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The primary purpose of the deployable tower is to create a large gap between the upper part of the observatory that houses its iconic gold mirrors and scientific instruments, and the lower section known as the spacecraft bus which holds its comparatively warm electronics and propulsion systems. By creating a space between the two, it allows for Webb’s active and passive cooling systems to bring its mirrors and sensors down to staggeringly cold temperatures required to perform optimal science....

From February 17 to February 29, 2020, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will go on hiatus from its science mission and its relay operations while engineers on Earth conduct long-distance maintenance. During the hiatus, other orbiters will relay data from the Mars Curiosity rover and Mars InSight lander to Earth. The maintenance work involves updating battery parameters in the spacecraft’s flash memory — a rare step that’s been done only twice before in the orbiter’s 15 years of flight....

In a paper published today in the journal Nature, scientists from the Department of Archaeology at MPI-SHH in Germany and Griffith University’s Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution have found that the loss of these grasslands was instrumental in the extinction of many of the region’s megafauna, and probably of ancient humans too. “Southeast Asia is often overlooked in global discussions of megafauna extinctions,” says Associate Professor Julien Louys who led the study, “but in fact it once had a much richer mammal community full of giants that are now all extinct....

With the help of Lorentz transmission electron microscopy (Lorentz-TEM), the research group clarified, for the first time, a type of magnetic quasiparticles with arbitrary topological charges Q, and then further realized current driven dynamic motion of skyrmion bundles. Skyrmion, a vortex-like localized chiral topological magnetic structure, has a potential to be the information carrier applied in future high-performance spintronic devices. The topological charge is a fundamental parameter of magnetic domains and determines their topology-related properties....

“We already knew there was methane on Pluto, but these are our first detections,” said Will Grundy, the New Horizons Surface Composition team leader with the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. “Soon we will know if there are differences in the presence of methane ice from one part of Pluto to another.” Methane (chemical formula CH4) is an odorless, colorless gas that is present underground and in the atmosphere on Earth....

A new X-ray study has revealed that stars like the Sun and their less massive cousins calm down surprisingly quickly after a turbulent youth. This result has positive implications for the long-term habitability of planets orbiting such stars. A team of researchers used data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton to see how the X-ray brightness of stars similar to the Sun behaves over time. The X-ray emission from a star comes from a thin, hot, outer layer, called the corona....

When he began his engineering program at École Polytechnique in his hometown of Paris, Jean Pauphilet did not aspire to the academy. “I used to associate academia with fundamental research, which I don’t enjoy much,” he says. “But slowly, I discovered another type of research, where people use rigorous scientific principles for applied and impactful projects.” A fascination with projects that have direct applications to organizational problems led Pauphilet to the field of operations research and analytics — and to a PhD at the Operations Research Center (ORC), a joint program between the MIT Stephen A....

According to new research, an obscure family of viruses, already endemic in wild African primates and known to cause fatal Ebola-like symptoms in some monkeys, is “poised for spillover” to humans. The study, by the University of Colorado Boulder, was published online in the journal Cell on September 30. Although such arteriviruses are already considered a critical threat to macaque monkeys, no human infections have been reported thus far. In addition, it is uncertain what impact the virus would have on people should it jump species....

In physical sciences, certain quantities appear as integer multiples of fundamental and indivisible elements. This quantization of physical quantities, which is at the heart of our description of Nature, made its way through the centuries, as evidenced by the antique concept of the atom. Importantly, the discovery of quantized quantities has often been associated with a revolution in our understanding and appreciation of Nature’s law, a striking example being the quantization of light in terms of photons, which led to our contemporary (quantum-mechanical) description of the microscopic world....

The conclusions are based on what is thought to be the first model to replicate how a drug dissolves in the human stomach. “We were very surprised that posture had such an immense effect on the dissolution rate of a pill,” said senior author Rajat Mittal, a Johns Hopkins engineer and an expert in fluid dynamics. “I never thought about whether I was doing it right or wrong but now I’ll definitely think about it every time I take a pill....

A new design for light-emitting diodes (LEDs) developed by a team including scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) may hold the key to overcoming a long-standing limitation in the light sources’ efficiency. The concept, demonstrated with microscopic LEDs in the lab, achieves a dramatic increase in brightness as well as the ability to create laser light — all characteristics that could make it valuable in a range of large-scale and miniaturized applications....

The disorder, known as hypomyelinating leukodystrophy, is caused by a mutation in the gene that controls the transport out of cells of zinc, an important dietary micronutrient. The study was published in the journal Brain and was jointly led by Dr. Quasar Padiath of the University of Pittsburgh and Dr. Anju Shukla of the Kasturba Medical College in India. This is the first instance in which a mutation in a zinc transporter gene, in this case, TMEM163, has been definitively connected to the development of any brain disorder....

A new paper published September 17, 2019, in The Journal of Urban Ecology, published by Oxford University Press, finds that rats can be baited to, or repelled from, locations using pheromones found in the scents of other rats. Rats cost the world’s economy more than $300 billion a year. In addition to causing fines and business closures, rats spread disease, start fires, and disable motor vehicles. In Manhattan alone, rodent activity has been found in 23% of all restaurants....

For a long time, it was believed that two contacting/sliding materials charge in opposing and uniform directions. However, after CE, it was discovered that each of the separated surfaces carries both (+) and (-) charges. The formation of so-called charge mosaics was attributed to experiment irreproducibility, inherent inhomogeneities of contacting materials, or the general “stochastic nature” of CE. A research team, led by Professor Bartosz A. Grzybowski (Department of Chemistry) from the Center for Soft and Living Matter, within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) has investigated the possible sources of charge mosaics for over a decade....

Their findings, which were published in the journal Nature Communications, suggest that seawater may be the missing source of phosphate, suggesting that it could have been present in sufficient quantities to support life without the need for particular environmental conditions. “This could really change how we think about the environments in which life first originated,” said Professor Nick Tosca from the University of Cambridge, who was one of the authors of the study....

While record-breaking heat scorched the Pacific Northwest in June 2021, parts of Europe and Siberia also saw early-summer temperatures climb. The heatwaves are apparent in this map, which shows anomalies in air temperature at the surface from June 18-25, 2021. The anomalies indicate how much the daytime temperatures were above or below the average for the same period between 2003-2013. Red areas depict where the temperature was hotter than usual, and blue areas were cooler than usual....

“The continuing emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and our inability to develop new antibiotics to combat them, represent two of the most wicked healthcare problems we face,” said OU vice president for research and partnerships Tomás Díaz de la Rubia. “OU’s team is working hard to develop solutions to these major challenges, and their opinion article helps bring visibility and attention to these issues at a time when it’s needed most....

Catchmark is developing new biomaterials by manipulating compounds found in nature. His research with biomaterials began with a single question: Is there an eco-friendly alternative to styrofoam? Open to change Catchmark didn’t start his materials science career thinking he’d invent a potential replacement for styrofoam. He didn’t even start out as a materials scientist. He earned a doctorate in electrical engineering and spent nearly 10 years working on lasers and optics for telecommunications companies....

Advances in 3D printing are also poised to transform the nuclear industry as scientists reap the benefits of creating flexible materials, parts, and sensors layer by layer. Additive manufacturing can even help us recycle used nuclear fuel more efficiently, according to a new pivotal breakthrough by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory. We can recycle waste from nuclear reactors in several ways, including one method developed by Argonne scientists in the 1970s....

In what is called a classical nova, a white dwarf – the dense remnant of a star in the last stage of its evolution – collects material from a nearby Sun-like companion star. The material absorbed from the companion star builds up on the surface of the white dwarf, until extreme pressures and densities cause a nuclear explosion, ejecting the material from the surface of the white dwarf. This results in a bright burst of light that lasts a few weeks to a few months, sometimes even years....