ALMA shows Volcanic Impact on Io’s Atmosphere

Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), I. de Pater et al.; NRAO/AUI NSF, S. Dagnello; NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

New radio images from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) show for the first time the direct effect of volcanic activity on the atmosphere of Jupiter’s moon Io.

Io is the most volcanically active moon in our solar system. It hosts more than 400 active volcanoes, spewing out sulfur gases that give Io its yellow-white-orange-red colors when they freeze out on its surface.

Although it is extremely thin — about a billion times thinner than Earth’s atmosphere — Io has an atmosphere that can teach us about Io’s volcanic activity and provide us a window into the exotic moon’s interior and what is happening below its colorful crust.

Previous research has sh...

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Observed COVID-19 Variability may have underlying molecular sources

Understand variability of COVID-19 through population and tissue variations in expression of SARS-CoV-2 host genes
Author links open overlay panel LiangChena
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Study shows how variations in SARS-CoV-2 host gene expression can be linked to variations in COVID-19 susceptibility and symptom severity. People have different susceptibilities to SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic, and develop varying degrees of fever, fatigue, and breathing problems — common symptoms of the illness. What might explain this variation?

Scientists at the University of California, Riverside, and University of Southern California may have an answer to this mystery.

In a paper published in Informatics in Medicine Unlocked, the researchers show for the first time that the observed COVID-19 vari...

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This Beetle can Survive getting Run Over by a Car. Engineers are figuring out how

Delamination
The diabolical ironclad beetle has puzzle piece-like blades in its abdomen that “delaminate” to prevent the beetle’s exoskeleton from suddenly failing under immense force. Purdue researchers simulated this mechanism using 3D-printed versions of the blades. (Purdue University video/Maryam Hosseini and Pablo Zavattieri)

Getting run over by a car is not a near-death experience for the diabolical ironclad beetle. How the beetle survives could inspire the development of new materials with the same herculean toughness, engineers show.

These materials would be stiff but ductile like a paper clip, making machinery such as aircraft gas turbines safer and longer-lasting, the researchers said.

The study, led by engineers at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) and Purdue Univers...

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Ultraviolet shines light on Origins of the Solar System

Artist rendition of the protosun and the solar nebula. Oxygen isotopes can be altered by ultraviolet light (gold arrows). Short-lived radiogenic isotopes of aluminum (maroon wavy arrows) may also have been injected into the solar nebula. Insets: electron backscatter images from calcium-aluminum inclusions and the approximate location at which these high-temperature condensates formed.

Credit: NASA JPL-Caltech/Lyons/ASU

In the search to discover the origins of our solar system, an international team including planetary scientists has compared the composition of the sun to the composition of the most ancient materials that formed in our solar system: refractory inclusions in unmetamorphosed meteorites.

By analyzing the oxygen isotopes (varieties of an element that have some extra neutr...

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