovered objects.https://www.space.com/461-trans-neptunian-objects-discovered.html
9/27/2021 10:00 AMWhat are the lagrangian points, where are they, and why do they exist?https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2013/10/lagrangian-points
9/27/2021 12:00 PMIn the year 1181 AD, a new bright point of light as luminous as the planet Saturn appeared to Chinese and Japanese skygazers for a little more than six months before disappearing. Hundreds of years later, researchers believe they have finally found the source of this mysterious appearance.https://www.space.com/900-year-old-supernova-mystery-solved
9/27/2021 2:00 PMA whopping 20 new scientific papers use data gathered by a host of radio dishes perched high in the Chilean desert to tease apart the mysteries of how planets form.https://www.space.com/planet-formation-organics-alma-research-protoplanetary-disks
9/27/2021 4:00 PMOur galaxy isn’t as thoroughly mixed as scientists sometimes assume, according to a new study.https://www.space.com/milky-way-gas-metals-poorly-mixed
9/27/2021 6:00 PMIn the Middle Bronze Age (about 3,600 years ago or roughly 1650 BCE), the city of Tall el-Hammam was ascendant. Located on high ground in the southern Jordan Valley, northeast of the Dead Sea, the settlement in its time had become the largest continuously occupied Bronze Age city in the southern Levant, having hosted early civilization for a few thousand years. At that time, it was 10 times larger than Jerusalem and 5 times larger than Jericho.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-evidence-cosmic-impact-ancient-city.html
9/28/2021 8:00 AMA study published in the journal Geology rules out that extreme volcanic episodes had any influence on the massive extinction of species in the late Cretaceous. The results confirm the hypothesis that it was a giant meteorite impact what caused the great biological crisis that ended up with the non-avian dinosaur lineages and other marine and terrestrial organisms 66 million years ago.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-extreme-volcanism-massive-extinction-species.html
9/28/2021 10:00 AMStep aside, Sharknado, here comes Atomnado. Physicists have created the first-ever atomic vortex beam — a swirling tornado of atoms and molecules with mysterious properties that have yet to be understood. #sharknado #atomnadohttps://www.space.com/swirling-vortex-of-atoms.hmtl
9/28/2021 12:00 PMWhen it comes time for NASA’s Psyche spacecraft to power itself through deep space, it’ll be more brain than brawn that does the work. Once the stuff of science fiction, the efficient and quiet power of electric propulsion will provide the force that propels the Psyche spacecraft all the way to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The orbiter’s target: A metal-rich asteroid also called Psyche.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-solar-electric-propulsion-nasa-psyche.html
9/28/2021 2:00 PMIf you’ve ever gazed at a model of the solar system, you’ve likely noticed that the sun, planets, moons and asteroids sit roughly on the same plane. But why is that?https://www.livescience.com/planets-orbit-same-plane
9/28/2021 4:00 PMHot on the heels of proving an 87-year-old prediction that matter can be generated directly from light, Rice University physicists and their colleagues have detailed how that process may impact future studies of primordial plasma and physics beyond the Standard Model.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-physicists-probe-smashups-future.html
9/28/2021 6:00 PMWater is essential for life on Earth and other planets, and scientists have found ample evidence of water in Mars’ early history. But Mars has no liquid water on its surface today. New research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests a fundamental reason: Mars may be just too small to hold onto large amounts of water.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-mars-habitability-limited-small-size.html
9/29/2021 8:00 AMA crucial number that rules the universe goes big in a strange quantum material. The fine-structure constant is about 10 times its normal value in a type of material called quantum spin ice, physicists have calculated. The new calculation hints that quantum spin ice could give a glimpse at physics within an alternate universe where the constant is much larger.https://www.sciencenews.org/article/physics-quantum-spin-ice-fine-structure-constant
9/29/2021 10:00 AMCharles Darwin was obsessed with domestic pigeons. He thought they held the secrets of selection in their beaks. Free from the bonds of natural selection, the 350-plus breeds of domestic pigeons have beaks of all shapes and sizes within a single species (Columba livia). The most striking are beaks so short that they sometimes prevent parents from feeding their own young. Centuries of interbreeding taught early pigeon fanciers that beak length was likely regulated by just a few heritable factors. Yet modern geneticists have failed to solve Darwin’s mystery by pinpointing the molecular machinery controlling short beaks—until now.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-darwin-short-beak-enigma-mutation-ror2.html
9/29/2021 12:00 PMBijunath Patla’s experiment sounds like a real bore: Gather 12 of the most accurate clocks around the world, and watch them tick. It’s like a physicist’s version of watching paint dry. Patla’s team, based at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, began monitoring the clocks on November 11, 1999. And they’ve kept watching for some 450 million seconds – over 14 years.https://www.wired.com/story/these-physicists-watched-a-clock-tick-for-14-years-straight/
9/29/2021 2:00 PMThe National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Observatory (GBO) and National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), and Raytheon Intelligence & Space (RI&S) have released a new high-resolution image of the moon, the highest-ever taken from the ground using new radar technology on the Green Bank Telescope (GBT).https://phys.org/news/2021-09-moon-tycho-crater-revealed-intricate.html
9/29/2021 4:00 PMLst week Wednesday (Sept. 22) marked the equinox, which, thanks to its Latin name meaning “equal night,” is often thought of as the day when dark and light each claim 12 hours. But that isn’t the case, and twilight is to blame for the confusion surrounding the astronomy of an equinox.https://www.space.com/sun-antics-autumnal-equinox-polar-night
9/29/2021 6:00 PMLawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and collaborators proposed a new mechanism by which nuclear waste could spread in the environment.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-nuclear-interaction-environment-complicated-thought.html
9/30/2021 8:00 AMAkira Ichikawa, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado Boulder, has found evidence of Mayans returning to a part of Central America that was destroyed after a catastrophic volcanic eruption, much sooner than previously thought. In his paper published on the Cambridge University Press site Cambridge Core, he describes his study of the area around what was once the site of San Andrés in the Zapotitán Valley, in what is now El Salvador.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-ancient-mayans-built-pyramid-partly.html
9/30/2021 10:00 AMWhat would the Milky Way look like from the Andromeda Galaxy?https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2021/06/ask-astro-what-angle-do-the-inhabitants-of-andromeda-see-our-galaxy
9/30/2021 12:00 PMMany children, as well as adults, dislike Brassica vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts. In the mouth, enzymes from these vegetables and from bacteria in saliva can produce unpleasant, sulfurous odors. Now, researchers reporting in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry have found that levels of these volatile compounds are similar in parent-child pairs, suggesting shared oral microbiomes. They also found that high levels cause children to dislike the vegetables.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-children-cauliflower-broccoli-written-microbiome.html
9/30/2021 2:00 PMThe melting of polar ice is not only shifting the levels of our oceans, it is changing the planet Earth itself. Newly minted Ph.D. Sophie Coulson and her colleagues explained in a recent paper in Geophysical Research Letters that, as glacial ice from Greenland, Antarctica, and the Arctic Islands melts, Earth’s crust beneath these land masses warps, an impact that can be measured hundreds and perhaps thousands of miles away.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-polar-ice-shifting-earth-sea.html
9/30/2021 4:00 PMA team of Omani cavers has made what is believed to be the first descent to the bottom of Yemen’s fabled Well of Barhout—a natural wonder shunned by many locals, who believe it is a prison for genies.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-cavers-snakes-genies-yemen-hell.html
9/30/2021 6:00 PMAstronomers analyzing 3D maps of the shapes and sizes of nearby molecular clouds have discovered a gigantic cavity in space. The sphere-shaped void, described today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, spans about 150 parsecs—nearly 500 light years—and is located on the sky among the constellations Perseus and Taurus. The research team, which is based at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, believes the cavity was formed by ancient supernovae that went off some 10 million years ago.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-gigantic-cavity-space-stars.html
10/1/2021 8:00 AMAstrophysicist Ron Mallett believes he’s found a way to travel back in time — theoretically. While most physicists accept that skipping forward in time is possible, time traveling to the past is a whole other issue — and one Mallett thinks he could solve using lasers.https://futurism.com/astrophysicist-build-time-machine-past
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10/1/2021 12:00 PMDespite a plethora of archaeological research over the past century, the timing of human migration into the Americas is still far from resolved. In a study of exposed outcrops of Lake Otero in White Sands National Park in New Mexico, Bennett et al. reveal numerous human footprints dating to about 23,000 to 21,000 years ago. These finds indicate the presence of humans in North America for approximately two millennia during the Last Glacial Maximum south of the migratory barrier created by the ice sheets to the north. This timing coincided with a Northern Hemispheric abrupt warming event, Dansgaard-Oeschger event 2, which drew down lake levels and allowed humans and megafauna to walk on newly exposed surfaces, creating tracks that became preserved in the geologic record.https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.abg7586
10/1/2021 2:00 PMNew astronaut and satellite images of an active volcano on the island of La Palma reveal the frightening beauty of the eruption, as well as its dangerous proximity to humans.https://www.space.com/la-palma-volcano-eruption-satellite-astronaut-images
10/1/2021 4:00 PMGamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the brightest, most energetic blasts of light in the universe. Released by an immense cosmic explosion, a single GRB is capable of shining about a million trillion times brighter than Earth’s sun, according to NASA — and, for the most part, scientists can’t explain why they happen.https://www.space.com/empty-sky-gamma-ray-burst-supernova-emissions
10/1/2021 6:00 PMHubble Space Telescope’s glamor shots of the universe are so revealing they nearly always have a discovery behind them. In this particular snapshot, a science discovery followed the release of a Hubble observation of a striking example of a deep-space optical phenomenon dubbed an “Einstein ring.” The photo was released in December 2020 as an example of one of the largest, nearly complete Einstein rings ever seen.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-hubble-snapshot-molten-galaxy-prompts.html
10/2/2021 8:00 AMThe Etruscan civilization, which flourished during the Iron Age in central Italy, has intrigued scholars for millennia. With remarkable metallurgical skills and a now-extinct, non-Indo-European language, the Etruscans stood out from their contemporary neighbors, leading to intense debate from the likes of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus on their geographical origins.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-legacy-etruscans.html
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10/2/2021 12:00 PMThe Wigner crystal locks electrons into stable positions only when two electron sheets assume a particular triangular geometry.https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-create-a-bizarre-wigner-crystal-made-purely-of-electrons-20210812/
10/2/2021 2:00 PMBrighter clouds reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface, thereby cooling the surface. Emissions of organic compounds from vegetation increase with increasing temperature, thus having the capability to slow down climate warming.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-aerosols-plant-emitted-compounds-clouds-brighter.html
10/2/2021 4:00 PMIt seems like every week, another rocket is launched into space carrying rovers to Mars, tourists or, most commonly, satellites. The idea that “space is getting crowded” has been around for a few years now, but just how crowded is it? And how crowded is it going to get?https://www.space.com/how-many-satellites-are-orbiting-earth
10/2/2021 6:00 PMAstronomers have discovered an enormous cavity in the Milky Way galaxy that is believed to have formed after a stellar explosion millions of years ago. The bubble-shaped void is 500 light-years wide and is located between star-forming regions in the Perseus and Taurus constellations, a new study reports.https://www.space.com/mysterious-milky-way-cavity-discovered
10/3/2021 8:00 AMThe gigantic impact that created the moon was actually a one-two punch, a new study suggests.https://www.space.com/moon-forming-impact-one-two-punch
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10/3/2021 12:00 PMIn an astonishingly short time, the right environment can coax unicellular yeast to evolve into multicellular “snowflake yeast” collectives with elaborate forms and new physical properties.https://www.quantamagazine.org/single-cells-evolve-large-multicellular-forms-in-just-two-years-20210922/
10/3/2021 2:00 PMSpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket just got another passenger. The powerful Falcon Heavy is now scheduled to loft Astranis’ first commercial communications satellite to orbit next spring.https://www.space.com/spacex-falcon-heavy-to-launch-astranis-internet-satellite
10/3/2021 4:00 PMOf all of the features associated with our sun, sunspots are by far the most conspicuous.https://www.space.com/the-mysterious-sunspots
10/3/2021 6:00 PMAnyone with a camera and a keen sense of adventure has probably dreamed of photographing the aurora. The elusive Northern Lights create a dramatic visual display in the sky, but the phenomenon is usually found in remote, cold places that are far away from busy, populated towns. It’s tricky enough just tracking down the aurora, but capturing it on camera poses an additional challenge.https://www.space.com/how-to-photograph-the-aurora
10/4/2021 8:00 AMFootprints found at White Sands National Park in New Mexico provide the earliest unequivocal evidence of human activity in the Americas and offer insight into life over 23,000 years ago.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-earliest-evidence-human-americas.html
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10/4/2021 12:00 PMAn ancient Hebrew document created more than 1,000 years ago and stashed away in Cairo may unlock a secret of the Dead Sea Scrolls.https://www.livescience.com/medieval-damascus-document-dead-sea-scroll-mystery
10/4/2021 2:00 PMChinese scientists recently reported a de novo route for artificial starch synthesis from carbon dioxide (CO2) for the first time. The new route makes it possible to shift the mode of starch production from traditional agricultural planting to industrial manufacturing, and opens up a new technical route for synthesizing complex molecules from CO2.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-chinese-scientists-starch-synthesis-carbon.html
10/4/2021 4:00 PMAs early as 18,000 years ago, humans in New Guinea may have collected cassowary eggs near maturity and then raised the birds to adulthood, according to an international team of scientists, who used eggshells to determine the developmental stage of the ancient embryos/chicks when the eggs cracked.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-late-pleistocene-humans-hatched-cassowary.html
10/4/2021 6:00 PMThe rise of dinosaurs coincided with environmental changes driven by major volcanic eruptions over 230 million years ago, a new study reveals.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-dinosaurs-ascent-driven-volcanoes-powering.html
10/5/2021 8:00 AMPolynesia was settled in a series of extraordinary voyages across an ocean spanning one third of the Earth, but the sequences of islands settled remain unknown and their timings disputed.https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03902-8
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10/5/2021 12:00 PMA team of scientists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and from the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature (STM) has isolated exquisitely preserved cartilage cells in a 125-million-year-old dinosaur from Northeast China that contain nuclei with remnants of organic molecules and chromatin.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-molecule-remnants-nuclei-ancient-dinosaur.html
10/5/2021 2:00 PMAlthough an asteroid impact has long been the suspected cause of the mass extinction 66 million years ago, researchers think new evidence finally closes the case.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/03/asteroid-dust-found-at-chicxulub-crater-confirms-cause-of-dinosaurs-extinction
10/5/2021 4:00 PMA new round-trip commercial space transportation service from 2022, backed by ESA, will enable companies to manufacture in space very pure and more capable materials, discover new pharmaceutical drugs and bring them back for use on Earthhttps://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Transportation/Microgravity_on_demand_with_Earth_return_through_ESA_s_Boost
10/5/2021 6:00 PMThe biggest storm in our solar system is getting wilder. Winds in Jupiter’s great red spot are getting faster, astronomers reported.https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/09/27/jupiter-giant-red-spot-winds-increasing-giant-storm/5890385001/
10/6/2021 8:00 AMMost emerging infectious diseases of humans (like COVID-19) are zoonotic—caused by viruses originating from other animal species. Identifying high-risk viruses earlier can improve research and surveillance priorities. A study publishing in PLOS Biology on September 28th by Nardus Mollentze, Simon Babayan, and Daniel Streicker at University of Glasgow, United Kingdom suggests that machine learning (a type of artifical intelligence) using viral genomes may predict the likelihood that any animal-infecting virus will infect humans, given biologically relevant exposure.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-ai-virus-animals-humans.html
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10/6/2021 12:00 PMA decade of Jovian storm-chasing paid off for the Hubble Space Telescope. The long-running telescope has been studying the Great Red Spot — a major storm on Jupiter — that is shrinking for mysterious reasons. Alongside that, researchers just uncovered huge changes in wind speeds within the massive storm.https://www.space.com/jupiter-great-red-spot-wind-speeds-increase
10/6/2021 2:00 PMScientists have shown that orangutan call signals believed to be closest to the precursors to human language, travel through forest over long distances without losing their meaning. This throws into question the accepted mathematical model on the evolution of human speech according to researchers from the University of Warwick.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-great-ape-consonant-vowel-like-distance.html
10/6/2021 4:00 PMIn a year (perhaps two), the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile will become operational and commence its 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Using its 8.4-meter (27 foot) mirror and 3.2 gigapixel camera, this observatory is expected to collect 500 petabytes of images and data. It will also address some of the most pressing questions about the structure and evolution of the Universe and everything in it.https://www.universetoday.com/152703/vera-rubin-observatory-should-find-5-interstellar-objects-a-year-many-of-which-we-could-chase-down-with-spacecraft/
10/6/2021 6:00 PMA Case Western Reserve University scientist has found that certain prehistoric horse-like mammals in South America evolved differently than their Northern Hemisphere counterparts despite similar changes in climate and ecosystems.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-evolution-geographic-bias.html
10/7/2021 8:00 AMAnt colonies with a higher degree of genetic diversity thrive better than those that consist of individuals with more similar genetic backgrounds. This is the conclusion of an experimental study in which researchers compared various colonies of the common black ant with one another.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-diverse-ant-colonies-offspring.html
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10/7/2021 12:00 PMZSL (Zoological Society London) and Bangor University have revealed fundamental links between the global climate crisis and plastic pollution, including extreme weather worsening the distribution of microplastics into pristine and remote areas.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-catastrophic-consequences-oceans-climate-plastic.html
10/7/2021 2:00 PMThe world is heading towards a trillion-sensor economy where billions of devices using multiple sensors will be connected under the umbrella of Internet-of-things. An important part of this economy is constituted of light/photo sensors, which are tiny semiconductor-based electronic components that detect light and convert them to electrical signals. Light sensors can be found everywhere around us, from household electronic gadgets and health-care equipment to optical communication systems and automobiles.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-capturing-ergonomic-photodetector-trillion-sensor-era.html
10/7/2021 4:00 PMA new study by researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) has identified warning signs of ecosystem collapse at a wetland of international significance in Papua New Guinea (PNG).https://phys.org/news/2021-09-uncover-ecosystem-collapse-significant-png.html
10/7/2021 6:00 PMFor 50 years, researchers have struggled to explain one of Jupiter’s enduring mysteries: Why is its upper atmosphere so hot? Based on the intensity of sunlight Jupiter receives, its highest reaches should be a brisk −100 degrees Fahrenheit (−73 degrees Celsius). Instead, they sizzle at about 800 F (426 C).https://astronomy.com/news/2021/09/jupiters-aurorae-trigger-heat-waves
10/8/2021 8:00 AMNASA is poised to send its first spacecraft to study Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids to glean new insights into the solar system’s formation 4.5 billion years ago. The probe, called Lucy after an ancient fossil that provided insights into the evolution of human species, will launch on October 16 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-nasa-lucy-mission-probe-jupiter.html
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10/8/2021 12:00 PMScientists have been excavating the ruins of Tikal, an ancient Maya city in modern-day Guatemala, since the 1950s—and thanks to those many decades spent documenting details of every structure and cataloguing each excavated item, Tikal has become one of the best understood and most thoroughly studied archaeological sites in the world.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-guatemala-archaeologists-uncover-hidden-neighborhood.html
10/8/2021 2:00 PMGeologists have been baffled by perforations in an Australian quartzite (rock), identical in shape to burrows made in sands by crustaceans; the original sandy sediment is a billion years older than the oldest known animals. An international team of scientists has now resolved the mystery.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-geologists-half-century-old-mystery-animal-ancient.html
10/8/2021 4:00 PMIn this oral history, researchers chronicle the telescope’s brilliant career, its devastating collapse, and the legacy it leaves behind.https://astronomy.com/magazine/news/2021/09/the-rise-and-fall-of-arecibo-observatory—an-oral-history
10/8/2021 6:00 PMLike a work of art enshrined in a museum, some stones end up on a pedestal of ice in nature, with no human intervention. This “Zen stone” phenomenon, named after the stacked stones in Japanese gardens, appears on the surface of frozen lakes, Lake Baikal (Russia) in particular. These structures result from the phenomenon of sublimation, which causes a body, in this case ice, to change from solid to gaseous form without the intermediary form of a liquid.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-zen-stones-naturally-atop-pedestals.html
10/9/2021 8:00 AMAstronomers once thought the universe could collapse in a Big Crunch. Now most agree it will end with a Big Freeze.https://astronomy.com/news/magazine/2021/01/the-beginning-to-the-end-of-the-universe-the-big-crunch-vs-the-big-freeze
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10/9/2021 12:00 PMA small Chinese commercial satellite has been detecting meteors impacting the atmosphere and even filming the aurora. The Yangwang 1 (“Look Up 1”) satellite, belonging to Beijing-based space resources company Origin Space, launched in June along with three other satellites. With its small optical space telescope, Yangwang 1 has been using visible and ultraviolet observations to detect near-Earth asteroids.https://www.space.com/chinese-satellite-watching-meteors-aurora
10/9/2021 2:00 PMResearchers have laid out a new, comprehensive theory for how the solar system formed — inside the bubble of a long-dead, giant star.https://astronomy.com/news/2018/01/did-the-solar-system-form-in-a-bubble
10/9/2021 4:00 PMCatastrophic floods from overflowing lakes on early Mars may have carved out many of the Red Planet’s valleys, a new study finds.https://www.space.com/mars-shaped-by-ancient-lake-bursts
10/9/2021 6:00 PMA rocket booster that launched a 1966 NASA lunar probe was captured by Earth’s gravity in November 2019. It then escaped our gravity in March 2021. What gave it enough energy to escape?https://astronomy.com/magazine/news/2021/09/how-did-earths-gravity-capture-then-lose-a-50-year-old-rocket-booster
10/10/2021 8:00 AMA team of researchers with the Gibraltar National Museum has found a hidden chamber in one of the caves that make up Gorham’s Cave Complex in Gibraltar. They have posted a press statement on their website describing what they have found in the chamber thus far.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-hidden-chamber-vanguard-cave-gorham.html
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10/10/2021 12:00 PMFor almost a century, astronomers have known that the universe is expanding. Space-time is stretching itself out over billions of light-years, carrying the galaxies within it apart, like raisins embedded within a rising loaf of bread. This steady expansion, pitted against the cosmos’ urge to collapse under its own gravity, means there are two main scenarios for how the universe will eventually end. These scenarios are dubbed the Big Crunch — where gravity overcomes expansion and the Big Bang occurs in reverse — and the Big Freeze — where gravity loses out to the expansion and all matter is isolated by unfathomable distances.https://astronomy.com/magazine/news/2021/02/the-beginning-to-the-end-of-the-universe-the-mystery-of-dark-energy
10/10/2021 2:00 PMA recent discovery of giant ammonia-rich hailstones, dubbed mushballs, on Jupiter might explain why Uranus and Neptune seem to have no ammonia in their atmospheres.https://www.space.com/uranus-mushballs-hailstones-stinky-gas-neptune-atmosphere-anomaly
10/10/2021 4:00 PMEarth is reflecting less light as its climate continues to change, new research suggests. A beautiful phenomenon connects climate and brightness: clouds. Clouds are a notoriously complicated piece of the climate puzzle — scientists struggle to model how clouds will respond to climate change and how those responses in turn will shape the future climate. But the scientists behind the new study think that the reflectivity finding hinges on the dynamics of clouds over the Pacific Ocean.https://www.space.com/climate-change-dimming-earth
10/10/2021 6:00 PMNASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has successfully passed its critical design review, signaling that all design and developmental engineering work is now complete.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-nasa-roman-mission-flight-milestone.html
10/11/2021 8:00 AMNASA’s Lucy asteroid probe is set to begin its 12-year space odyssey. Lucy is scheduled to launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Oct. 16. The liftoff will kick off a landmark mission that will see Lucy get up close and personal with eight different space rocks over the next dozen years.https://www.space.com/nasa-lucy-trojan-asteroid-mission-october-launch
10/11/2021 10:00 AMIn a cave on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, an international team of researchers has unearthed a jawbone that represents the oldest human remains ever found in Wallacea.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-jawbone-indonesian-cave-oldest-human.html
10/11/2021 12:00 PMNew research involving Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists shows that water can remain liquid in a metastable state when transitioning from liquid to a dense form of ice at higher pressures than previously measured.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-bizarre-metastable-phenomena-compressed-cooled.html
10/11/2021 2:00 PMThis spring, at a meeting of Syracuse University’s quark physics group, Ivan Polyakov announced that he had uncovered the fingerprints of a semi-mythical particle.https://www.quantamagazine.org/impossible-particle-discovery-adds-key-piece-to-the-strong-force-puzzle-20210927/
10/11/2021 4:00 PMA joint European-Japanese spacecraft got its first glimpse of Mercury as it swung by the solar system’s innermost planet while on a mission to deliver two probes into orbit in 2025.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-europe-japan-probes-1st-destination.html
10/11/2021 6:00 PMResearchers excavating a cave network on the Rock of Gibraltar have discovered a new chamber, sealed off from the world for at least 40,000 years, that could shed light on the culture and customs of the Neanderthals who occupied the area for a thousand centuries.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/28/gibraltar-cave-chamber-discovery-could-shed-light-on-neanderthals-culture
10/12/2021 8:00 AMWhen a massive star expends its fuel, its core collapses into a dense object and sends the rest of its gas outward in an event called a supernova. What’s left is mostly neutron stars or black holes. And now, Hubble seems to have seen a supernova blink out — suggesting it captured the moment when a black hole took over.https://astronomy.com/news/2017/05/black-hole-sun
10/12/2021 10:00 AMOur genetic code is millions of times more efficient at storing data than existing solutions, which are costly and use immense amounts of energy and space. In fact, we could get rid of hard drives and store all the digital data on the planet within a couple hundred pounds of DNA.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-dna-world-tiniest-hard.html
10/12/2021 12:00 PMThere’s a system of swampy red mangroves, deep in the rainforests of the Yucatan peninsula, that’s a long, long way from home.https://www.sciencealert.com/fossil-lagoon-has-been-trapped-in-time-for-over-100-000-years-scientists-say
10/12/2021 2:00 PMEquiangular lines are lines in space that pass through a single point, and whose pairwise angles are all equal. Picture in 2D the three diagonals of a regular hexagon, and in 3D, the six lines connecting opposite vertices of a regular icosahedron. Mathematicians are not limited to three dimensions, however.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-mathematicians-geometry-problem-equiangular-lines.html
10/12/2021 4:00 PMThe team used a high-resolution atomic force microscope (AFM) operating in a controlled environment at Princeton’s Imaging and Analysis Center. The AFM probe, whose tip ends in a single copper atom, was moved gradually closer to the iron-carbon bond until it was ruptured. The researchers measured the mechanical forces applied at the moment of breakage, which was visible in an image captured by the microscope.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-team-breakup-chemical-bond.html
10/12/2021 6:00 PMA team of space scientists has published a paper in Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics suggesting that there may be an Earth- or Mars-sized planet orbiting beyond Neptune. They further suggest that simulations of the creation of the solar system show that such a planet may have been pushed from the outer regions of the solar system by the gas giants.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-simulations-earth-mars-size-planet.html
10/13/2021 8:00 AMPhotos of space are everywhere online. Their beauty is dazzling, showing a universe awash in color and light. But if you’re a skeptic, you’ve likely wondered whether it all truly looks like that in real life.https://www.wired.com/2016/03/heres-space-actually-looks-like-human-eye/
10/13/2021 10:00 AMFor the first time, scientists have managed to create and take images of a Wigner crystal: a bizarre material, made entirely out of electrons, that was first theorized 90 years ago.https://futurism.com/the-byte/material-made-entirely-electrons
10/13/2021 12:00 PMA Madagascan hawkmoth, whose existence was predicted by Darwin and Wallace, has now been recognized as a new species. Known as Wallace’s sphinx moth, the moth is famous for its enormous tongue—the longest of any insect—that uniquely can reach the bottom of the nectar tubes of the Madagascan star orchid.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-moth-darwin-wallace-species.html
10/13/2021 2:00 PMThe fossilised remains of a dinosaur, nicknamed “the horned crocodile-faced hell heron”, have been unearthed on the Isle of Wight.https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/29/fossilised-hell-heron-dinosaur-unearthed-on-the-isle-of-wight
10/13/2021 4:00 PMResearchers in Japan have found an energy-efficient way to convert the chief greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) into useful chemicals. Using the method, CO2 is transformed into structures called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), suggesting a new and simpler route to dispose of the greenhouse gas to help tackle global warming.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-simple-method-carbon-dioxide-compounds.html
10/13/2021 6:00 PMNuclear clocks could be the GOAT: Greatest of all timepieces. If physicists can build them, nuclear clocks would be a brand-new type of clock, one that would keep time based on the physics of atoms’ hearts. Today’s most precise clocks, called atomic clocks, rely on the behavior of atoms’ electrons. But a clock based on atomic nuclei could reach 10 times the precision of those atomic clocks, researchers estimate.https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nuclear-clock-atomic-most-precise-time-physics
10/14/2021 8:00 AMhttps://www.universetoday.com/149513/beyond-fermis-paradox-xvii-what-is-the-seti-paradox-hypothesis/
10/14/2021 10:00 AMThe goal of tackling global warming by turning carbon dioxide into fuel could be one step closer with researchers using a supercomputer to identify a group of “single-atom” catalysts that could play a key role.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-catalysts-carbon-dioxide-fuel.html
10/14/2021 12:00 PMScientists at Stanford University have discovered a surprising pattern in how life reemerges from cataclysm. Research published Oct. 6 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B shows the usual rules of body size evolution change not only during mass extinction, but also during subsequent recovery.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-extinction-patterns-mass-extinctions.html
10/14/2021 2:00 PMThe United Arab Emirates (UAE) has set its sights beyond Mars. The nation announced plans to launch an ambitious mission to the asteroid belt in 2028. It will be the UAE’s second interplanetary effort; the first, the Emirates Mars Mission, launched an orbiter called Hope to the Red Planet in July 2020. Hope is still going strong, and the coming asteroid mission will build on its successes, UAE officials said.https://www.space.com/united-arab-emirates-asteroid-mission-2028
10/14/2021 4:00 PMScientists thought asteroid Bennu’s surface would be like a sandy beach, abundant in fine sand and pebbles, which would have been perfect for collecting samples. Past telescope observations from Earth’s orbit had suggested the presence of large swaths of fine-grain material called fine regolith that’s smaller than a few centimeters.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-highly-porous-responsible-asteroid-bennu.html
10/14/2021 6:00 PMFor a quarter of a century, Wolfgang Pauli’s prediction remained an educated guess. In 1930, the Austrian physicist predicted the existence of a ghostly new subatomic particle. After observing beta decay in a radioactive nucleus, Pauli noted that an undiscovered particle must exist to explain the resulting spectrum. During beta decay, a proton becomes a neutron by emitting a positron. But Pauli argued the nucleus also emitted an unknown electrically neutral particle. He thought this hypothetical particle had less than 1 percent of a proton’s mass.https://astronomy.com/magazine/greatest-mysteries/2019/07/50-do-neutrinos-hold-secrets-to-the-cosmos
10/15/2021 8:00 AMIn December 2020 a 40-centimetre steel capsule parachuted to Earth, landing next to a bush in the remote Australian outback. Inside the capsule were rock samples from an ancient asteroid that formed during the earliest days of our solar system. To gather those rocks, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2, spent six years traveling 3.2 billion kilometres to the asteroid, Ryugu, which orbits between Earth and Mars, blew a hole in it with a copper cannonball, sampled rock from the blast site, and made the long journey back to Earth. Those rocks could help reveal the source of the water that ultimately filled our oceans.https://www.nature.com/articles/d42473-021-00388-w
10/15/2021 10:00 AMResearch published in the SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics describes a new mathematical model for studying influence across social networks. Using tools from the field of topology, Robert Ghrist and Ph.D. graduate Jakob Hansen developed a framework to track how opinions change over time in a wide range of scenarios, including ones where individuals can use deceptive behaviors and propaganda agents can drive a group’s consensus.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-mathematical-tools-opinion-dynamics.html
10/15/2021 12:00 PMScientists have developed a groundbreaking theory for calculating what’s happening inside a proton traveling at the speed of light. For more than 2,000 years, scientists thought the atom was the smallest particle possible. Then, they discovered that it has a nucleus made up of protons and neutrons surrounded by electrons. After that, they found that the protons and neutrons themselves have a complex inner world full of quarks and antiquarks held together by a superglue-like force created by gluons.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-proton.html
10/15/2021 2:00 PMAstronomers know that our solar system formed about 5 billion years ago from material left over from previous generations of stars. However, beyond that, it gets a little murky.https://astronomy.com/news/2018/01/did-the-solar-system-form-in-a-bubble
10/15/2021 4:00 PMDrop an ice cube into a glass of water. You can probably picture the way it starts to melt. You also know that no matter what shape it takes, you’ll never see it melt into something like a snowflake, composed everywhere of sharp edges and fine cusps.https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematicians-prove-melting-ice-stays-smooth-20211006/
10/15/2021 6:00 PMThe first scientific analysis of images taken by NASA’s Perseverance rover has now confirmed that Mars’ Jezero crater—which today is a dry, wind-eroded depression—was once a quiet lake, fed steadily by a small river some 3.7 billion years ago.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-rover-images-jezero-crater-ancient.html
10/16/2021 8:00 AMThe universe is a complicated place filled with complicated things, from the micro scale of atoms to the macro scale of galaxy clusters. Somewhere on the larger side of that spectrum fall star clusters, which are more or less exactly what their name implies. Star clusters are groups of hundreds to millions of stars that provide astronomers crucial insight into stellar evolution through comparisons of stars’ ages and compositions.https://www.space.com/star-clusters
10/16/2021 10:00 AMLava oozed across the moon’s surface just 2 billion years ago, bits of lunar rocks retrieved by China’s Chang’e-5 mission reveal.https://www.sciencenews.org/article/moon-rocks-china-lunar-lander-sample-lava-volcano
10/16/2021 12:00 PMCoughs and colds spread quickly within wild mountain gorilla groups but appear less likely to spread between neighboring groups, a new study shows.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-social-distancing-sick-gorillas-transmit.html
10/16/2021 2:00 PMYou’ve likely heard by now that the movie Armageddon got it all wrong — it’s just not feasible to blow up an asteroid heading toward Earth with a bomb or few. But how unfeasible is it, really? New research set for publication March 15 in the planetary science journal Icarus is sending any hope humanity might have had to nuke an incoming asteroid threat even further into the realm of impossibility. Breaking up asteroids, it turns out, is really, really hard to do.https://astronomy.com/news/2019/03/its-even-harder-to-destroy-asteroids-than-we-thought
10/16/2021 4:00 PMA new study has shown for the first time how Australia’s rich geological history is reflected deep below the Earth’s surface.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-deep-roots-australia-geology-revealed.html
10/16/2021 6:00 PMThe universe was created about 13.8 billion years ago in a blaze of light: the big bang. Roughly 380,000 years later, after matter (mostly hydrogen) had cooled enough for neutral atoms to form, light was able to traverse space freely. That light, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, comes to us from every direction in the sky uniformly … or so it first seemed. In the last decades astronomers have discovered that the radiation has faint ripples and bumps in it at a level of brightness of only a part in one hundred thousand—the seeds for future structures, like galaxies.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-latest-results-cosmic-microwave-background.html
10/17/2021 8:00 AMNew analysis of ancient writings suggests that sailors from the Italian hometown of Christopher Columbus knew of America 150 years before its renowned ‘discovery’.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-italian-sailors-knew-america-years.html
10/17/2021 10:00 AMEarlier this year an announcement raised a tantalizing possibility: a ninth planet lurking in the outer reaches of our solar system. The announcement turned the astronomy and planetary science world upside down.https://astronomy.com/news/2016/10/planet-nine-tilting-the-sun
10/17/2021 12:00 PMNew research by a City College of New York team has uncovered a novel way to combine two different states of matter. For one of the first times, topological photons—light—has been combined with lattice vibrations, also known as phonons, to manipulate their propagation in a robust and controllable way.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-photon-phonon-breakthrough.html
10/17/2021 2:00 PMNASA’s New Horizons is still showing us how bizarre the outer solar system really is. A recent announcement out of the 53rd American Astronomical Society Meeting of the Division of Planetary Sciences demonstrates that two Kuiper Belt objects that the spacecraft’s camera homed in on are actually each close binary pairs.https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/new-horizons-discovers-kuiper-belt-twins/
10/17/2021 4:00 PMOur DNA is very similar to that of the chimpanzee, which in evolutionary terms is our closest living relative. Stem cell researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now found a previously overlooked part of our DNA, so-called non-coded DNA, that appears to contribute to a difference which, despite all our similarities, may explain why our brains work differently.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-human-overlooked-dna.html
10/17/2021 6:00 PMStarving microorganisms capable of surviving in extreme conditions have already managed to “eat” a nail in just three days.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-chilean-scientist-metal-bacteria.html
10/18/2021 8:00 AMTo affect Earth’s orbit, a colliding body must be at least 13 times the mass of Ceres.https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2012/12/colliding-body
10/18/2021 10:00 AMMeasurements of stars orbiting our galaxy’s core suggest our 4-million-solar-mass black hole, Sagittarius A*, may have another supermassive companion lurking nearby.https://astronomy.com/news/2019/12/the-milky-way-may-have-two-supermassive-black-holes
10/18/2021 12:00 PMFrom the door of the expedition base, a few small steps to the left an autonomous rover passes by. A few giant leaps to the right is an array of solar panels. The landscape is rocky, hilly, tinged with red. Purposefully it resembles Mars. In the Ramon Crater in the desert of southern Israel, a team of six – five men and one woman – have begun simulating what it will be like to live for about a month on the red planet.https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/rocky-israeli-crater-scientists-simulate-life-mars-2021-10-10/
10/18/2021 2:00 PMBy studying this strange star, astronomers hope to better understand what happened early in the life of our own solar system.https://astronomy.com/magazine/news/2020/07/is-eta-corvi-a-window-into-our-past
10/18/2021 4:00 PMSometime toward the end of the last ice age, a gray wolf gingerly approached a human encampment. Those first tentative steps set his species on the path to a dramatic transformation: By at least 15,000 years ago, those wolves had become dogs, and neither they nor their human companions would ever be the same. But just how this relationship evolved over the ensuing millennia has been a mystery. Now, in the most comprehensive comparison yet of ancient dog and human DNA, scientists are starting to fill in some of the blanks, revealing where dogs and humans traveled together—and where they may have parted ways.https://www.science.org/content/article/how-dogs-tracked-their-humans-across-ancient-world
10/18/2021 6:00 PMThe oldest known footprints of pre-humans were found on the Mediterranean island of Crete and are at least six million years old, says an international team of researchers from Germany, Sweden, Greece, Egypt and England, led by Tübingen scientists Uwe Kirscher and Madelaine Böhme of the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-oldest-footprints-pre-humans-crete.html
10/19/2021 8:00 AMAn international team of astronomers has unveiled the nature of hundreds of gamma-ray emitting sources, discovering that most of them belong to the class of active galaxies known as blazars.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-nature-unknown-gamma-ray-sources-revealed.html
10/19/2021 10:00 AMStand on the ocean’s shore and take a big whiff of the salt spray and you’ll smell the unmistakably pungent scent of the sea. That ripe, almost rotting smell? That’s sulfur.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-ocean-life-clouds-bay.html
10/19/2021 12:00 PMDomestic cats and other felids rub their faces and heads against catnip (Nepeta cataria) and silver vine (Actinidia polygama) and roll on the ground as a characteristic response. While this response is well known, its biological function and underlying mechanism remain undetermined. Here, we uncover the neurophysiological mechanism and functional outcome of this feline response. We found that the iridoid nepetalactol is the major component of silver vine that elicits this potent response in cats and other felids. Nepetalactol increased plasma β-endorphin levels in cats, while pharmacological inhibition of μ-opioid receptors suppressed the classic rubbing response. Rubbing behavior transfers nepetalactol onto the faces and heads of respondents where it repels the mosquito, Aedes albopictus. Thus, self-anointing behavior helps to protect cats against mosquito bites. The characteristic response of cats to nepetalactol via the μ-opioid system provides an important example of chemical pest defense using plant metabolites in nonhuman mammals.https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.abd9135
10/19/2021 2:00 PMA class of materials that once looked as if it might revolutionize everything from solar cells to frying pans—but fell out of favor in the early 2000s—could be poised for commercial resurrection, findings from a University of Michigan-led research team suggest.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-resurrecting-quasicrystals-exotic-material-commercially.html
10/19/2021 4:00 PMLiving as they do in the distant, sun-forsaken reaches of the solar system, Jupiter and Saturn, the gas giants, and Uranus and Neptune, the ice giants, were always expected to be frosty realms. But when NASA’s Voyager spacecraft sailed past them in the late 1970s and 1980s, scientists found that all four worlds were running planetary fevers — a revelation as jarring as finding a bonfire inside your freezer.https://www.quantamagazine.org/cassini-data-solves-jupiter-and-saturns-energy-mystery-20210622/
10/19/2021 6:00 PMA strange dent in Earth’s magnetic field doses orbiting craft with high levels of radiation. It’s caused everything from periodic glitches to total mission failure.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/02/hidden-spaceflight-danger-the-south-atlantic-anomaly
10/20/2021 8:00 AMA new view of the human brain shows its cellular residents in all their wild and weird glory. The map, drawn from a tiny piece of a woman’s brain, charts the varied shapes of 50,000 cells and 130 million connections between them.https://www.sciencenews.org/article/brain-map-neurons-connections-google-harvard
10/20/2021 10:00 AMCertain groupings of bacteria or cellular tissues form systems that are called active fluids. These can flow spontaneously without having to be forced from the outside, since their components are able to generate forces and move autonomously. When the activity is high enough, the spontaneous flows become chaotic, like those observed in the turbulence of ordinary fluids. University of Barcelona (UB) researchers have identified universal laws in this turbulent behavior of active fluids.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-universal-laws-turbulent-behavior-fluids.html
10/20/2021 12:00 PMA new method improves the extraction and separation of rare earth elements—a group of 17 elements critical for technologies such as smart phones and electric car batteries—from unconventional sources. New research led by scientists at Penn State and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) demonstrates how a protein isolated from bacteria can provide a more environmentally friendly way to extract these metals and to separate them from other metals and from each other. The method could eventually be scaled up to help develop a domestic supply of rare earth metals from industrial waste and electronics due to be recycled.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-environmentally-friendly-method-rare-earth.html
10/20/2021 2:00 PMThe astrobiology world was buzzing last year when a study was released stating levels of phosphine had been detected in the cloud decks of Venus. While this study was subjected to the full scrutiny of the scientific method since published, it opened a flood gate of interest in taking a closer look at the potential for life on Earth’s deadly twin planet. NASA selected Davinci+ (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging), launching in 2029 to sample the clouds, as well as VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) which will map the geological history of the planet. Now, even more promise and reason for going to Venus comes from a study just released, suggesting that conditions may be favorable for photosynthesis to be occurring in a certain habitable zone in the cloud decks of Venus.https://bmsis.org/prototrophy-on-venus/
10/20/2021 4:00 PMAstronomers have discovered unusual signals coming from the direction of the Milky Way’s center. The radio waves fit no currently understood pattern of variable radio source and could suggest a new class of stellar object.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-strange-radio-emerge-galactic-centre.html
10/20/2021 6:00 PMThis is the result of a new study by researchers from DTU Space at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who have traced the consequences of eruptions on the Sun on clouds and Earth’s energy balance.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-large-effect-solar-earth-energy.html
10/21/2021 8:00 AMSome pristine meteorites contain a record of the original building blocks of the solar system, including grains that formed in ancient stars that died before the sun formed. One of the biggest challenges in studying these presolar grains is to determine the type of star each grain came from.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-stellar-fossils-meteorites-distant-stars.html
10/21/2021 10:00 AMMany animals recognize the voices of members of their own species, and some can even recognize those of other species, such as humans. But it turns out a few animals, such as gorillas, can not only recognize familiar voices but also connect those voices to pleasant or not so pleasant memories.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-gorillas-human-voices.html
10/21/2021 12:00 PMUnlike Earth, the surface of Mars is rife with large, obvi- ous impact craters. Estimates point to at least a quarter of a million such craters on the Red Planet. And with no plate tectonics, imperfections on Mars stick around for a lot longer than they do here on Earth.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/10/martian-string-of-craters
10/21/2021 2:00 PMAs the ice-and-snow rubble known as mélange melts in Antarctica’s ice shelves, rifts can grow and icebergs break off even in the brutal cold of winter.https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/icy-glue-may-control-pace-of-antarctic-ice-shelf-breakup
10/21/2021 4:00 PMMysterious forces may be a reliable trope in science fiction, but in reality, physicists have long agreed that all interactions between objects evidently arise from just four fundamental forces. Yet that has not stopped them from ardently searching for an additional, as-yet-unknown fifth fundamental force. The discovery of such a force could potentially resolve some of the biggest open questions in physics today, from the nature of dark energy to the seemingly irreconcilable differences between quantum mechanics and general relativity. Now, a recent experiment carried out at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is offering fresh hints about a fifth force’s possible character. An international collaboration of researchers used neutrons and a silicon crystal to set new limits on the strength of a potential fifth fundamental force at atomic scales. Published in Science in September, the study also includes measurements of the precise structure of both silicon crystals and neutrons themselves.https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-universal-force-tested-by-blasting-neutrons-through-crystal/
10/21/2021 6:00 PMSperm have long fooled scientists. Instead of swimming straight by twirling their tails like propellers, human sperm flick their tails lopsidedly and roll to balance out the off-center strokes.https://www.sciencenews.org/article/human-sperm-tail-swim-biophysics
10/22/2021 8:00 AMBlackworms (Lumbriculus variegatus) are distant relatives of rainworms, measuring up to 10 cm long. They live in shallow marshes, ponds, and swamps in Europe and North America, where they feed on microorganisms and debris. To protect themselves from drought, blackworms can aggregate as entangled, shape-shifting “blobs” composed of a few to hundreds of individuals. Just like swarms of bees, rafts of fire ants, or flocks of starlings, blackworm blobs can show “intelligent” collective movement.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-shape-shifting-worm-blob-future-robot.html
10/22/2021 10:00 AMWhen the Nobel Prize-winning US physicist Robert Hofstadter and his team fired highly energetic electrons at a small vial of hydrogen at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in 1956, they opened the door to a new era of physics.https://www.sciencealert.com/new-electron-ion-collider-could-reveal-how-matter-holds-itself-together
10/22/2021 12:00 PMUsing the world’s most powerful radio telescope Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR), Dr. Benjamin Pope from the University of Queensland and colleagues at the Dutch national observatory ASTRON have searched for planets. Recently, the team has discovered radio waves blasting out from distant stars, indicating the presence of hidden planets.https://www.techexplorist.com/radio-waves-distant-stars-indicate-hidden-planets/41707/
10/22/2021 2:00 PMAn international team of physicists led by researchers at Indiana University Bloomington has announced the world’s most precise measurement of the neutron’s lifetime.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-physicists-world-precise-neutron-lifetime.html
10/22/2021 4:00 PMIs there life on Venus? That might sound like an odd, even absurd, question, given the extremely hostile conditions on the planet’s surface. After all, on Venus, it’s hot enough to melt lead. But, as we were reminded last year with the discovery of phosphine, there’s still the potential for microbial life in Venus’ atmosphere. Although the clouds are very acidic, temperatures and pressures become Earth-like at mid-altitudes. Now, a new study announced by researchers at CalPolyPomona in California shows that Earth-like photosynthesis in Venus’ atmosphere is possible.https://earthsky.org/space/photosynthesis-in-venus-atmosphere-phototrophs-microbes/
10/22/2021 6:00 PMIt isn’t every day that scientists dig up a dinosaur jaw—or unearth the remains of fossilized insects. So paleontologists couldn’t believe their luck when, in 2010, they found the 75-million-year-old jawbone of a duck-billed hadrosaur in Dinosaur Provincial Park in Canada’s Alberta province, topped with a 7-centimeter-wide blob of amber containing traces of trees and sap-sucking aphids.https://www.science.org/content/article/remarkable-fossil-features-insect-trapped-amber-stuck-dinosaur-jaw
10/23/2021 8:00 AMA team of scientists recently discovered the age of over 50 footprints that were found in fossilized beach sediment near Trachilos, Crete in 2017. They are the oldest known pre-human footprints ever found, dating back more than six million years. The international team of researchers published their findings in Scientific Reports on October 11. Utilizing geophysical and micropaleontological methods to find the age of the footprints the scientists estimated them to be about 6.05 million years old.https://www.newsweek.com/over-50-fossilized-footprints-found-sand-dated-more-6-million-years-old-1638673
10/23/2021 10:00 AMEven though we call it home, the Milky Way remains rich with mysteries and surprises. Case in point: Astronomers recently noticed our galaxy has a broken arm.https://astronomy.com/news/2021/09/the-milky-way-has-a-broken-arm
10/23/2021 12:00 PMScientists just broke the record for the coldest temperature ever measured in a lab: They achieved the bone-chilling temperature of 38 trillionths of a degree above -273.15 Celsius by dropping magnetized gas 393 feet (120 meters) down a tower.https://www.livescience.com/coldest-temperature-ever
10/23/2021 2:00 PMA widely accepted theory of Native American origins coming from Japan has been attacked in a new scientific study, which shows that the genetics and skeletal biology “simply does not match-up”.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-popular-theory-native-american-debunked.html
10/23/2021 4:00 PMThe source of marble for a statue of Apollo on the Greek island of Delos has been a mystery to art historians and archaeologists for decades. The stone’s chemistry pointed geochemists to the southern end of the nearby island of Naxos, but no one thought there were ancient marble quarries there. A geoarchaeologist believes he found the source.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-tucked-away-marble-quarries-source-archaic.html
10/23/2021 6:00 PMIn October 2019, a high-energy neutrino slammed into Antarctica. The neutrino, which was remarkably hard to detect, piqued astronomers’ interest: what could generate such a powerful particle?https://phys.org/news/2021-10-black-hole-star-neutrino.html
10/24/2021 8:00 AMAstronomers have discovered the very first confirmed planetary system that resembles the expected fate of our solar system, when the Sun reaches the end of its life in about five billion years.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-crystal-ball-solar-future.html
10/24/2021 10:00 AMA team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Germany and two in France has set a new record for the lowest temperature ever recorded in a lab setting—38 picokelvins. In their paper published in the journal Physics, the group describes their work with a time-domain matter-wave lens system. Vincenzo Tamma with the University of Portsmouth has published a Viewpoint article in the same journal issue discussing the work done by the team in Germany.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-coldest-temperature38-picokelvins.html
10/24/2021 12:00 PMLike tardigrades, Bdelloid rotifers can also survive drying, freezing, starving, and even low-oxygen conditions. Now, scientists report that they revived some of these rotifers after having been frozen in Siberian permafrost for at least 24,000 years.https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/microscopic-animal-brought-back-to-life-after-24000-years-frozen-in-siberian-permafrost/
10/24/2021 2:00 PMThe interior of the Earth is a mystery, especially at greater depths (> 660 km). Researchers only have seismic tomographic images of this region and, to interpret them, they need to calculate seismic (acoustic) velocities in minerals at high pressures and temperatures. With those calculations, they can create 3D velocity maps and figure out the mineralogy and temperature of the observed regions. When a phase transition occurs in a mineral, such as a crystal structure change under pressure, scientists observe a velocity change, usually a sharp seismic velocity discontinuity.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-quantum-phase-transition-global-scale.html
10/24/2021 4:00 PMIn February of 2013, skywatchers around the world turned their attention toward asteroid 2012 DA14, a cosmic rock about 150 feet (50 meters) in diameter that was going to fly closer to Earth than the spacecraft that bring us satellite TV.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-physicists-method-defending-earth-cosmic.html
10/24/2021 6:00 PMThe Australian-made space weather satellite CUAVA-1 was deployed into orbit from the International Space Station on Wednesday (Oct. 6). Launched to the space station in August aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, a major focus of this shoebox-sized CubeSat is to study what radiation from the sun does to Earth’s atmosphere and electronic devices.https://www.space.com/forecasting-space-weather-is-hard-a-new-australian-satellite-may-help-make-it-easier
10/25/2021 8:00 AMWhen light interacts with matter, for example, when a laser beam hits a two-dimensional material like graphene, it can substantially change the behavior of the material. Depending on the form of interaction between light and matter, some chemical reactions appear differently, substances turn magnetic or ferroelectric or begin to conduct electricity without any losses. In particularly thrilling cases, an actual light source may not even be necessary because the mere possibility for light to exist, i.e., its quantum equivalent, the photons, can change the behavior of matter. Theoretical scientists try to describe and predict these fascinating phenomena because they could be crucial in the development of new quantum technologies.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-highly-quantum-light-matter-interactions.html
10/25/2021 10:00 AMA global collaboration, led by researchers from UNSW, has shown how liquid gallium can be used to help achieve the important goal of net zero carbon emissions. Engineers from UNSW have helped to discover a cheap new way to capture and convert CO2 greenhouse emissions using liquid metal.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-liquid-metal-proven-cheap-efficient.html
10/25/2021 12:00 PMMetasurfaces are nanoscale structures that interact with light. Today, most metasurfaces use monolith-like nanopillars to focus, shape and control light. The taller the nanopillar, the more time it takes for light to pass through the nanostructure, giving the metasurface more versatile control of each color of light. But very tall pillars tend to fall or cling together. What if, instead of building tall structures, you went the other way?https://phys.org/news/2021-10-holey-metalens-focuses-ultra-deep-holes.html
10/25/2021 2:00 PMQuantum technology typically employs qubits (quantum bits) consisting of, for example, single electrons, photons or atoms. A group of TU Delft researchers has now demonstrated the ability to teleport an arbitrary qubit state from a single photon onto an optomechanical device—consisting of a mechanical structure comprising billions of atoms. Their breakthrough research, now published in Nature Photonics, enables real-world applications such as quantum internet repeater nodes while also allowing quantum mechanics itself to be studied in new ways.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-quantum-teleportation-mechanical-motion-silicon.html
10/25/2021 4:00 PMScientists have known for a long time that magnetism is created by the spins of electrons lining up in certain ways. But about a decade ago, they discovered another astonishing layer of complexity in magnetic materials: Under the right conditions, these spins can form little vortexes or whirlpools that act like particles and move around independently of the atoms that spawned them.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-skyrmions-lot-common-glass-high-temperature.html
10/25/2021 6:00 PMThe first time Frédéric Santoul witnessed the voracious feeding habits of Europe’s largest freshwater fish, he was standing on a medieval bridge in Albi, a town in southern France. On a small island below, in the Tarn River, pigeons wandered about, oblivious to the group of wels catfish moving near the gravel bank. Suddenly a fish catapulted out of the water and onto land, snatching a pigeon in a flurry of feathers before heaving itself back into the river, bird in mouth.https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/enormous-pigeon-eating-catfish-wreaking-havoc-in-europe
10/26/2021 8:00 AMCorals are the foundation species of tropical reefs worldwide, but stresses ranging from overfishing to pollution to warming oceans are killing corals and degrading the critical ecosystem services they provide. Because corals build structures that make living space for many other species, scientists have known that losses of corals result in losses of other reef species. But the importance of coral species diversity for corals themselves was less understood.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-underwater-gardens-boost-coral-diversity.html
10/26/2021 10:00 AMContext matters. It’s true for many facets of life, including the tiny molecular machines that perform vital functions inside our cells.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-cellular-environments-molecular-architecture.html
10/26/2021 12:00 PMAs the world’s data storage needs grow, new strategies for preserving information over long periods with reduced energy consumption are needed. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have developed a data storage approach based on mixtures of fluorescent dyes, which are deposited onto an epoxy surface in tiny spots with an inkjet printer. The mixture of dyes at each spot encodes binary information that is read with a fluorescent microscope.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-mixtures-fluorescent-dyes.html
10/26/2021 2:00 PMAny writer can tell you that the narrator of a story can make a significant difference. A new study finds that the same holds true for science videos, with viewers responding positively to researchers who present their own work, as compared to third-party presenters.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-scientists-trustworthy-experts-online-videos.html
10/26/2021 4:00 PMWhere did all this come from? In every direction we care to observe, we find stars, galaxies, clouds of gas and dust, tenuous plasmas, and radiation spanning the gamut of wavelengths: from radio to infrared to visible light to gamma rays. No matter where or how we look at the universe, it’s full of matter and energy absolutely everywhere and at all times. And yet, it’s only natural to assume that it all came from somewhere. If you want to know the answer to the biggest question of all — the question of our cosmic origins — you have to pose the question to the universe itself, and listen to what it tells you.https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/big-bang-beginning-universe/
10/26/2021 6:00 PMThe world is not only getting hotter but also more humid and new research by Washington State University scientists shows people living in areas where humid-heat extremes are already a significant hazard are bearing the brunt of the impact.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-extreme-humid-heat-disproportionately-affect-populated.html
10/27/2021 8:00 AMPhysicists have taken the first ever image of a Wigner crystal — a strange honeycomb-pattern material inside another material, made entirely out of electrons.https://www.space.com/electron-ice-snapshot-first-time
10/27/2021 10:00 AMContact electrification can arise when physical contact occurs between two materials. In a new report now published on Science Advances, Ding Li, and a team of scientists in nanoscience, nanoenergy and materials science in China and the U.S., detailed atomic-featured photon emission spectra between two solid materials. Electron transfer can take place at the interface from an atom in one material to another atom in another material, alongside photon emission, during contact electrification.https://phys.org/news/2021-10-inter-atomic-photon-emission-contact-electrification.html
10/27/2021 12:00 PMWith warming climate, summer sea ice in the Arctic has been shrinking fast, and now consistently spans less than half the area it did in the early 1980s. This raises the question: It this keeps up, in the future will year-round sea ice—and the creatures who need it to survive—persist anywhere?