NASA-funded CHESS mission will check out the space between stars Floating clouds of the interstellar medium are the focus of the NASA-funded CHESS sounding rocket mission, which will check out the earliest stages of star formation. Here, the CHESS payload is integrated with the sounding rocket before launch. Credit: Kevin France

Deep in space between distant stars, space is not empty. Instead, there drifts vast clouds of neutral atoms and molecules, as well as charged plasma particles called the interstellar medium—that may, over millions of years, evolve into new stars and even planets. These floating interstellar reservoirs are the focus of the NASA-funded CHESS sounding rocket mission, which will check out the earliest stages of star formation.

CHESS—short for the Colorado High-resolu...

Genes, Environment, and the Risk for Autism: Environment factors (ozone) can interact with genetic factors (copy number variation) to produce an even higher risk for autism than expected by adding the two risk factors, one that might not be found by studying the factors independently. Credit: Penn State University

Increased risk for autism when genetic variation and air pollution meet. A new analysis shows that individuals with high levels of genetic variation and elevated exposure to ozone in the environment are at an even higher risk for developing autism than would be expected by adding the 2 risk factors together...

Enhancing Magnetic Functionality with Scandium: Breaking Stereotypes in the Design of Rare Earth Materials. Chemistry of Materials, 2017; 29 (9): 3962 DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.7b00314

Researchers at the US. Dept of Energy’s Ames Laboratory discovered that they could functionalize magnetic materials through a thoroughly unlikely method, by adding amounts of the virtually non-magnetic element scandium to a gadolinium-germanium alloy. It was so unlikely they called it a “counterintuitive experimental finding” in their published work on the research. “People don’t talk much about scandium when they are talking magnetism, because there has not been much reason to,” said Yaroslav Mudryk, an Associate Scientist at Ames Laboratory. “It’s rare, expensive, and displays virtually no magnetism.”

“Co...

A model of the crystal structure of cristobalite X-I, which had never before been discovered in other materials. This high-pressure phase of cristobalite is made up of two layers (green and blue), each composed of Si?O. Credit: Leonid Dubrovinsky

A research group at the University of Bayreuth has found a long-sought explanation for the apparent contradictions implicit in the composition of lunar and Martian meteorites. In cooperation with the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble and research partners in Lyon and Vienna, the Bayreuth scientists led by Prof. Dubrovinsky were able to demonstrate how meteorites could contain within narrow spaces minerals whose formation conditions are quite different.

When asteroids or co...