Artist’s conception of a brown dwarf, featuring the cloudy atmosphere of a planet and the residual light of an almost-star. Credit: NASA/ESA/JPL

Astronomers are hopeful that the powerful infrared capability of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will resolve a puzzle as fundamental as stargazing itself – what IS that dim light in the sky? Brown dwarfs muddy a clear distinction between stars and planets, throwing established understanding of those bodies, and theories of their formation, into question.

Several research teams will use Webb to explore the mysterious nature of brown dwarfs, looking for insight into both star formation and exoplanet atmospheres, and the hazy territory in-between where the brown dwarf itself exists...

Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, has features that resemble Earth’s geology, with deep, steep-sided canyons. Credit: Cassini/NASA/JPL

Titan, has features that resemble Earth’s geology, with deep, steep-sided canyons. Using the now-complete Cassini data set, Cornell astronomers have created a new global topographic map of Saturn’s moon Titan that has opened new windows into understanding its liquid flows and terrain.

Creating the map took about a year, according to doctoral student Paul Corlies, first author on “Titan’s Topography and Shape at the End of the Cassini Mission.” The map combines all of the Titan topography data from multiple sources...

This is an illustration of the active state kappa opioid receptor bound to a morphine derivative (purple). Credit: Tao Che and Daniel Wacker, Roth Lab, UNC School of Medicine

Researchers show how to activate only one kind of brain receptor vital for pain relief, a key step in the creation of better pain medications. For the first time, scientists at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and collaborators solved the crystal structure of the activated kappa opioid receptor bound to a morphine derivative. They then created a new drug-like compound that activates only that receptor, a key step in the development of new pain medications. The research shows a route toward creating opioids that relieve pain without causing the severe side effects at the heart of the opioid epidemic.

Simulations by Rice University scientists show how carbon nanomaterials may be optimized to replace expensive platinum in cathodes for electricity-generating fuel cells for transportation and other applications. Credit: Yakobson Research Group/Rice University

Simulations by scientists show how carbon nanomaterials may be optimized to replace expensive platinum in cathodes for electricity-generating fuel cells. Nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes, CNTs, or modified graphene nanoribbons may be suitable replacements for platinum for fast O2 reduction, the key reaction in fuel cells that transform chemical energy into electricity, according to Rice University researchers. Their study reveals the atom-level mechanisms by which doped nanomaterials catalyze oxygen reduction reactions (ORR).

Theoretic...