Science

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Comet PANSTARRS Rises to the Occasion Mid-March

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For those in search of comet L4 PANSTARRS, look to the west after sunset in early and mid-March. This graphic shows the comet's expected positions in the sky.

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NASA Mission Helps Craft 3-D Image Of Buried Mars Flood Channels

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This illustration schematically shows where the Shallow Radar instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter detected flood channels that had been buried by lava flows in the Elysium Planitia region of Mars.

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Measuring the Universe More Accurately Than Ever Before

After nearly a decade of careful observations an international team of astronomers has measured the distance to our neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, more accurately than ever before. This new measurement also improves our knowledge of the rate of expansion of the Universe — the Hubble Constant — and is a crucial step towards understanding the nature of the mysterious dark energy that is causing the expansion to accelerate. The team used telescopes at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile as well as others around the globe.

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Stressed proteins can cause blood clots for hours: Physicists probe stress-induced changes in clot-forming protein

New research from Rice University, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and the Puget Sound Blood Center (PSBC) has revealed how stresses of flow in the small blood vessels of the heart and brain could cause a common protein to change shape and form dangerous blood clots. The scientists were surprised to find that the proteins could remain in the dangerous, clot-initiating shape for up to five hours before returning to their normal, healthy shape.

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Rice University researchers in the lab of Ching-Hwa Kiang use the bobbing needle from an atomic force microscope to grab and pull individual protein molecules. By stretching the proteins, Kiang's team can measure the precise physical forces that shape them.

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First discovery of a natural topological insulator

In a step toward understanding and exploiting an exotic form of matter that has been sparking excitement for potential applications in a new genre of supercomputers, scientists are reporting the first identification of a naturally occurring "topological insulator" (TI).

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The mineral Kawazulite is a natural “topological insulator,” a material that could have applications in a new genre of supercomputers.

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A Window into Europa's Ocean Right at the Surface

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Based on new evidence from Jupiter's moon Europa, astronomers hypothesize that chloride salts bubble up from the icy moon's global liquid ocean and reach the frozen surface where they are bombarded with sulfur from volcanoes on Jupiter's innermost large moon Io.

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High mass X-ray binaries trace the Milky Way's spiral arms

Our Galaxy is littered with pairs of massive stars, many of which contain the remnants of supernova explosions. A new study of these X-ray emitting binary systems, using data from ESA's INTEGRAL space observatory, has made it possible to reconstruct the locations of the Milky Way's spiral arms many millions of years ago.

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Artist's impression of a highly obscured high-mass X-ray binary.

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Gravitational Lens Creates Cartoon of Space Invader

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Renewable energy: Nanotubes to channel osmotic power

The salinity difference between fresh water and salt water could be a source of renewable energy. However, power yields from existing techniques are not high enough to make them viable. A solution to this problem may now have been found. A team led by physicists at the Institut Lumière Matière in Lyon,has discovered a new means of harnessing this energy: osmotic flow through boron nitride nanotubes generates huge electric currents, with 1,000 times the efficiency of any previous system. To achieve this result, the researchers developed a highly novel experimental device that enabled them, for the first time, to study osmotic fluid transport through a single nanotube.

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Diagram of the experimental principle: the osmotic transport of water through a transmembrane boron nitride nanotube.

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What Lies Beneath: NASA Antarctic Sub Goes Subglacial

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A video camera on a NASA-designed-and-funded mini-submarine captured this view as it descended a 2,600-foot-deep (800-meter-deep) borehole to explore Antarctica's subglacial Lake Whillans. The international Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling (WISSARD) project was designed to gain insights into subglacial biology, climate history and modern ice sheet behavior.