Summary of gaseous, surface, and temporal biosignatures.

Some of the leading experts in the field, including a UC Riverside team of researchers, have written a major series of review papers on the past, present, and future of the search for life on other planets. Published in Astrobiology, the papers represent two years of work by the Nexus for Exoplanet Systems Science (NExSS), a NASA-coordinated research network dedicated to the study of planetary habitability, and by NASA’s Astrobiology Institute.

Scientists have identified more than 3,500 exoplanets and many more will be discovered in the coming decades. Some of these are rocky, Earth-sized planets that are in the habitable zones of their stars, i.e. it’s neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water – and possibly life – to exist...

Oral delivery method could dramatically transform the way in which diabetics keep their blood sugar levels in check. Credit: Harvard SEAS

Technique could replace daily injections for diabetics. For millions of people living with type 1 diabetes, a painful needle prick once or twice daily is currently the only option for delivering the insulin that their bodies cannot produce on their own. Now, researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed an oral delivery method that could dramatically transform the way in which diabetics keep their blood sugar levels in check.

Not only does oral delivery of insulin promise to improve the quality of life for up to 40 million people with type 1 diabetes worldwide, it could also mitigate many of t...

Various schemes for electrolytically generating H2 while consuming CO2 and transforming it to dissolved mineral bicarbonate.

Limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius will require not only reducing emissions of CO2, but also active removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This conclusion from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has prompted heightened interest in “negative emissions technologies.” A new study evaluates the potential for recently described methods that capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through an “electrogeochemical” process that also generates hydrogen gas for use as fuel and creates by-products that can help counteract ocean acidification.

First author Greg Rau, a researcher in the Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz and visiting scie...

This picture shows the distribution of dark matter (above) and stars (below). Credit: © E. Garaldi, C. Porciani, E. Romano-Díaz/University of Bonn for the ZOMG Kollaboration

A new study found a way to determine whether the mysterious ‘star putty’ really exists. Researchers at the University of Bonn and the University of California at Irvine used sophisticated computer simulations to devise a test that could answer a burning question in astrophysics: is there really dark matter? Or does Newton’s gravitational law need to be modified? The new study, now published in the Physical Review Letters, shows that the answer is hidden in the motion of the stars within small satellite galaxies swirling around the Milky Way.

Using one of the fastest supercomputers in the world, the scientists have si...