Science

A team of researchers from the Department of Applied Physics at Aalto University in Finland has invented a quantum-circuit refrigerator, which can reduce errors in quantum computing. Photo of the centimeter-sized silicon chip, which has two parallel superconducting oscillators and the quantum-circuit refrigerators connected to them. Image credit: Kuan Yen …

According to a new study published today in the journal Cell, the enterococci — gram-positive aerobic bacteria and a leading cause of hospital-acquired infections — arose from an ancestor that dates back 450 million years (Ordovician period), about the time when animals were first crawling onto land. This digitally-colorized scanning …

NASA’s Cassini orbiter watched bright, feathery clouds of methane moving across the northern regions of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, on May 7, 2017. This image was taken on May 7, 2017, at a distance of 316,000 miles (508,000 km). The view is an orthographic projection centered on 57 …

A new movie sequence of images from Cassini shows the view as the orbiter swooped over Saturn during the first of its ‘Grand Finale’ dives between the gas giant and its rings on April 26, 2017. As Cassini made its first-ever dive through the gap between Saturn and its rings …

An international team of researchers has found and re-described a species of monitor lizard, Varanus douarrha, from the island of New Ireland in the Bismarck Archipelago, northeast of Papua New Guinea. Varanus douarrha. Image credit: Valter Weijola. Varanus douarrha was described from a single specimen obtained by French naturalist René …

Exomoons around migrant hot Jupiters could hold onto life-giving atmospheres and maintain surface oceans for billions and billions of years. This is the conclusion of a paper from the University of Washington modeling the impact of inward migrating gas giants on their frozen moons. According Lehmer et al, moons around …

In a study published recently in the journal PLOS Biology, neuroscientists identified three gut bacteria species — Acetobacter pomorum, Lactobacillus plantarum and L. brevis — that have an impact on animal dietary decisions. According to Leitao-Goncalves et al, gut bacteria control food choice and egg laying in Drosophila melanogaster. Image …

Albert Einstein has gone down in history as a rebel with his tongue stuck out, an intellectual who would not be distracted from his quest for greatness. It’s easy to equate unswerving intellectualism with genius, but are they really the same? There’s more to the great thinker than just his …

A multi-institutional team of researchers from China and the United States has sequenced the genome of the cultivated tea tree (Camellia sinensis). A tea tree plantation in Kerala, India. Image credit: Rajib Ghosh. Socially and habitually consumed by more than 3 billion people across 160 countries, tea is the world’s …

On April 26, 2017, NASA’s Cassini orbiter made its first ‘Grand Finale’ dive through the previously unexplored gap between Saturn and its rings. An analysis of data collected by Cassini’s Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument shows that this dive was nearly particle free. The unexpected finding that the …