When the sun expels plasma, the solar wind cools as it expands through space – but not as much as the laws of physics would predict. Physicists now know the reason. University of Wisconsin-Madison physicists provide an explanation for the discrepancy in solar wind temperature. Their findings suggest ways to study solar wind phenomena in research labs and learn about solar wind properties in other star systems.

“People have been studying the solar wind since its discovery in 1959, but there are many important properties of this plasma which are still not well understood,” says Stas Boldyrev, professor of physics and lea...

A substantial fraction of the estimated 15% of Americans carrying the high-risk gene variant of Alzheimer’s are protected to some degree from Alzheimer’s disease by a variant of the other gene. (A gene will often come in a variety of versions, or variants, that can produce different traits.)

The findings also may help drug developers better identify clinical trial participants and treatments for what, despite billions of dollars spent in pursuit of effective therapies, remains a disease without a cure.

About 5 million Americans – including roughly 1 in 10 people age 65 or older and one-third of those age 85 or older – have sy...

Novel plate-cell architecture reaches theoretical limit of performance. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and other institutions have architecturally designed plate-nanolattices — nanometer-sized carbon structures — that are stronger than diamonds as a ratio of strength to density.

In a recent study in Nature Communications, the scientists report success in conceptualizing and fabricating the material, which consists of closely connected, closed-cell...

Researchers using the Gemini North telescope on Hawai’i’s Maunakea have detected the most energeti...