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Scientists Create Rice Grain-Sized Maser

This micromaser is a major step toward building quantum-computing systems out of semiconductor materials; a battery forces electrons to tunnel one by one through two double quantum dots located at each end of a cavity, moving from a higher energy level to a lower energy level and in the process giving off microwaves that build into a coherent beam of light. Image credit: Jason Petta.
Jan 16, 2015 by News Staff

A team of scientists led by Dr Jason Petta of Princeton University has built a rice grain-sized microwave laser, or maser, powered by single electrons tunneling through quantum dots – bits of semiconductor material that act like single atoms. This micromaser is a major step toward building quantum-computing systems out of semiconductor materials; a battery forces electrons to tunnel one by one through two double quantum dots located at each...

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Scientists Celebrate Ten Years since Cassini-Huygens Landing on Titan

Jan 16, 2015 by News Staff

Ten years ago, ESA’s Huygens probe entered the history books by descending to the surface of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. Humanity’s...

This is an artist's concept of NASA's New Horizons during its planned encounter with Pluto and its moon, Charon: the craft's miniature cameras, radio science experiment, ultraviolet and infrared spectrometers and space plasma experiments would characterize the global geology and geomorphology of Pluto and Charon, map their surface compositions and temperatures, and examine Pluto's atmosphere in detail; the spacecraft's most prominent design feature is a nearly 2.1-m dish antenna, through which it would communicate with Earth from as far as 7.5 billion km away. Image credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / JHUAPL / SwRI.

New Horizons Spacecraft Prepares for Pluto Flyby

Jan 16, 2015 by News Staff

NASA’s New Horizons is entering the first of several approach phases that culminate July 14 with the first close-up flyby of Pluto. This is an artist’s...

The marine defaunation experience is much less advanced, even though humans have been harvesting ocean wildlife for thousands of years; the recent industrialization of this harvest, however, initiated an era of intense marine wildlife declines. If left unmanaged, scientists predict that marine habitat alteration, along with climate change, will exacerbate marine defaunation. Image credit: Jenny Huang / CC BY 2.0.

Era of Intense Marine Wildlife Declines is Beginning, Scientists Say

Jan 16, 2015 by News Staff

A group of scientists led by Prof Douglas McCauley from the University of California, Santa Barbara, has found that the same patterns that led to the collapse...

Anthropocene: New Geological Epoch Began on July 16, 1945

Jan 16, 2015 by News Staff

Climate change, the loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change, and altered biogeochemical cycles like phosphorus and nitrogen runoff have all passed...

This image shows a bright feature interpreted as Beagle 2 with solar arrays at least partially deployed on the surface of Mars. The location is approximately 11.5 degrees north latitude, 90.4 degrees east latitude. The image is an excerpt from HiRISE observation ESP_039308_1915, taken December 15, 2014. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona / University of Leicester.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Finds Long-Lost Beagle-2

Jan 16, 2015 by News Staff

The unsuccessful Beagle 2 Mars lander, thought lost on Mars since 2003, has been found partially deployed on the surface of the planet in images taken...

Giant wallaby (Protemnodon anak). Image credit: Nobu Tamura / CC BY 3.0.

Scientists Extract DNA from 45,000-Year-Old Kangaroo, Wallaby

Jan 15, 2015 by News Staff

Australian researchers have managed to extract DNA from two extinct marsupials: a giant short-faced kangaroo (Simosthenurus occidentalis) and a giant wallaby...

Chondrules in meteorites are the remnants of early protoplanetary collisions, scientists say. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Meteorites are Byproducts, not Building Blocks

Jan 15, 2015 by News Staff

According to a team of scientists co-led by Prof Maria Zuber of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Prof Jay Melosh of Purdue University, meteorites...

Ant drinking nectar from the peristome of a Raffles' pitcher-plant (Nepenthes rafflesiana). Image credit: NepGrower / CC BY 2.5.

Carnivorous Pitcher Plants Use Clever Strategy to Lure Their Prey

Jan 14, 2015 by News Staff

Insect-eating plants of the genus Nepenthes temporarily switch off their traps in order to lure more prey into danger, according to a new study published...

Hot stars burn brightly in this image from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer, showing the UV side of a familiar face. At 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda galaxy is our Milky Way's largest galactic neighbor. The galaxy spans 260,000 light-years across. The bands of blue-white making up the galaxy's striking rings are neighborhoods that harbor hot, young, massive stars. Dark blue-grey lanes of cooler dust show up starkly against these bright rings, tracing the regions where star formation is currently taking place in dense cloudy cocoons. Eventually, these dusty lanes will be blown away by strong stellar winds, as the forming stars ignite nuclear fusion in their cores. Meanwhile, the central orange-white ball reveals a congregation of cooler, old stars that formed long ago. When observed in visible light, the galaxy’s rings look more like spiral arms. The UV image shows that these arms more closely resemble the ring-like structure previously observed in infrared wavelengths with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope; astronomers interpreted these rings as evidence that the galaxy was involved in a direct collision with its neighbor, Messier 32, more than 200 million years ago. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

New Study Reveals Turbulent History of Andromeda Galaxy

Jan 12, 2015 by News Staff

A study of the motions of different stellar populations in the Andromeda’s disk has revealed a violent history of mergers with dwarf galaxies in the...

A school of ichthyosaurs. Image credit: Dmitry Bogdanov / CC BY 3.0.

Dearcmhara shawcrossi: New Ichthyosaur Discovered in Scotland

Jan 12, 2015 by News Staff

A group of paleontologists headed by Dr Steve Brusatte of National Museums Scotland and the University of Edinburgh has discovered a new genus and species...

Fifteen moais of Ahu Tongariki. Image credit: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Researchers Shed New Light on Collapse of Easter Island Society

Jan 12, 2015 by News Staff

In a new study that challenges a leading hypothesis on the demise of Easter Island population, scientists led by Prof Thegn Ladefoged of the University...

Andromeda Galaxy. Image credit: NASA / ESA / University of Washington / PHAT team / J. Dalcanton / B. F. Williams / L. C. Johnson / R. Gendler.

Astronomers Snap Sharpest, Biggest Image Ever of Andromeda Galaxy

Jan 10, 2015 by News Staff

A team of astronomers using the Advanced Camera for Surveys on NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has obtained the sharpest image ever taken of our galactic...

Kampp 327: chapel with a carving of Osiris. Image credit: Paolo Bondielli / Min Project.

Ancient Replica of Osireion Unearthed in Egypt

Jan 10, 2015 by News Staff

Archaeologists from the Min Project have discovered an ancient reproduction of Osireion in Theban Necropolis, an area of the west bank of the Nile, opposite...

This image was obtained on 10 September 2007 by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, at a distance of approximately 3.3 million km from Saturn. Rhea - Saturn's second largest moon - is visible against the bluish backdrop of the planet's northern hemisphere. Mimas - Saturn's seventh largest moon - appears as a speck against the ring shadows on planet's western limb. Image credit: NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute.

Scientists Precisely Pinpoint Position of Saturn, its Moons

Jan 9, 2015 by News Staff

A team of researchers using NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and a ground-based radio-telescope system has accurately determined the center of mass, or...

This image shows the ancient globular cluster Terzan 5, home to PSR J1906+0746. Image credit: ESA / NASA/ Hubble.

Researchers Measure Space-Time Warp in Gravity of Binary Star

Jan 9, 2015 by News Staff

A team of astrophysicists headed by Dr Joeri van Leeuwen of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy and the University of Amsterdam has successfully...

Scientists analyzed DNA from ancient dog remains from more than a dozen sites in North and South America. This illustration shows a Canadian Eskimo Dog by John James Audubon and John Bachman (1845-1848).

Dogs Migrated to Americas only 10,000 Years Ago – Study

Jan 9, 2015 by News Staff

Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) arrived in the Americas only about 10,000 years ago, thousands of years after the first human migrants crossed the Bering...

This scanning electron micrograph shows macrophages infected with Bacillus anthracis (Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology)

Teixobactin: Powerful New Antibiotic Kills Drug-Resistant Bacteria

Jan 9, 2015 by News Staff

A group of researchers led by Prof Kim Lewis of Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, has discovered a new antibiotic that eliminates Methicillin-resistant...

This graphic shows how Hubble probed the light from the quasar PDS 456 to analyze the Fermi Bubbles. The quasar's light passed through one of the bubbles; imprinted on that light is information about the outflow's speed, composition, and eventually mass. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Field, STScI.

Astronomers Probe Milky Way’s Mysterious Fermi Bubbles

Jan 9, 2015 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have measured for the first time the velocity and composition of giant, balloon-like features known...

Eta Carinae's great eruption in the 1840s created the billowing Homunculus Nebula, imaged here by Hubble. Now about a light-year long, the expanding cloud contains enough material to make at least 10 copies of our Sun. Astronomers cannot yet explain what caused this eruption. Image credit: Jon Morse, University of Colorado / NASA.

Astronomers Zero in on Binary System Eta Carinae

Jan 8, 2015 by News Staff

Astronomers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, have produced the most comprehensive picture of Eta Carinae to date. Eta...

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