PUBLIC RELEASE: 2-JUL-2018 DURHAM UNIVERSITY Uranus was hit by a massive object roughly twice the size of Earth that caused the planet to tilt and could explain its freezing temperatures, according to new research. Astronomers at Durham University, UK, led an international team of experts to investigate how Uranus came to be tilted on its…
Public Release: 28-Jun-2018 Research into spin dynamics suggests they have regular seasons and stable climates Georgia Institute of Technology IMAGE: The artist’s depiction of Kepler-186f. Credit: Image credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle A new study from the Georgia Institute of Technology provides new clues indicating that an exoplanet 500 light-years away is much like Earth.…
Public Release: 27-Jun-2018 Hardy organisms threaten interplanetary contamination University of Houston In professor George Fox’s lab at the University of Houston, scientists are studying Earth germs that could be contaminating other planets. Despite extreme decontamination efforts, bacterial spores from Earth still manage to find their way into outer space aboard spacecraft. Fox and his team…
Public Release: 14-Jun-2018 Los Alamos National Laboratory and the US Army working on a replacement for toxic TNT DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory IMAGE: Oxadiazole has a calculated detonation pressure 50 percent higher than that of TNT. Credit: LANL LOS ALAMOS, N.M., June 14, 2018–Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory…
Public Release: 13-Jun-2018 Software developed at the University of Bonn can accurately predict future actions University of Bonn IMAGE: This is Prof. Jürgen Gall (right) and Yazan Abu Farha from the Institute of Computer Science at the University of Bonn. Credit: © Foto: Barbara Frommann/Uni Bonn Computer scientists from the University of Bonn have developed…
Public Release: 31-May-2018 Stanford University Stanford and Seoul National University researchers have developed an artificial sensory nerve system that can activate the twitch reflex in a cockroach and identify letters in the Braille alphabet. The work, reported May 31 in Science, is a step toward creating artificial skin for prosthetic limbs, to restore sensation to…
Public Release: 30-May-2018 Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo Tokyo – The new field of biohybrid robotics involves the use of living tissue within robots, rather than just metal and plastic. Muscle is one potential key component of such robots, providing the driving force for movement and function. However, in efforts to…
Public Release: 13-May-2018 Durham University A Multiverse – where our Universe is only one of many – might not be as inhospitable to life as previously thought, according to new research. Questions about whether other universes might exist as part of a larger Multiverse, and if they could harbour life, are burning issues in modern…
PUBLIC RELEASE: 10-MAY-2018 FontCode embeds hidden information in ordinary text by imperceptibly changing the shapes of fonts in text. Method could prevent document tampering, protect copyrights, and embed QR codes and other metadata without altering the look or layout of a document COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE CAPTION Someone using FontCode would…
Public Release: 2-May-2018 Yale University IMAGE: Yale physicists looked for a signature of a discrete time crystal within a crystal of monoammonium phosphate. Credit: Michael Marsland/Yale University New Haven, Conn. – Yale physicists have uncovered hints of a time crystal — a form of matter that “ticks” when exposed to an electromagnetic pulse —…
Public Release: 25-Apr-2018 The elusive quantum mechanical phenomenon of entanglement has now been made a reality in objects almost macroscopic in size Aalto University Caption This is an illustration of the 15-micrometre-wide drumheads prepared on silicon chips used in the experiment. The drumheads vibrate at a high ultrasound frequency, and the peculiar quantum state predicted…
Public Release: 24-Apr-2018 RAND Corporation A new RAND Corporation paper finds that artificial intelligence has the potential to upend the foundations of nuclear deterrence by the year 2040. While AI-controlled doomsday machines are considered unlikely, the hazards of artificial intelligence for nuclear security lie instead in its potential to encourage humans to take potentially…
Public Release: 10-Apr-2018 FECYT – Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology IMAGE: Inside the Occator crater of the dwarf planet Ceres appears a strange structure, looking like a square inside a triangle. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech A well-known experiment with young people bouncing a ball showed that when an observer focuses on counting the passes,…
Public Release: 13-Mar-2018 Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology IMAGE: This is an image of asteroid destruction. A large team of Russian researchers from Rosatom, joined by three MIPT physicists, has modeled the impact of a nuclear explosion on an Earth-threatening asteroid. They manufactured miniature asteroids and blasted them with a laser. The modeling technique…
Public Release: 7-Mar-2018 First look at Jupiter’s poles show strange geometric arrays of storms University of Chicago Caption Five massive storms form a pentagon around a storm at the center of Jupiter’s south pole-the first look we’ve ever gotten at the gas giant’s poles, and a scientific mystery. Credit: NASA/SWRI/JPL/ASI/INAF/IAPS Jupiter’s got no…
