Image of starlight on exoplanet. Credit: Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Is there life beyond Earth in the cosmos? Astronomers looking for signs have found that our Milky Way galaxy teems with exoplanets, some with conditions that could be right for extraterrestrial life. Such worlds orbit stars in “habitable zones,” regions where planets could hold liquid water that is necessary for life as we know it. However, the question of habitability is highly complex. Researchers led by space physicist Chuanfei Dong of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Princeton University have recently raised doubts about water on – and thus potential habitability of – frequently cited exoplanets that orbit red dwarfs, the most common stars in the Milky Way.

In two ...

Black hole artist’s concept. Credit: © nasa_gallery / Fotolia

A new study outlines how gravitational wave experiments could be used to test the existence of primordial black holes, gravity wells formed just moments after the Big Bang that some scientists have posited could be an explanation for dark matter. “We know very well that black holes can be formed by the collapse of large stars, or as we have seen recently, the merger of two neutron stars,” said Savvas Koushiappas, an associate professor of physics at Brown University and coauthor of the study with Avi Loeb from Harvard University. “But it’s been hypothesized that there could be black holes that formed in the very early universe before stars existed at all. That’s what we’re addressing with this work.”

The idea is that shortly af...

Pancreatic cancer cells, under a microscope. Credit: University of Cincinnati

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine have shown that a new targeted treatment could benefit patients with certain pancreatic tumors by preventing spread of the cancer and protecting their heart from damage – a direct result of the tumor. Higher levels of serotonin among other tumor secretions can cause injury to the valves of the heart over time, leading to cardiac impairment – a condition referred to as cardiac carcinoid disease – in these patients.

These findings, reported in the November 2017 issue of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, could lead to another targeted treatment for patients and prevent the onset of additional complications from their cancer...

The microscopic ribbons lie criss-crossed on the gold substrate. Credit: EMPA

Transistors based on carbon nanostructures: what sounds like a futuristic dream could be reality in just a few years’ time. Scientists have now produced nanotransistors from graphene ribbons that are only a few atoms wide. Graphene ribbons have special electrical properties that make them promising candidates for the nanoelectronics of the future: While graphene is a conductive material, it can become a semiconductor in the form of nanoribbons. This means that it has a sufficiently large energy or band gap in which no electron states can exist: it can be turned on and off – and thus may become a key component of nanotransistors.

The smallest details in the atomic structure of these graphene bands, however, have m...