Nanotechnology

New class of Mars quakes reveals daily meteorite impacts

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First meteor impact detected by NASA’s InSight mission; the image was taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter using its High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona: https://science.nasa.gov/resource/insight-detects-an-impact-for-the-first-time/ An international team of researchers led by ETH Zurich and Imperial College London has made the first estimate of global meteorite impacts on Mars using … Read more

NASA’s Mars Odyssey Orbiter Captures Massive Volcano, Approaches 100,000 Orbits

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This infographic shows how much data and how many images NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter has collected in its 23-year operation around the Red Planet. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s longest-lived Mars robot is about to reach a new milestone on June 30: 100,000 trips around the Red Planet since its launch 23 years ago. During that … Read more

Under pressure: How comb jellies have adapted to life on the ocean floor

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A collage of five of the comb jellies examined. The red coloration, as seen in the two specimens on the right, is common in deep-sea animals. Credit: 2021 Jacob Winnikoff The bottom of the ocean is not hospitable. There is no light; the temperature is freezing; and the pressure of all the water above will … Read more

Researchers find flexible solution for separating gases

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Source: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain For a wide range of industries, separating gases is an important part of both the process and the product. This includes separating nitrogen and oxygen from the air for medical purposes, separating carbon dioxide from other gases in the carbon capture process or removing impurities from natural gas. However, separating gases … Read more

Most pristine trilobite fossils ever found, shaking up scientific understanding of long-extinct group

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Microtomographic reconstruction of the head and anterior trunk (“body”) limbs of the trilobite Protolenus (Hupeolenus) in ventral view. Credit: Arnaud Mazurier, IC2MP, Univ. Poitiers Researchers have described some of the best-preserved three-dimensional trilobite fossils ever discovered. The fossils, which are more than 500 million years old, were collected in the High Atlas of Morocco and … Read more

Gold nanoparticles kill cancer, but not as thought

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Spherical and star-shaped gold nanoparticles (top) and colon cancer cells after approximately five hours of exposure to them (bottom respectively). The photo at the bottom left proves that the cancer cells survived despite the small size of the spherical nanoparticles. False colors. Credit: IFJ PAN Gold particles the size of billionths of a meter are … Read more

Gravitational wave researchers shed new light on the mystery of the Antikythera mechanism

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Antikythera Mechanism. Credit: National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece Techniques developed to analyze the ripples in spacetime detected by some of the most sensitive scientific equipment of the 21st century have helped shed new light on the function of the oldest known analog computer. Astronomers from the University of Glasgow have used statistical modeling techniques developed … Read more

Wind tunnel research shows that the flow in a hypersonic jet engine can be controlled optically

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Doctoral student Max Chern takes a closer look at the wind tunnel setup where researchers from the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science have demonstrated that control of a dual-mode scramjet engine is possible with an optical sensor. Credit: Wende Whitman, UVA Engineering What if the future of space travel looked less … Read more

The fate of the Ammonites was sealed by a meteor impact that wiped out dinosaurs

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Ammonites bask in the Late Cretaceous sun. Credit: Artwork by Callum Pursall Scientists have discovered that ammonite species did not decline before their extinction. The coiled-shell marine mollusks, one of paleontology’s greatest icons, thrived in Earth’s oceans for more than 350 million years until they became extinct during the same accidental event that wiped out … Read more

NASA’s Juno probe gets a close-up view of lava lakes on Jupiter’s moon Io

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The JunoCam instrument aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured two volcanic plumes rising above the horizon of Jupiter’s moon Io. The photo was taken on February 3 from a distance of about 3,800 kilometers. Credit: Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS, Image processing by Andrea Luck (CC BY) New findings from NASA’s Juno probe provide a fuller picture of … Read more