Simulating Meteorite impacts in the a Lab

Scanning electron microscopy image of the micro-structure of albite prior to the rapid compression experiments. The image spans about 0.036 millimetres. Credit: Stony Brook University, Lars Ehm

Scientists monitor the response of feldspar minerals to rapid compression. A US-German research team has simulated meteorite impacts in the lab and followed the resulting structural changes in two feldspar minerals with X-rays as they happened. The results of the experiments at DESY and at Argonne National Laboratory in the US show that structural changes can occur at very different pressures, depending on the compression rate...

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Opposite effect: Protein widely known to Fight Tumors also Boosts Cancer Growth

UC San Diego researchers found that the PUMA protein works inside the cell’s mitochondria to switch energy production processes and stimulate cancer growth.
Credit: Xu Lab, UC San Diego

Researchers find evidence that genome ‘guardian’ can stimulate cancer. Researchers studying p53, the heralded cancer-fighting ‘guardian of the genome,’ found that the human protein also plays a role in promoting tumors, in addition to suppressing them. They found that the PUMA protein works inside the cell’s mitochondria to switch energy production processes and stimulate cancer growth. Search for a description of “p53” and it becomes clear that this human protein is widely known for its cancer-fighting benefits, leading to its renown as “the guardian of the genome.”

Scientists at the University of Ca...

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Invisible Tags: Physicists Write, Read and Erase using Light

A luminescent tag, contactless printed onto a plastic foil. The light emitting layer is thinner than a human hair. The imprint can be erased and replaced by another pattern.
Credit: M. Gmelch and H. Thomas, TU Dresden

A team of physicists has developed a new method of storing information in fully transparent plastic foils. Prof. Reineke and his LEXOS team work with simple plastic foils with a thickness of less than 50 micrometer, which is thinner than a human hair. In these transparent plastic foils, they introduce organic luminescent molecules. In the beginning, these molecules are in an inactive, dark state. By locally using ultraviolet irradiation, it is possible to turn this dark state into an active, luminescent one...

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Detailed Maps of Thousands of Nearby Galaxies

The MaNGA data set will eventually include more than 10,000 nearby galaxies, and the survey is already more than half way toward that goal.
Credit: SDSS/MaNGA collaboration

The latest data release from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) includes observations revealing the internal structure and composition of nearly 5,000 nearby galaxies observed during the first three years of a program called Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA).

MaNGA uses a technique called resolved spectroscopy to study galaxies in much greater detail than previous surveys. Spectroscopy is a powerful tool for astronomers, yielding a wealth of information by measuring how much light an object emits at different wavelengths...

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