Have you noticed that Orion the Hunter—one of the most iconic and familiar of the wintertime constellations—is looking a little… different as of late? The culprit is its upper shoulder star Alpha Orionis, aka Betelgeuse, which is looking markedly faint, the faintest it has been for the 21st century.

When will this nearby supernova candidate pop, and what would look like if it did?

The story starts, as all good astronomy and space stories seem to, on Friday night going into a holiday weekend...

Study found protons led to two-thirds reduction in unplanned hospitalizations. Proton therapy leads to significantly lower risk of side effects severe enough to lead to unplanned hospitalizations for cancer patients when compared with traditional radiation, while cure rates between the two groups are almost identical...

Emerging fluctuation-based functionalities are expected to open a way to novel memory device technology. An international joint research team led by NIMS succeeded in fabricating a neuromorphic network composed of numerous metallic nanowires. Using this network, the team was able to generate electrical characteristics similar to those associated with higher order brain functions unique to humans, such as memorization, learning, forgetting, becoming alert and returning to calm. The team then clarified the mechanisms that induced these electrical characteristics.

The University of Surrey has developed a robust multi-layed nano-barrier for ultra-lightweight and stable carbon fibre reinforced polymers (CFRPs) that could be used to build high precision instrument structures for future space missions.

CFRP is used in current space missions, but its applications are limited because the material absorbs moisture. This is often released as gas during a mission, causing the material to expand and affect the stability and integrity of the structure. Engineers try to minimise this problem with CFRP by performing long, expensive procedures such as drying, recalibrations and bake-out- all of which may not completely resolve the issue.