Map projection of Charon, the largest of Pluto’s five moons, annotated with its first set of official feature names. With a diameter of about 1,215 km, the France-sized moon is one of largest known objects in the Kuiper Belt, the region of icy, rocky bodies beyond Neptune. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

The International Astronomical Union (IAU), the internationally recognized authority for naming celestial bodies and their surface features, recently approved a dozen names proposed by NASA’s New Horizons team, which led the first reconnaissance of Pluto and its moons in 2015 with the New Horizons spacecraft...

New images from the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope are revealing the dusty discs surrounding nearby young stars in greater detail than previously achieved. They show a bizarre variety of shapes, sizes and structures, including the likely effects of planets still in the process of forming. Credit: ESO/H. Avenhaus et al./E. Sissa et al./DARTT-S and SHINE collaborations

The SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile allows astronomers to suppress the brilliant light of nearby stars in order to obtain a better view of the regions surrounding them. This collection of new SPHERE images is just a sample of the wide variety of dusty discs being found around young stars...

Comparison of sugar and lipid concentration fluctuations in blood in a dysbiosis mouse model and non-antibiotic administered mice. Both sugar and lipid concentrations decreased in mice that received antibiotics only. Credit: Professor Sumio Ohtsuki

Intestinal bacteria have attracted recent attention since they were discovered to influence various physiological functions and diseases in humans. Researchers from Kumamoto University in Japan analyzing the influence of changes in intestinal bacteria on sugar and lipid metabolism have found that secondary bile acids produced by the bacteria can influence blood glucose and lipid concentrations as well as parts of their molecular mechanisms...

The gripper can also porous objects, like this rock. Credit: JPL

A team of California researchers has developed a robotic gripper that combines the adhesive properties of gecko toes and the adaptability of air-powered soft robots to grasp a much wider variety of objects than the state of the art. Researchers will present their findings at the 2018 International Conference on Robotics and Automation May 21 to 25 in Brisbane, Australia. The gripper can lift up to 45lbs. and could be used to grasp objects in a wide range of settings, from factory floors to the International Space Station, ISS.

Geckos are known as nature’s best climbers because of a sophisticated gripping mechanism on their toes...