Latest Articles
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Jul- 2021 -4 JulySpace
Europa volcanism & interior heating modeled in detail, offers research targets for upcoming missions
Jupiter’s moon Europa is believed to have a global ocean of salty water underneath an icy crust, making Europa a prime target in the search for extraterrestrial life. The habitability of Europa’s ocean depends mainly on heat sources from the deep interior. Thus, the possibility of volcanic activity on Europa has been an issue of great interest for years. In comparison, another moon of Jupiter, Io, is known for having active volcanoes and expelling volcanic gases and dust. In Europa’s case, any existing magmatic activity from volcanoes would be on the seafloor rather than on the surface. Marie Běhounková of…
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4 JulyScience-Tech
A Crystal Made Exclusively of Electrons – “Holy Grail” Wigner Crystals Observed for First Time
Researchers at ETH Zurich have succeeded in observing a crystal that consists only of electrons. Such Wigner crystals were already predicted almost ninety years ago but could only now be observed directly in a semiconductor material. Crystals have fascinated people through the ages. Who hasn’t admired the complex patterns of a snowflake at some point, or the perfectly symmetrical surfaces of a rock crystal? The magic doesn’t stop even if one knows that all this results from a simple interplay of attraction and repulsion between atoms and electrons. A team of researchers led by Ataç Imamoğlu, professor at the Institute…
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4 JulyComets
Newly found mega comet may be the largest seen in recorded history heading towards the sun, to reach in 2031
A huge comet so large it’s classified as a “minor planet” has been spotted beyond Uranus coming into the inner Solar System for a once-in 600,000-years visit. Thought to be a rare long-period comet visiting from as far as half a light-year away, C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein)—hence be known as Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein—is an incredible find and sure to be a major talking point in astronomy until its closest approach in 2031. Here’s all we currently know about the “comet of the decade:” Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein described It’s a huge object first discovered about 29 astronomical units (AU) away from the Sun in our…
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3 JulyScience-Tech
Engineering Breakthrough Paves Way for Chip Components That Could Serve As Both RAM and ROM
Year after year, the explosive growth of computing power relies on manufacturers’ ability to fit more and more components into the same amount of space on a silicon chip. That progress, however, is now approaching the limits of the laws of physics, and new materials are being explored as potential replacements for the silicon semiconductors long at the heart of the computer industry. New materials may also enable entirely new paradigms for individual chip components and their overall design. One long-promised advance is the ferroelectric field-effect transistor, or FE-FET. Such devices could switch states rapidly enough to perform computation, but…
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3 JulyScience Mysteries
How cancer cells eats each other to survive
Can you imagine being so desperate for food that you would eat yourself to survive? Most people can’t but our cells do exactly this. When cells are deprived of energy and nutrients from their external environment, they look internally, packaging up and consuming their own components to survive until an energy source becomes available. Once a food or nutrient source is available, cells are able to replace these components. This cellular process is called autophagy, from “auto-” the Greek word for self and “phagein” meaning to eat. And cancer cells take advantage of this survival mechanism to evade some anti-cancer…
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