Cold molecular clouds as cosmic ray detectors
The ionization of the neutral gas in an interstellar molecular cloud plays a key role in the cloud's evolution, helping to regulate the heating and cooling processes, the chemistry and molecule formation, and coupling the gas to magnetic fields. Usua.....»»
40 years ago, this ’80s action movie captured America’s imagination. Does it still hold up in 2024?
Four decades ago, a low-budget action movie captured America's Cold War moment. All these years later, does it still hold up?.....»»
The Physics of Cold Water May Have Jump-Started Complex Life
When seawater gets cold, it gets viscous. This fact could explain how single-celled ocean creatures became multicellular when the planet was frozen during “Snowball Earth,” according to experiments......»»
Noah Lyles’ Olympic Run Is the New Normal for Living With Covid
Dozens of Olympic athletes competed with Covid as society increasingly treats it like the flu or the common cold. Public health experts warn that it's anything but......»»
Researchers discover new material for optically-controlled magnetic memory
Researchers at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) have made unexpected progress toward developing a new optical memory that can quickly and energy-efficiently store and access computational data. While studying a.....»»
A new mechanism for shaping animal tissues
A key question that remains in biology and biophysics is how three-dimensional tissue shapes emerge during animal development. Research teams from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden, Germany, the Exce.....»»
First map of vegetation across Antarctica reveals a battle for the continent"s changing landscape
A tiny seed is stuck between loose gravel and coarse sand. There is nothing else alive around it. All it can see is a wall of ice reaching 20 meters up into the sky. It is cold. Survival is hard around here. In winter, it is dark even during the day......»»
The molecular shield: How tea plants combat drought through protein phosphorylation
Drought stress poses a significant challenge to agriculture, causing substantial yield losses in many crops. Tea plants, known for their rich flavonoid content which enhances both quality and health benefits, are particularly affected. Under drought.....»»
You can kick the alpha tires on System76’s Cosmic, a new Linux desktop
A whole new desktop aims to appeal with tiling, themes, and a safer Rust core. Enlarge / A little auto-tiling on the Cosmic desktop. (credit: System76) System76 has released an alpha version of its Cosmic desktop environ.....»»
Study reveals how intermittent fasting regulates aging through autophagy
Recent research at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB) of the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), at the Paris Cité University, and at the University of Graz, published today in Nature Cell Biology, sheds l.....»»
Chemists develop new sustainable reaction for creating unique molecular building blocks
Polymers can be thought of like trains: Just as a train is composed of multiple cars, polymers are made up of multiple monomers, and the couplings between the train cars are similar to the chemical bonds that link monomers together. While polymers ha.....»»
Ancient grains of dust from space can be found on Earth—and provide clues about the life cycle of stars
In space, there are clouds that contain gas and dust ejected from stars. Our solar system was formed 4.6 billion years ago from such a molecular cloud. Most of these dust grains were destroyed during solar system formation. However, a very small amou.....»»
Breakthrough in molecular control: New bioinspired double helix with switchable chirality
The deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA, the molecular system that carries the genetic information of living organisms, can transcribe and amplify information using its two helical strands. Creating such artificial molecular systems that match or surpass DN.....»»
Slime Mold Helps to Map the Universe’s Tendrils of Dark Matter
A single-celled organism’s pathfinding reveals connections in the universe’s vast “cosmic web”.....»»
Teosinte Pollen Drive: Scientists may have discovered corn"s "missing link"
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has begun to unravel a mystery millennia in the making. Our story begins 9,000 years ago. It was then that maize was first domesticated in the Mexican lowlands. Some 5,000 years later, the crop crossed with a spec.....»»
Observations confirm plasma bubble origin of persistent radio emissions from fast radio bursts
Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are one of the most recent open mysteries of modern astrophysics. Within a few milliseconds, these powerful events release an immense amount of energy, among the highest observable in cosmic phenomena......»»
Machine learning and better radar solve the "cloud cover" problem
Clouds have for decades been a bugbear for remote sensing of land surface temperature—one of the most important earth system metrics, used in everything from tracking climate change to predicting wildfires. A new approach incorporating machine lear.....»»
Cosmic microwave background experiments could probe connection between cosmic inflation, particle physics
Various large-scale astrophysical research projects are set to take place over the next decade, several of which are so-called cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments. These are large-scale scientific efforts aimed at detecting and studying CMB.....»»
First full 2-D spectral image of aurora borealis from a hyperspectral camera
Auroras are natural luminous phenomena caused by the interaction of electrons falling from the sky and the upper atmosphere. Most of the observed light consists of emission lines of neutral or ionized nitrogen and oxygen atoms and molecular emission.....»»
Ancient Antarctic microorganisms are aggressive predators
In Antarctica there is a small lake, called Deep Lake, that is so salty it remains ice-free all year round despite temperatures as low as -20°C in winter. Archaea, a unique type of single-celled microorganism, thrive in this bitterly cold environmen.....»»
The climate is changing so fast, we haven"t seen how bad extreme weather could get
Extreme weather is by definition rare on our planet. Ferocious storms, searing heat waves and biting cold snaps illustrate what the climate is capable of at its worst. However, since Earth's climate is rapidly warming, predominantly due to fossil fue.....»»