NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover Extracts First Oxygen from Red Planet

MOXIE Lowered into Rover: Technicians in the clean room are carefully lowering the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) instrument into the belly of the Perseverance rover. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The milestone, which the MOXIE instrument achieved by converting CO2 into O2, points the way to future human exploration of the Red Planet. The growing list of “firsts” for Perseverance, NASA’s newest six-wheeled robot on the Martian surface, includes converting some of the Red Planet’s thin, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere into oxygen. A toaster-size, experimental instrument aboard Perseverance called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) accomplished the task...

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Review summarizes known links between Endocrine Disruptors and Breast Cancer Risk

Exposure to certain endocrine-disrupting chemicals could elevate the risk of breast cancer, according to a new comprehensive systematic review of epidemiological research. However, for many chemicals, evidence is inconsistent or still limited. The review was carried out by researchers at the universities of Hong Kong and Eastern Finland and published in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition.

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) can interfere with the body’s hormonal system, also called the endocrine system, and are widely present in the environment. They originate from a variety of sources, including pesticides, plasticisers and other industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals, as well as natural sources...

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Boosting Fiber Optics Communications with Advanced Quantum-enhanced Receiver

Illustration showing how single-photon detection is used for feedback. Once correct parameters for the reference beam are established, the input state is extinguished. CREDIT: Ivan Burenkov

Technology could avert capacity crunch by enhancing bandwidth while reducing energy consumption. Fiber optic technology is the holy grail of high-speed, long-distance telecommunications. Still, with the continuing exponential growth of internet traffic, researchers are warning of a capacity crunch.

In AVS Quantum Science, by AIP Publishing, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland show how quantum-enhanced receivers could play a critical role in addressing this challenge.

The scientists developed a method to enhance receivers based on quantum physics properties to dramatically increase work performance while significantly reducing the error bit rate (EBR) and energy consumption.

Fiber optic technology relies on receive...

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‘Undruggable’ Cancer Protein becomes druggable, thanks to Shrub

jatropha-curcas
Curcusone D, the first synthesized BRAT-1 inhibitor, originally comes from the root of Jatropha curcas, a shrub native to the Americas. (Forest and Kim Starr)

A chemist from Purdue University has found a way to synthesize a compound to fight a previously “undruggable” cancer protein with benefits across a myriad of cancer types.

Inspired by a rare compound found in a shrub native to North America, Mingji Dai, professor of chemistry and a scientist at the Purdue University Center for Cancer Research, studied the compound and discovered a cost-effective and efficient way to synthesize it in the lab...

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