This is a composite image of the planet Venus as seen by the Japanese probe Akatsuki. The clouds of Venus could have environmental conditions conducive to microbial life. Credit: Image from the Akatsuki Orbiter, built by Institute of Space and Astronautical Science/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

In the search for extraterrestrial life, scientists have turned over all sorts of rocks. Mars, for example, has geological features that suggest it once had – and still has – subsurface liquid water, an almost sure prerequisite for life. Scientists have also eyed Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus as well as Jupiter’s moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto as possible havens for life in the oceans under their icy crusts.

Now, however, scientists are dusting off an old idea that promises a new vist...

Yasha Neiman grapples with complex conundrums in quantum gravity on a daily basis. Credit: OIST

A new perspective bridges two approaches to understanding quantum gravity. “As we learn more, reality becomes ever more subtle; the absolute becomes relative, the fixed becomes dynamical, the definite is laden with uncertainty,” writes physicist Yasha Neiman. A professor and head of the Quantum Gravity Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), he grapples with this conundrum on a daily basis. Quantum gravity, Neiman’s branch of physics, aims to unify quantum mechanics, which describes nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles, with Einstein’s theory of General Relativity – the modern theory of gravitation as curvature of space and time...

A potential interstellar dust track (circled) in Stardust’s aerogel collector. Credit: UC Berkeley/Andrew Westphal

More samples of comets are urgently required to better understand the early history of the solar system, say researchers analyzing comet dust brought back to Earth by NASA’s Stardust mission in 2006. The dust particles are from Comet 81P/Wild (also known as Wild 2) and date to the beginning of the solar system, containing clues about its earliest history. “The future of Stardust science”, which is a paper published in June 2017 in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science, summarizes the roughly 150 scientific publications based on Stardust science...

UT Southwestern researchers have helped reveal the molecular structure of alpha Klotho (a-Klotho), the so-called “anti-aging” protein

Researchers reveal the molecular structure of the so-called ‘anti-aging’ protein alpha Klotho (a-Klotho) and how it transmits a hormonal signal that controls a variety of biologic processes. Studies at UTSW two decades ago by Dr. Makoto Kuro-o, Professor of Pathology, demonstrated that mice lacking either a-Klotho or the hormone FGF23 suffered from premature and multiple organ failure as well as other conditions, including early onset cardiovascular disease, cancer, and cognitive decline...