Officials from Japan’s space agency said Tuesday they have found more than the anticipated amount of soil and gases inside a small capsule the country’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft brought back from a distant asteroid this month, a mission they praised as a milestone for planetary research.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said its staff initially spotted some bla...

Improving the efficiency of solar cells can make a huge difference to the amount of energy produced from the same surface area and the same amount of sunshine, and another world record has been beaten in the push for better yields.

Researchers have now hit an efficiency of 29.15 percent in the perovskite/silicon tandem solar cell category, which is just one of several different types of cells. There are currently a variety of different technologies in use to convert solar energy into electricity.

For this type of panel, the long-term target of more than 30 percent is now tantalisingly within reach...

Scientists at the Francis Crick Institute and University College London have Rebuilt a human Thymus, an essential organ in the Immune system, using human stem cells and a bioengineered scaffold. Their work is an important step towards being able to build artificial thymi which could be used as transplants.

The thymus is an organ in the chest where T lymphocytes, which play a vital role in the immune system, mature. If the thymus does not work properly or does not form during fetal development in the womb, this can lead to diseases such as severe immunodeficiency, where the body cannot fight infectious diseases or cancerous cells, or autoimmunity, where the immune system mistakenly attacks the patient’s own healthy tissue.

In their proof-of-concept study, published in Nature Comm...

Researchers at Drexel University’s College of Engineering have reported that fabric coated with a conductive, two-dimensional material called MXene, is highly effective at blocking electromagnetic waves and potentially harmful radiation. The discovery is a key development for efforts to weave technological capabilities into clothing and accessories.

Materials that block electromagnetic waves had a commercial moment a handful of years ago when fears that high-tech thieves could scan or copy credit cards, passports or hack into laptops and contactless car keys had people putting them in special wallets, bag...