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Spaceflight could change how astronauts swallow, eat and drink in subtle ways

Keeping your food from floating away in space is only half the battle. NASA via Getty Images

Imagine trying to swallow a sip of water while your face feels stuffed with congestion, your sense of taste is dulled and your body is floating 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth.

That scenario is part of everyday life for astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

Spaceflight changes the human body in dramatic ways. Muscles shrink, bones lose density and bodily fluids shift toward the head. Astronauts often return with puffy faces, stuffy noses and a feeling similar to a lingering cold. When you’re congested, you might have more difficulty swallowing—but does microgravity also affect this important body function?

As a speech-language pathologist and researcher who studi...

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How quantum circuits based on neutral atoms could find and fix errors

Quantum computers, devices that process information by leveraging the laws of quantum mechanics, have been found to outperform classical computers in some advanced tasks. Instead of storing information in the form of classical binary bits (i.e., 0 or 1), quantum computers rely on quantum bits (i.e., qubits), which can also exist in combinations of 0 and 1 states.

Despite their potential, quantum computers are known to be highly prone to errors. This is because qubits are very sensitive to heat, magnetic fields and other changes in their surroundings, which can disrupt the delicate quantum states they rely on to store and process data.

Researchers at Princeton University recently introduced a new approach for developing quantum computers that make fewer errors and whose errors ar...

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In search of life beyond our solar system: Atmosphere detected on a habitable-zone rocky world

First atmosphere detected on a habitable-zone rocky world
In this artist’s concept, the exoplanet LHS 1140 b is shown in the foreground, surrounded by a helium-rich atmosphere. Another nearby rocky planet orbits the same cool red dwarf star in the distance. A new study provides the strongest evidence yet that LHS 1140 b has retained an atmosphere, representing a milestone step toward the discovery of Earth-like rocky planets beyond our solar system. Credit: Melissa Weiss/CfA

In a major milestone in the search for life on other planets, astronomers have detected, for the first time, an atmosphere surrounding an Earth-like, rocky planet orbiting within the habitable zone of another star...

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Physicists say quantum mechanics may not need imaginary numbers after all

Physicists from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) have examined a fundamental property of quantum mechanics in collaboration with the German Aerospace Center (DLR). In the scientific journal Physical Review Letters, they show that this theory does not necessarily need to be formulated with imaginary numbers – real numbers can in fact also be used.

Quantum mechanics is the branch of physics that explains how matter and energy behave at the atomic and subatomic scale. Developed in the early 1900s by pioneers including Max Planck, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrödinger, it has become one of the most successful scientific theories ever created.

The theory accurately describes a wide range of microscopic phenomena...

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