The South Pole-Aitken basin is the darker area at the bottom of this image.
Credit: Photo by NASA/Goddard Space Flight CenterScientific Visualization Studio

A large basin on the moon has revealed that its interior is made of a different mineral than Earth’s interior, contradicting the theory that the interior of the planets look mostly the same. The mantle of the Earth is made mostly of a mineral called olivine, and the assumption is usually that all planets are like the Earth,” said Jay Melosh, Distinguished Professor of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University, who led the study. “But when we look at the spectral signature of rocks exposed deep below the moon’s surface, we don’t see olivine; we see orthopyroxene.”

Around 4 billion years ago, an asteroid collided wit...

Credit: Albert Einstein College of Medicine
This image depicts the structure of the BAX protein (purple). The activator compound BTSA1 (orange) has bound to the active site of BAX (green), changing the shape of the BAX molecule at several points (shown in yellow, magenta and cyan). BAX, once in its final activated form, can home in on mitochondria and puncture their outer membranes, triggering apoptosis (cell death).

Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have discovered the first compound that directly makes cancer cells commit suicide while sparing healthy cells. The new treatment approach, described in today’s issue of Cancer Cell, was directed against acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells but may also have potential for attacking other types of cancers.

“We’re hopeful that the t...

This image shows an energy diagram of the WSe2-MoSe2 device. When a photon (1) strikes the WSe2 layer, it knocks loose an electron (2), freeing it to conduct through the WSe2 (3). At the junction between the two materials, the electron drops down into MoSe2 (4). The energy given off in the drop catapults a second electron from the WSe2 (5) into the MoSe2 (6), where both electrons are free to move and generate electricity. Credit: University Communications, UC Riverside

New research invokes quantum mechanical processes that occur when two atomically thin materials are stacked together...

Observations from telescopes on Earth rival those from telescopes in space. A new, low-cost attachment to telescopes allows previously unachievable precision in ground-based observations of exoplanets – planets beyond our solar system. With the new attachment, ground-based telescopes can produce measurements of light intensity that rival the highest quality photometric observations from space. Penn State astronomers, in close collaboration with the nanofabrication labs at RPC Photonics in Rochester, New York, created custom “beam-shaping” diffusers – carefully structured micro-optic devices that spread incoming light across an image – that are capable of minimizing distortions from the Earth’s atmosphere that can reduce the precision of ground-based observations.

“This inexpensive technol...