Machines Like Us – Science News

New observations from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter indicate that the crust and upper mantle of Mars are stiffer and colder than previously thought.

MIT engineers have improved the power output of one type of fuel cell by more than 50 percent through technology that could help these environmentally friendly energy storage devices find a much broader market, particularly in portable electronics.

Physicists at Penn State have provided a mechanism by which information can be recovered from black holes, those regions of space where gravity is so strong that, according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, not even light can escape. The team's findings pave the way toward ending a decades-long debate sparked by renowned physicist Steven Hawking.

The efficiency improvement is achieved by the use of an ultra-thin aluminum oxide layer at the front of the cell, and it brings a breakthrough in the use of solar energy a step closer.

Venus Express has detected the molecule hydroxyl on another planet for the first time. This detection gives scientists an important new tool to unlock the workings of Venus’s dense atmosphere.

Plants have an ambivalent relationship with light. They need it to live, but too much light leads to the increased production of high-energy chemical intermediates that can injure or kill the plant. The intermediates do this because the efficient conversion of sunlight into chemical energy cannot keep up with sunlight streaming into the plant. "The intermediates don’t have anywhere to go because the system is jammed up down the line," says ASU chemist Devens Gust.

Brian Cox talks about his work on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Discussing the biggest of big science in an engaging, accessible way, Cox brings us along on a tour of the massive complex and describes his part in it -- and the vital role it's going to play in understanding our universe.

Berkeley Bionics™, designs and manufactures lower extremity exoskeletons to augment human strength and endurance during locomotion. Berkeley Bionics exoskeletons increase wearer's strength while decreasing their metabolic cost of walking.

The futuristic epic 2001: A Space Odyssey influenced many to fall in love with the limitless possibilities of space exploration. The movie sparked imaginations and provided a realistic preview of what our future in space might look like.

The future of nuclear physics is in designer isotopes -- the relatively new power scientists have to make specific rare isotopes to solve scientific problems and open doors to new technologies, according to Bradley Sherrill, a University Distinguished Professor of physics and associate director for research at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University.

Applied scientists at Harvard University in collaboration with researchers from the German universities of Jena, Gottingen, and Bremen, have developed a new technique for fabricating nanowire photonic and electronic integrated circuits that may one day be suitable for high-volume commercial production.

Astronomy & Astrophysics is publishing the discovery by Dutch and German astronomers of a filament of tenuous hot gas connecting two clusters of galaxies. The existence of this hot gas (with a temperature of 100,000 - 10,000,000 degrees), known as a warm-hot intergalactic medium, was predicted 10 years ago as a possible source for the missing dark matter.

The day may be getting a little closer when robots will perform surgery on patients in dangerous situations or in remote locations, such as on the battlefield or in space, with minimal human guidance.

The sun’s movement through the Milky Way regularly sends comets hurtling into the inner solar system -- coinciding with mass life extinctions on earth, a new study claims.

For many adults over the age of 30, the former groupings of letters would seem incoherent, but for a newer generation of technologically-savvy young adults it can say a lot.