Citizen Science discovers a new form of the Northern Lights

Dune-shaped auroral emissions
Very rarely, a gravity wave rising up in the atmosphere can be filtered and bent to travel between the mesopause and an inversion layer intermittently formed below the mesopause. The mesopause and the inversion layer are colder than the other layers of the atmosphere. In the wave channel established between these two layers, gravity waves coming from below can travel long distances without subsiding. Dune-shaped auroral emissions are created when solar wind charges the oxygen atoms surging through the channel. (Graphic credit: Jani Närhi)

Working together with space researchers, Finnish amateur photographers have discovered a new auroral form...

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Nanoparticle Chomps away Plaques that cause Heart Attacks

The dotted line outlines the atherosclerotic artery and the green represents our nanoparticles, which are in the plaque. The red indicates macrophages, which is the cell type that the nanoparticles are stimulating to eat the debris.

Michigan State University and Stanford University scientists have invented a nanoparticle that eats away – from the inside out – portions of plaques that cause heart attacks.

Bryan Smith, associate professor of biomedical engineering at MSU, and a team of scientists created a “Trojan Horse” nanoparticle that can be directed to eat debris, reducing and stabilizing plaque. The discovery could be a potential treatment for atherosclerosis, a leading cause of death in the United States.

The results, published in the current issue of Nature Nanotechno...

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Method Detects Defects in 2D Materials for future Electronics, Sensors

A yellow laser beam shines on a chip and reveals a grain boundary defect
A laser beam (yellow) reflects off a 2D material (orange) highlighting a grain boundary defect in the atomic lattice.
 IMAGE: MRI/PENN STATE

To further shrink electronic devices and to lower energy consumption, the semiconductor industry is interested in using 2D materials, but manufacturers need a quick and accurate method for detecting defects in these materials to determine if the material is suitable for device manufacture. Now a team of researchers has developed a technique to quickly and sensitively characterize defects in 2D materials.

Two-dimensional materials are atomically thin, the most well-known being graphene, a single-atom-thick layer of carbon atoms.

“People have struggled to make these 2D materials without defects,” said Mauricio Terrones, Verne M...

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Space Super-storm likelihood estimated from longest period of Magnetic field observations

Artist’s depiction of solar wind particles interacting with Earth’s magnetosphere

A ‘great’ space weather super-storm large enough to cause significant disruption to our electronic and networked systems occurred on average once in every 25 years according to a new joint study by the University of Warwick and the British Antarctic Survey.

By analysing magnetic field records at opposite ends of the Earth (UK and Australia), scientists have been able to detect super-storms going back over the last 150 years.

This result was made possible by a new way of analysing historical data, pioneered by the University of Warwick, from the last 14 solar cycles, way before the space age began in 1957, instead of the last five solar cycles currently used.

The analysis shows that ‘severe’ magn...

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