MIT researchers have developed a new design system that catalogues the physical properties of a huge number of tiny cube clusters. These clusters can then serve as building blocks for larger printable objects. Credit: Computational Fabrication Group at MIT

Designing the microstructure of printed objects. Today’s 3D printers have a resolution of 600 dots per inch, ie they could pack a billion tiny cubes of different materials into a volume that measures just 1.67 cubic inches. Such precise control of printed objects’ microstructure gives designers commensurate control of the objects’ physical properties – eg. density or strength, or the way they deform when subjected to stresses...

Artist’s depiction of a neutron star. Credit Credit: NASA

Astronomers like to say we are the byproducts of stars, stellar furnaces that long ago fused hydrogen and helium into the elements needed for life through the process of stellar nucleosynthesis. As the late Carl Sagan once put it: “The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff.” But what about the heavier elements in the periodic chart, elements such as gold, platinum and uranium?

Astronomers believe most of these “r-process elements” – elements much heavier than iron – were created, either in the aftermath of the collapse of massive stars and the associated supernova explosions, or in the merging of b...

Astronomers have identified the oldest asteroid families and, by process of elimination, the oldest intact asteroids in the main belt. A team including SwRI scientists developed a technique to identify ancient asteroid families that have drifted apart. Asteroid surfaces heat up during the day (as illustrated by this image) and cool down at night, giving off radiation that can act as a sort of mini-thruster. This force can cause asteroids to drift widely over time, making it difficult to identify families of fragments leftover after asteroid collisions eons ago. Credit: Image Courtesy of NASA/GSFC

Discoveries include a void in the main belt and the oldest family of asteroids...

Scan of a heart.
Credit: The University of Manchester

Pioneering study is set to help surgeons repair hearts without damaging precious tissue. A team of scientists from Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), The University of Manchester, Aarhus University and Newcastle University, have developed a way of producing 3D data to show the cardiac conduction system in unprecedented detail.

The new data in this study gives them a much more accurate framework than previously available for computer models of the heartbeat and should improve our ability to make sense of troublesome heart rhythms like atrial fibrillation that affects 1.4 million people in the UK. The data reveals exactly where the cardiac conduction system is in a normal heart...