A NASA artist’s impression of Earth as a frigid “‘snowball” planet. New research from the University of Washington indicates that aspects of an otherwise habitable-seeming exoplanet planet’s axial tilt or orbit could trigger such a snowball state, where oceans freeze and surface life is likely impossible. Credit: NASA

Aspects of an otherwise Earthlike planet’s tilt and orbital dynamics can severely affect its potential habitability – even triggering abrupt “snowball states” where oceans freeze and surface life is impossible, according to new research from astronomers at the University of Washington...

Chiral molecule. Credit: Palitel and Naaman

A new study published in Science by Professors Yossi Paltiel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Ron Naaman from the Weizmann Institute of Science describes a breakthrough technology with the power to create drugs with fewer unwanted side effects. The most important molecules in biology are chiral molecules. “Chiral,” the Greek word for “hand,” describes molecules that look almost exactly alike and contain the same number of atoms but are mirror images of one another – i.e. some “left-handed” and others are “right-handed.” This different “handedness” is crucial and yields different biological effects.

Understanding chiral differences was made painfully clear by the drug thalidomide...

RoboFly, the first wireless insect-sized flying robot, is slightly heavier than a toothpick. Credit: Mark Stone/University of Washington

RoboFly is slightly heavier than a toothpick and is powered by a laser beam. Insect-sized flying robots could help with time-consuming tasks like surveying crop growth on large farms or sniffing out gas leaks. These robots soar by fluttering tiny wings because they are too small to use propellers, like those seen on their larger drone cousins. Small size is advantageous: These robots are cheap to make and can easily slip into tight places that are inaccessible to big drones.

But current flying robo-insects are still tethered to the ground. The electronics they need to power and control their wings are too heavy for these miniature robots to carry...

Artist’s illustration of Jupiter and Europa (in the foreground) with the Galileo spacecraft after its pass through a plume erupting from Europa’s surface. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Michigan

Scientists re-examining data from an old mission bring new insights to the tantalizing question of whether Jupiter’s moon Europa has the ingredients to support life. The data provide independent evidence that the moon’s subsurface liquid water reservoir may be venting plumes of water vapor above its icy shell.

Data collected by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in 1997 were put through new and advanced computer models to untangle a mystery – a brief, localized bend in themagnetic field – that had gone unexplained until now...