This shows the synthetic purple membrane assembly developed by Elena Rozhkova and fellow Argonne researchers. The assembly, which includes nanodiscs, titanium dioxide and platinum nanoparticles, can transform sunlight into hydrogen fuel. Credit: Argonne National Laboratory

A new way has been found to produce solar fuels by developing “synthetic purple membranes.” These membranes involve an assembly of lipid nanodiscs, man-made proteins, and semiconducting nanoparticles that, when taken together, can transform sunlight into hydrogen fuel...

Sun-like star Kronos shows signs of having ingested 15 Earth masses worth of rocky planets, prompting Princeton astronomers to nickname it for the Titan who ate his young. This artist’s rendering of the diverse rocky planets in our galaxy hints at what Kronos’s planets might have looked like before the star enveloped them. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech)

Sun-like star Kronos shows signs of having ingested 15 Earth masses worth of rocky planets, prompting astronomers to name it after the Titan who ate his children. ‘Kronos’ is enhanced in metals and other rock-forming elements but not in volatiles, prompting a team to conclude that it absorbed as much as 15 Earth masses worth of rocky planets. Its twin, ‘Krios,’ does not show this unusual pattern of enhancement.

In mythology,...

Dietary broccoli impacts microbial community structure and attenuates chemically induced colitis in mice in an Ah receptor dependent manner. Journal of Functional Foods, 2017; 37: 685 DOI: 10.1016/j.jff.2017.08.038

For the broccoli haters of the world, researchers may have more bad news: the vegetable may also help promote a healthy gut. In a study, when mice ate broccoli with their regular diet, they were better able to tolerate digestive issues similar to symptoms of leaky gut and colitis than mice that were not placed on a broccoli-supplemented diet, according to Gary Perdew, the John T. and Paige S. Smith Professor in Agricultural Sciences, Penn State. He added that other vegetables, like brussels sprouts and cauliflower, may also have similar gut health properties.

“There are a lot of...

NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, behind the planet’s rings. The much smaller moon Epimetheus is visible in the foreground.

Extreme methane rainstorms appear to have a key role in shaping Titan’s icy surface. Titan, the largest of Saturn’s more than 60 moons, has surprisingly intense rainstorms, according to research by a team of UCLA planetary scientists and geologists. Although the storms are relatively rare – they occur less than once per Titan year, which is 29 and a half Earth years – they occur much more frequently than the scientists expected.

“I would have thought these would be once-a-millennium events, if even that,” said Jonathan Mitchell, UCLA associate professor of planetary science and a senior author of the research, which was published Oct...