[ad_1] A team of astronomers believe they have found signs of life in the atmosphere of Venus, The New York Times reports. In two papers published today, the astronomers explain that they’ve detected the chemical phosphine in Venus’s thick atmosphere. They believe that the phosphine may have been produced by living microorganisms in a type […]
Category: Science
Japan will send an 8K camera to Mars and its moons
[ad_1] The MMX spacecraft is expected to launch in Japan’s fiscal 2024 and reach Mars by fiscal 2025. It’ll be longer still before the return capsule arrives. It could be worth the wait. MMX should not only provide highly detailed photography of Mars from above the surface, but land on Phobos and collect surface material. […]
Electronic skin reacts to pain like a human
[ad_1] Electronic skins can already react to touch, but they’re not much good at reacting to the jabs and burns that cause pain. That’s a problem for prosthetics and robots that are supposed to have human-like responses. They may be more sensitive in the future, though. RMIT University researchers have developed an artificial skin (via […]
Alphabet’s Loon balloons are helping scientists study gravity waves
[ad_1] In between beaming internet to people in developing countries and sometimes passing for UFOs, Alphabet’s Loon balloons have been busy helping scientists study how our planet works. A team led by Stanford professor Aditi Sheshadri recently published a report on gravity waves, ripples created by gravity when it pushes down on air forced up into the Earth’s upper […]
A tiny space rock holds clues about the evolution of life
[ad_1] Researchers have found amino acids in other space rocks, but not at such a high concentration. Perhaps most surprisingly, Asuka 12236 contains more left-handed versions of some amino acids. While there are right-handed and left-handed versions of each amino acid, life as we know it uses only left-handed amino acids to build proteins. Researchers […]
Researchers grew a mini human heart to study fetal heart development
[ad_1] They’re now using the method to model and study congenital heart disease. While they’re still perfecting the process, the researchers believe these human heart organoids could be used to study other cardiovascular conditions, like chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity and the effects of diabetes on the developing fetal heart. “These minihearts constitute incredibly powerful models in which […]
High-speed camera captures a fluid behaving like a solid
[ad_1] By itself, the study revealed what was possible with the material. You could turn the friction (and thus the fluid state) “on and off like a switch” just by varying the pressure. However, Swansea University also suggested this could have a significant impact on engineering going forward. Scientists are already hoping to use DST […]
Hitting the Books: Volcanoes, mortal enemy of the mighty telescope
[ad_1] Every observer who’s spent any time in Chile has been through at least one small earthquake. Telescopes actually have something of an interesting quirk when it comes to these tremors: they’re pointed so incredibly carefully and kept so incredibly still that even the tiniest and earliest shake of an earthquake can show up dramatically […]
Puerto Rico’s Arecibo radio telescope suffers serious damage
[ad_1] Unfortunately, this is not the first setback Arecibo has endured. It faced dire financial trouble in 2008 and again in 2016. Then, like much of Puerto Rico, the observatory suffered significant damage during Hurricane Maria. Things seemed to be turning around in 2018 when a group led by UCF took over operations from the […]
Code compiler pioneer Frances Allen dies at 88
[ad_1] Allen was also instrumental to advancing women in technology. Apart from being one of the relatively few women participating in early work on computers (she joined IBM as a code instructor in 1957), she made a point to support women and served as a mentor. Half the experimental compiler group at IBM was made […]