When the Artemis program returns humans to the Moon in (hopefully) a few years’ time, there are considerable logistics that need to be addressed for keeping such fragile beings alive in such a hostile environment. Not least is the issue of food. Space agencies involved in the International Space Station are very experienced, by now, … Read more
What’s in a star? Well, if you’re a highly evolved specimen nearing the end of its life named HD 222925, rather a heck of a lot, actually. Scientists have conducted an analysis of this dim object, and identified 65 separate elements. That’s the most elements ever found in a single object outside the Solar System, … Read more
Over 120 million laboratory rats and mice are used worldwide each year. Many are used to study distressing conditions like cancer, arthritis and chronic pain, and nearly all spend their lives in small, empty box-like cages: a kind of permanent lockdown. Our new analysis shows that this restrictive, artificial housing causes rats and mice to … Read more
In a ghastly vision of a future cut off from sunlight, the machine overloads in the Matrix movie series turned to sleeping human bodies as sources of electricity. If they’d had sunlight, algae would undoubtedly have been the better choice. Engineers from the University of Cambridge in the UK have run a microprocessor for more … Read more
Scientists have momentarily restored a faint twinkle of life to dying cells in the human eye. In order to better understand the way nerve cells succumb to a lack of oxygen, a team of US researchers measured activity in mouse and human retinal cells soon after their death. Amazingly, with a few tweaks to the … Read more
The brief, yet colossal eruption of a dead star undergoing a nova explosion has been captured by one of the most powerful X-ray instruments in space. The joint German-Russian eROSITA telescope, aboard the Spektr-RG space observatory in the L2 Lagrange point (yes, Webb’s home), caught for the first time what is known as the ‘fireball’ … Read more
All four science instruments on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have achieved “perfect alignment” in advance of the telescope’s official debut this summer, project officials said in a news teleconference on Monday (May 9). “I’m delighted to report that the telescope alignment has been completed with performance even better than we had anticipated,” Michael McElwain, … Read more
The Antarctic ice is finding its secrets harder and harder to keep. Deep below the ice of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, the largest ice sheet in the world, scientists have confirmed the existence of a huge lake of liquid water. Researchers have named it Lake Snow Eagle, and believe that sediments within it could … Read more
The oceans that surround us are transforming. As our climate changes, the world’s waters are shifting too, with abnormalities evident not only in the ocean’s temperature, but also its structure, currents, and even its color. As these changes manifest, the usually stable environment of the ocean is becoming more unpredictable and erratic, and in some … Read more
An experimental drug being clinically investigated for its effects on body weight in obese and overweight people has delivered record-breaking weight loss for participants in the trial – on par with surgical options, the company behind the drug suggests. Tirzepatide, developed by American pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly), is a once-weekly injection that … Read more