/ en-us Â鶹ÒùÔº internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Â鶹ÒùÔºics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. The complex 3D shapes of brains, lungs, eyes, hands, and other vital bodily structures emerge from the way in which flat 2D sheets of cells fold during embryonic development. Now, researchers at Columbia Engineering have developed a novel way to use light to influence an animal's own proteins in order to control folding in live embryos. /news/2025-08-tissue-origami.html Biotechnology Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 21 Aug 2025 09:02:08 EDT news674985716 The ancient Japanese art of paper-folding, or origami, is already inspiring the design of the next generation of space vehicles, but now there's a new family of origami shapes that could make them even more compact and reliable. /news/2025-08-spacecraft-boost-origami-patterns.html Space Exploration Thu, 21 Aug 2025 07:00:01 EDT news674915930 Exoplanet habitability depends on a whole host of factors, with liquid water at the top of the list. It also requires a stable atmosphere, the right chemistry, and possibly even things like plate tectonics or other geological activity. Planetary magnetic fields are a critical part of the formula, too, but detecting them from Earth's surface is difficult. /news/2025-08-exoplanet-magnetic-fields-moon.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 19 Aug 2025 15:53:04 EDT news674837582 For decades, researchers around the world have searched for alternatives to iridium, an extremely rare, incredibly expensive metal used in the production of clean hydrogen fuels. /news/2025-08-hydrogen-iridium-problem-afternoon-megalibrary.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Tue, 19 Aug 2025 13:29:22 EDT news674828952 Solitonic waves—waves that keep their shape and direction of motion for a long time—have intrigued physicists for almost two centuries. In real-world circumstances, these waves eventually die out due to energy loss. A team of UvA physicists have now discovered how a particular type of interaction can be used to create very stable solitons, even in circumstances where energy is not conserved. /news/2025-08-physicists-stable-solitons-energy.html Condensed Matter Tue, 19 Aug 2025 10:33:04 EDT news674818381 In a bold, strategic move for the U.S., acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy announced plans on Aug. 5, 2025, to build a nuclear fission reactor for deployment on the lunar surface in 2030. Doing so would allow the United States to gain a foothold on the moon by the time China plans to land the first taikonaut, what China calls its astronauts, there by 2030. /news/2025-08-nasa-nuclear-reactor-moon-tricky.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Mon, 18 Aug 2025 13:00:01 EDT news674737754 Representatives at the recent United Nations conference in Geneva have once again failed to negotiate a binding global treaty to tackle plastic pollution. The Switzerland gathering was the sixth round of talks in less than three years and was held after countries failed to reach agreement at a 2024 meeting in South Korea. Chair of the negotiating committee, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, said countries will now work on finding a date and location for another meeting. /news/2025-08-global-plastics-treaty-stall-cleanup.html Environment Mon, 18 Aug 2025 11:50:04 EDT news674733218 For millennia, developing resilient crops relied on pollination by nature or humans—making the process long and often costly. Now, scientists from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (IGDB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have reimagined the pollination process by developing a new system that uses gene editing to create flowers that can be easily pollinated by AI-controlled robots working round the clock. /news/2025-08-redesigned-robots-gene-ai-faster.html Biotechnology Agriculture Fri, 15 Aug 2025 10:34:28 EDT news674472860 Farmers might be able to get help tending and harvesting crops using a new sensing technology from Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute (RI). Researchers have invented a tool called SonicBoom that can find crops like apples based on the sound they make. The novel technology, still in the early stages of development, may someday be used by farm robots for tasks like pruning vines or locating ripe apples hidden among the leaves. /news/2025-08-agricultural-sensor-crops-vibrations-alternative.html Biotechnology Agriculture Thu, 14 Aug 2025 16:23:04 EDT news674407382 In the not-too-distant future, the search for signs of life on Mars and the moon could see the next generation of robots exploring a new frontier: subsurface lava tubes. These missions could also help us determine the best locations for establishing human bases. /news/2025-08-robots-team-explore-planetary-lava.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Thu, 14 Aug 2025 11:50:01 EDT news674387372 Scrolling through social media, you may have dallied on reels of Leonardo DiCaprio dancing or Tom Cruise crooning, only to realize they're spoofs created with artificial intelligence. Hyper-realistic videos and images like these—also called deepfakes—are notorious for celebrity pranking. But the technology has serious scientific applications, too. In the field of ecology, for example, AI doppelgängers of rare species could improve efforts to understand, monitor and protect them. /news/2025-08-deepfake-whales-key-tool.html Ecology Biotechnology Wed, 13 Aug 2025 15:49:49 EDT news674318977 Weaver ants have solved a problem that has plagued human teams for centuries: individuals contribute less to tasks when more people join in. New research published in Current Biology on 12 August shows individual weaver ants instead get stronger as their group grows. /news/2025-08-weaver-ants-reveal-secrets-superefficient.html Biotechnology Molecular & Computational biology Tue, 12 Aug 2025 11:50:01 EDT news674217811 Chinese scientists have developed a remarkable machine that could revolutionize how humans build structures on the moon. The device works like a 3D printer powered by concentrated sunlight, turning lunar soil (known as regolith) into strong construction bricks without needing any materials from Earth. /news/2025-08-solar-powered-moon-brick-factory.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 07 Aug 2025 12:50:01 EDT news673789205 Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and their collaborators have created a new class of programmable soft materials that can absorb impacts like never before, while also changing shape when heated. /news/2025-08-programmable-soft-material-absorbs-energy.html Polymers Analytical Chemistry Thu, 07 Aug 2025 12:30:22 EDT news673788615 How can a horde of active robots be automatically brought to a standstill? By arresting their dynamics in a self-sustained way. This phenomenon was discovered by physicists at Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf (HHU) and La Sapienza University in Rome. The threshold principle of static friction with the ground plays a decisive role here: it removes the kinetic energy of two robots after a mutual collision so efficiently that they can no longer set themselves in motion. /news/2025-08-friction-cools-threshold-effects-enable.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Soft Matter Wed, 06 Aug 2025 12:10:04 EDT news673700769 MBARI researchers have developed an innovative imaging system that can be deployed at great depths underwater to study the movement of marine life. The team used the system to study deep-sea octopus and shared their findings in the journal Nature. /news/2025-08-high-resolution-imaging-captures-3d.html Plants & Animals Ecology Wed, 06 Aug 2025 11:00:11 EDT news673602841 NASA's SpaceX Crew-10 mission with agency astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov is preparing to return to Earth in early August after a long-duration mission aboard the International Space Station. During their stay, McClain, Ayers, and Onishi completed dozens of experiments and technology demonstrations, helping push the boundaries of scientific discovery aboard the orbiting laboratory. /news/2025-08-nasa-spacex-crew-science-mission.html Space Exploration Wed, 06 Aug 2025 09:47:06 EDT news673692421 A robot crab has helped scientists understand how male fiddler crabs compete over females. /news/2025-08-wavy-dave-robot-crab-reveals.html Plants & Animals Biotechnology Tue, 05 Aug 2025 19:10:02 EDT news673515781 Transparent-faced fish drift through dusky waters. Snowlike flecks of dead plants sift down from the world above. Soft sponges peek through the soot of the seafloor. Only occasional mutters among marine biologists break the thick silence. /news/2025-08-livestream-deep-sea-creatures-transfixes.html Ecology Tue, 05 Aug 2025 15:39:48 EDT news673627175 Research shows that while connections between innovations speed discovery, they also sharply increase the risk of total system collapse—with the sweet spot for sustainable innovation proving surprisingly narrow. /news/2025-08-scientists-limit-networks-collapse.html Mathematics Economics & Business Tue, 05 Aug 2025 12:41:05 EDT news673616462 NASA's Lunar Trailblazer ended its mission to the moon on July 31. Despite extensive efforts, mission operators were unable to establish two-way communications after losing contact with the spacecraft the day following its Feb. 26 launch. /news/2025-08-nasa-lunar-trailblazer-moon-mission.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Tue, 05 Aug 2025 09:40:03 EDT news673605601 Thirteen years after Curiosity landed on Mars, engineers are finding ways to make the NASA rover even more productive. The six-wheeled robot has been given more autonomy and the ability to multitask—improvements designed to make the most of Curiosity's energy source, a multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG). Increased efficiency means the rover has ample power as it continues to decipher how the ancient Martian climate changed, transforming a world of lakes and rivers into the chilly desert it is today. /news/2025-08-years-mars-nasa-curiosity-skills.html Space Exploration Mon, 04 Aug 2025 16:10:35 EDT news673542629 While NASA maintains the lead in human space exploration, other nations have already begun their own projects. Take the China National Space Agency, for example, with their CLEP, or Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. If you have any doubts about the objectives of the program, just check out their logo: a stylized crescent moon with two footprints in the middle. /news/2025-08-china-meteoric-space.html Space Exploration Mon, 04 Aug 2025 10:40:02 EDT news673519136 Researchers at The University of Manchester's National Graphene Institute have developed a new class of programmable nanofluidic memristors that mimic the memory functions of the human brain, paving the way for next-generation neuromorphic computing. /news/2025-08-programmable-2d-nanochannels-brain-memory.html Bio & Medicine Nanomaterials Mon, 04 Aug 2025 10:00:07 EDT news673518362 The United States and China aren't the only powerful, wealthy nations in the world, and they're certainly not the only nations active in space. For example, there are the Russians, who are…kind of distracted at the moment, so for our purposes there really isn't much to talk about there. /news/2025-08-global-space-isnt-big-countries.html Space Exploration Mon, 04 Aug 2025 09:31:03 EDT news673518661 Summer is popularly imagined as bringing joy to all young people. Yet it is not an equal break or of the same quality for all students. /news/2025-08-accessible-high-quality-summer-black.html Social Sciences Education Sun, 03 Aug 2025 13:10:01 EDT news673261266 A robot explores the dark, cold, deep sea floor of the South Atlantic, transmitting images of vibrant coral and fish never seen before as scientists give live commentary via YouTube. And Argentines can't get enough of it. /news/2025-08-patrick-star-queen-crab-underwater.html Plants & Animals Ecology Sun, 03 Aug 2025 10:09:52 EDT news673434580 Microrobots formed in droplets could enable precision-targeted drug delivery, improving on I.V. drug delivery that sends only 0.7% of the drug to the target tissue, according to a recent study in Science Advances, conducted through simulations at the University of Michigan and experiments at the University of Oxford. /news/2025-07-microrobots-drugs-drug-delivery.html Bio & Medicine Nanomaterials Thu, 31 Jul 2025 15:57:13 EDT news673196227 When you're on a camping trip, you might have to pack your own food and maybe something to filter or treat water that you find. But imagine your campsite is in space, where there's no water, and packing jugs of water would take up room when every inch of cargo space counts. That's a key challenge engineers faced when designing the International Space Station. /news/2025-07-recycling-paramount-space-stations-duration.html Space Exploration Wed, 30 Jul 2025 13:39:04 EDT news673101542 School of Â鶹ÒùÔºics Associate Professor Elisabetta Matsumoto is unearthing the secrets of the centuries-old practice of knitting through experiments, models, and simulations. Her goal? Leveraging knitting for breakthroughs in advanced manufacturing—including more sustainable textiles, wearable electronics, and soft robotics. /news/2025-07-strength-physics-stiff-fabrics.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Soft Matter Wed, 30 Jul 2025 11:46:04 EDT news673094761