Newly developed polymer can better mimic nature’s color-changing abilities. Credit: American Chemical Society

In nature, colors can serve as a form of communication, but they can also hide animals and plants, camouflaging them from sight. Researchers now report in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces that they have developed polymers that can better mimic nature’s color-changing abilities than existing polymers. They say the materials could enable smart decorations, camouflage textiles and improved anti-counterfeiting measures.

Most of the colors that people are familiar with, such as hues on a piece of paper, are made with pigments...

Diverse mineralogy exhumed from the Martian subsurface: A false color image from the HiRISE instrument aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows amazing diversity of rocks exhumed from the Martian subsurface a meteor impact in the Nili Fossae area. The image is 1 km across. This site and others like it contain rocks that were altered by fluids in the Martian crust billions of years ago, at the time when life first emerged on Earth. These rocks represent exploration targets that could teach us about the origin of life. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

However, possibilities for subsurface life may be more promising. Below the surface, hydrothermal systems on Mars may have provided the right environment for life on the Red Planet, researchers argue. For the last 2...

This is an X-ray image of the Perseus galaxy cluster, approximately 240 million light-years away from Earth. The x-ray radiation emitted by galaxies and galaxy clusters still poses numerous puzzles to astrophysicists. In particular, it may provide clues to the nature of the mysterious dark matter. Credit: NASA

Physicists propose a new theory of dark matter based on the detection of unusual x-ray radiation from galaxies. It implies that dark matter particles may be very different from what is normally assumed. In particular, their theory involves dark matter particles which are extremely light – almost 100X lighter than electrons, in stark contrast to many conventional models that involve very heavy dark matter particles instead.

According to common theory, dark matter must exist because ot...

Extracellular asparagine availability drives invasion and metastasis.

A single protein building block commonly found in food may hold a key to preventing the spread of an often-deadly type of breast cancer, according to a new multicenter study published today in the medical journal Nature. Investigators found that by limiting an amino acid called asparagine in laboratory mice with triple-negative breast cancer, they could dramatically reduce the ability of the cancer to travel to distant sites in the body. Among other techniques, the team used dietary restrictions to limit asparagine.

Foods rich in asparagine include dairy, whey, beef, poultry, eggs, fish, seafood, asparagus, potatoes, legumes, nuts, seeds, soy and whole grains. Foods low in asparagine include most fruits and vegetables...