Science

A team of researchers from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of British Columbia, Canada, has tackled the question ‘what causes the slow accelerating expansion of the Universe’ in a study that tries to resolve a major incompatibility issue between two theories: quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory …

For the first time, physicists have succeeded in observing and studying in detail the hydrogen bonds in a single molecule. Quantitative measurements of the C?O***H–C bond: (A) schematic drawing of the hydrogen bonding measurement on trifluorantheno[3.3.3]propellane with a CO-functionalized tip; right shows the AFM image. Scale bar – 300 pm; …

A team of scientists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has identified the cells that directly give rise to hair as well as the mechanism that causes hair to turn gray. The research is published in the journal Genes Development. Layers of the skin. Image credit: M.Komorniczak / …

Particle accelerators can fire all kinds of particles, from protons to electrons and even whole atomic nuclei — and now an enormous linear photon accelerator is about to join the mix. Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) has been working for years toward this single monumental achievement: It’s about to fire up the world’s …

Scientists have been speculating about what we would find in the space between Saturn and its innermost rings, and the Cassini probe is finally putting those hypotheses to the test. A recent course correction has sent the spacecraft skimming along the clouds of Saturn, and the team has found this previously …

Cassini has entered its stately death spiral, and the images it’s beaming back from Saturn are second to none. As it starts the Grand Finale, Cassini is taking a long, intense burst of observations designed to beam back as much data from Saturn as we can possibly scrape up, including …

SpaceX unveiled plans for the massive Falcon Heavy (previously known as the Falcon 9 Heavy) in 2011 after completing several successful launches of the Falcon 9. The rocket has been inching closer to completion ever since, and now SpaceX has successfully tested the Falcon heavy’s core rocket module in a …

Jupiter’s moon Io would be a terrible place to visit, with active volcanoes and planes of sulfur-dioxide frost. Of course, that distinctive environment is also what makes it so interesting to study. A recent conjunction within the Jovian system provided astronomers with a unique opportunity to learn more about Io’s …

Buzz Aldrin wants NASA to privatize LEO and retire the ISS. At the 2017 Humans to Mars conference, according to Space.com, Aldrin remarked that “We must retire the ISS as soon as possible…We simply cannot afford $3.5 billion a year of that cost.” Aldrin’s plan for Mars is heavily dependent …

Even a small scrape or cut could lead to a life-threatening infection before antibiotics, but these compounds have been getting less effective as bacteria evolve to combat the threat. The search for new drugs has been slow, though now there may be a way to modify existing drugs to be …