Science
fromwww.scientificamerican.com
1 hour agoInside NASA's audacious plan to save a doomed space telescope
NASA's Swift Observatory faces orbital decline but aims to extend its mission with a robotic intervention to boost its altitude.
Researchers have resurrected 'dead' bacterial cells by replacing their defunct DNA with the working genome of another species. This technique could open the door to re-engineered microbial life imbued with useful properties, such as the ability to make drugs or biofuels.
"We are building qualification panels to send to our first customers that will demonstrate that these two dimensional photovoltaics have the efficiency and the durability to survive space," Shearer said. "We're going to prove that out at a larger scale over this next year, and in doing so, we are refining the processes necessary to make every single layer of our photovoltaic to produce these in a roll to roll fashion."
"In his journey from the front lines to the emergency room to the stars, he has found purpose in being a part of something larger than himself - and he has shown a determination to leave the world better than he found it."
Fusion power seeks to use the energy released from the fusing of atoms to generate electricity. Humans have known how to fuse atoms for decades, from the hydrogen bomb to various fusion devices built in labs.
The body of the robotic fingers is built from polyglycerol sebacate, a synthetic elastomer made from glycerol and sebacic acid. Glycerol is a byproduct of biodiesel production while sebacic acid is derived from castor oil, and both of them are plant-based. Polyglycerol sebacate is safe since it is already used in medical implants because the body can absorb it without a toxic response.
Faltings was awarded the prize for work proving central results in the theory of algebraic equations linking whole numbers together. The prize highlights Faltings's work in 1983 on the theory of Diophantine equations, which are equations involving sums and powers of unknown numbers for which the solutions have to be rational - meaning they can be written as a fraction of two whole numbers, or integers.
On February 28, ships navigating the Strait of Hormuz started appearing on tracking screens in places they couldn't possibly be. They appeared to be sitting on airport runways, parked on Iranian land, and clustered at nuclear power plants. More than 1,100 commercial vessels had their navigation systems scrambled in a single day following US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran, bringing a waterway that handles a fifth of the world's oil exports to a halt.
The aurora borealis is the result of a geomagnetic storm that occurs when a coronal mass ejection (CME), an eruption of solar material, reaches Earth and causes swaths of green, blue, and purple colors to appear in the dark sky. We are currently seeing increased solar activity as the result of an 11-year sun cycle peak.