This image taken during the New Horizons mission shows the mountain range on the edge of the Sputnik Planitia ice plain, with dune formations clearly visible in the bottom half of the picture. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Scientists have discovered dunes on Pluto, and say they are likely to have been formed of methane ice grains released into its rarefied atmosphere. Writing in Science, an international team of geographers, physicists and planetary scientists have analysed detailed images of the dwarf planet’s surface, captured in July 2015 by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft...

Experimental results from the XENON1T dark matter detector limit the effective size of dark matter particles to 4.1X10-47 square centimeters–one-trillionth of one-trillionth of a centimeter squared–the most stringent limit yet determined for dark matter as established by the world’s most sensitive detector. Credit: XENON Collaboration

Analysis scours 276 days of data from world’s most sensitive detector. Experimental results from the XENON1T dark matter detector limit the effective size of dark matter particles to 4.1 x 10-47 square centimeters – one-trillionth of one-trillionth of a centimeter squared – the most stringent limit yet determined for dark matter as established by the world’s most sensitive detector.

The results, presented Monday in a seminar in Italy at the Gran Sasso Undergr...

Fighting colorectal cancer at UTHealth are Lenard Lichtenberger, Ph.D., (right) and Dexing Fang, Ph.D. Credit: Rob Cahill, UTHealth

When scientists at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) applied a chemical found in soybeans to a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), they increased its anticancer properties and reduced its side effects. Findings of the preclinical study of phosphatidylcholine, also called lecithin, appear in the journal Oncology Letters. “The results support the potential use of NSAIDs associated with phosphatidylcholine for the prevention and treatment of colorectal cancer,” said Lenard Lichtenberger, Ph.D., the study’s lead investigator and a professor of integrative biology and pharmacology at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth.

T...