The Dragonfly dual-quadcopter could make multiple flights to explore diverse locations as it characterizes the habitability of Titan’s environment.
Credit: APL/Mike Carroll

Dragonfly, a New Frontiers-class mission concept that the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory has proposed to NASA, would use an instrumented, radioisotope-powered, dual-quadcopter to explore potential habitable sites where life could be developed on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. The moon is one of a number of “ocean worlds” in our solar system that hold the ingredients for life, and is known to be covered with rich organic material that is undergoing chemical processes that might be similar to those on early Earth, before life developed.

Titan has diverse, carbon-rich chemistry on a surface dominated by water ice...

Nacho Vivas, lab manager at the Rey Lab, checks on a group of germ-free mice inside a sterile environment. Credit: Bryce Richter/UW-Madison

If our microbiome overindulges, we might not have access to the nutrients we need. That’s the suggestion from new research that shows mice that harbor high levels of microbes that eat choline are deprived of this essential nutrient. “Gut bacteria get to use a lot of our food before we do,” says Federico Rey, a professor of bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Then we get their leftovers – or their waste. Compared to mice without choline-hungry bacteria, the choline-starved mice had an increased susceptibility to metabolic diseases and gave birth to pups with biochemical alterations in the brain and that exhibited more anxious behaviors...

(a) Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) phase image showing the lamella microstructure of layered austenite grains embedded in tempered martensite matrix. (b) The dislocation structures in martensite as enlarged in transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image. (c) TEM image showing the elongation of dislocation cell structure after the 8% tensile strain. (d) TEM image confirming the transformation of metastable austenite to martensite after 16% tensile strain. Credit: The University of Hong Kong

Automotive, aerospace and defence applications require metallic materials with ultra-high strength...

This raw 3-D printed ploymeric material known as Kapton, created and printed at Virginia Tech, might one day be used in space vehicles or satellites because of its ability to withstand high temperatures. Credit: Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech researchers have created a novel way to 3D print the type of high-temperature polymeric materials commonly used to insulate spacecraft and satellites from extreme heat and cold. Previously, the polyimide could previously be made only in sheets. The material, formally known as Kapton, is an aromatic polymer composed of carbons and hydrogens in benzene rings, which provides exceptional thermal and chemical stability. But because of this molecular structure, the material is notoriously difficult to produce in any format other than thin sheets...