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Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, has features that resemble Earth’s geology, with deep, steep-sided canyons. Credit: Cassini/NASA/JPL

Although Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is surrounded by a thick, hazy atmosphere, Cornell astronomers have revealed that the moon’s terrain features deep, steep-sided canyons filled with liquid hydrocarbons. While NASA’s Cassini mission previously had imaged the channels flowing into the large northern sea Ligeia Mare, the new observations used the Cassini radar’s altimetry mode to measure their topography. The surprising results showed canyons hundreds of feet deep featuring specular reflections from the channel floors, the first direct evidence that they are currently filled with liquid.

“Earth is warm and rocky, with rivers of water, while Titan is cold and ...

The first transplantation of stem cells in patients with Parkinson’s disease is almost within reach. However, it remains a challenge for researchers to control stem cells accurately in the lab in order to achieve successful and functional stem cell therapies for patients. “In our preclinical assessments of stem cell-derived dopamine neurons we noticed that the outcome in animal models varied dramatically, even though the cells were very similar at the time of transplantation. This has been frustrating and puzzling, and has significantly delayed the establishment of clinical cell production protocols,” says Malin Parmar, who led the study conducted at Lund University as part of the EU network NeuroStemcellRepair.

The Lund experiments use modern global gene expression studies to better unde...

Robert Wolkow, University of Alberta physics professor and the Principal Research Officer at Canada’s National Institute for Nanotechnology, has developed a technique to switch a single-atom channel. Credit: John Ulan

Robert Wolkow, a pioneer in atomic-scale science with a Guinness World Record to boot (for a needle with a single atom at the point), and Max Plank Institute in Hamburg, have just released findings that detail how to create atomic switches for electricity, many times smaller than what is currently used. With applications for practical systems like silicon semi-conductor electronics, it means smaller, more efficient, more energy-conserving computers, as just one example of the technology revolution that is unfolding right before our very eyes (if you can squint that hard).

“Th...

The MMS satellites encounter a shock wave that forms when a fast wind of charged particles from the Sun slams into Earth’s magnetic field. Credit: APS/Carin Cain

In a new study researchers at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics have used measurements from NASA’s MMS (Magnetospheric MultiScale) satellites to reveal that there are ripples, or surface waves, moving along the surface of shocks in space. Such ripples in shocks can affect how plasma is heated and are potential sites of particle acceleration.

Most visible matter in the Universe consists of ionized gas known as plasma. Shock waves in plasmas form around planets, stars and supernovas. Shocks in supernova explosions are thought to be the main source of cosmic rays – very high energy charged particles from space...