M. E. Caplan, A. S. Schneider, C. J. Horowitz. The Elasticity of Nuclear Pasta. Physical Review Letters, 2018

A team of scientists has calculated the strength of the material deep inside the crust of neutron stars and found it to be the strongest known material in the universe. Matthew Caplan, a postdoctoral research fellow at McGill University, and his colleagues from Indiana University and the California Institute of Technology, successfully ran the largest computer simulations ever conducted of neutron star crusts, becoming the first to describe how these break. “The strength of the neutron star crust, especially the bottom of the crust, is relevant to a large number of astrophysics problems, but isn’t well understood,” says Caplan.

Neutron stars are born after supernovas, an implosion ...

Artist’s conception of the Epsilon Indi system. The two brown dwarfs orbit their common center of mass, which in turn orbits the much more distant primary component, a Sun-like star. By mapping the orbital motion of the brown dwarfs, the team was able to determine their masses. Much like our Solar System’s giant planets, brown dwarfs are thought to have cloud belts that encircle the entire object and give it a striped appearance.
Credit: Illustration is by Roberto Molar Candanosa and Sergio Dieterich, courtesy of the Carnegie Institution for Science.

The line that separates stars from brown dwarfs may soon be clearer thanks to new work led by Carnegie’s Serge Dieterich...

The researchers asked volunteers to react to simple stick drawings depicting scenes of physical inactivity and physical activity, and discovered that brain activity differed depending on the scene.
Credit: UBC Media Relations

Society has encouraged people to be more physically active, yet we are actually becoming less active. This new study offers a possible explanation: Our brains may be innately attracted to sedentary behavior. Electroencephalograms showed that test subjects had to summon extra brain resources when trying to avoid physical inactivity.

If getting to the gym seems like a struggle, a University of British Columbia researcher wants you to know this: the struggle is real, and it’s happening inside your brain...

Activated ATF6 Induces Intestinal Dysbiosis and Innate Immune Response to
Promote Colorectal Tumorigenesis

The microbiota in the intestines fuels tumor growth. Scientists have made an unexpected discovery while investigating the triggering factors of colon cancer: Cell stress in combination with an altered microbiota in the colon drives tumor growth. Previously, it was assumed that this combination only contributes to inflammatory intestinal diseases.

“With our study we originally wanted to study the role of bacteria in the intestines in the development of intestinal inflammation,” explains Professor Dirk Haller from the Department of Nutrition and Immunology at the Weihenstephan Science Centre of the TUM...