Cosmic rays interacting with the Earth’s atmosphere producing ions that helps turn small aerosols into cloud condensation nuclei — seeds on which liquid water droplets form to make clouds. A proton with energy of 100 GeV interact at the top of the atmosphere and produces a cascade of secondary particles who ionize molecules when traveling through the air. One 100 GeV proton hits every m2 at the top of the atmosphere every second. Credit: Illustration: H. Svensmark/DTU

Breakthrough in understanding of how cosmic rays from supernovae can influence Earth’s cloud cover and thereby climate...

An artist’s impression shows the first interstellar asteroid, ‘Oumuamua. Observations show that this unique object was traveling through space for millions of years before its chance encounter with our star system. Credit: ESO/M.Kornmesser

Scientists at Queen’s University Belfast have led worldwide investigations into a mysterious object that passed close to Earth after arriving from deep interstellar space. Since the object was spotted in October, Professor Alan Fitzsimmons and Dr Michele Bannister from the School of Mathematics and Physics at Queen’s University have led an international team of astronomers to piece together a profile of the strange visitor, which has been named `Oumuamua...

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers Heather Enright (left) and Anna Belle hold the brain-on-a-chip device and a microelectrode array. Credit: Image courtesy of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and engineers have developed a “brain-on-a-chip” device aimed at testing and predicting the effects of biological and chemical agents, disease or pharmaceutical drugs on the brain over time without the need for human or animal subjects.

The device, part of the Lab’s iCHIP (in-vitro Chip-Based Human Investigational Platform) project, simulates the central nervous system by recording neural activity from multiple brain cell types deposited and grown onto microelectrode arrays...

Skeletal muscle cells isolated using the ERBB3 and NGFR surface markers (right) restore human dystrophin (green) after transplantation significantly greater than previous methods (left). Credit: UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center/Nature Cell Bio

Discovery is major step towards a stem cell replacement therapy for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. UCLA scientists have developed a new strategy to efficiently isolate, mature and transplant skeletal muscle cells created from human pluripotent stem cells, which can produce all cell types of the body. The findings are a major step towards developing a stem cell replacement therapy for muscle diseases including Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, which affects approximately 1 in 5,000 boys in the U.S. and is the most common fatal childhood genetic disease.