Nelson Sepulveda is a nanotechnology researcher and associate professor of engineering at Michigan State University. Credit: Michigan State University

A paper-thin, flexible device created at Michigan State University not only can generate energy from human motion, it can act as a loudspeaker and microphone as well, nanotechnology researchers report in the May 16 edition of Nature Communications. The audio breakthrough could eventually lead to such consumer products as a foldable loudspeaker, a voice-activated security patch for computers and even a talking newspaper...

Valley networks on Mars show evidence for surface runoff driven by rainfall. Credit: Image courtesy of Elsevier

New study reveals how changes in Martian rainfall shaped the planet. Heavy rain on Mars reshaped the planet’s impact craters and carved out river-like channels in its surface billions of years ago. Changes in the atmosphere on Mars made it rain harder and harder, which had a similar effect on the planet’s surface as we see on Earth. Mars has geological features like the Earth and moon, eg. craters and valleys, many of which were formed through rainfall. Although there is evidence that there was once water on Mars, it does not rain there today.

But in their new study, geologists Dr. Robert Craddock and Dr...

This is an artist’s rendering of KELT-11b, a ‘styrofoam’-density exoplanet orbiting a bright star in the southern hemisphere. Credit: Image by Walter Robinson/Lehigh University

Highly inflated gas giant orbits bright southern star. Researchers at Lehigh University have discovered a new planet orbiting a star 320 light years from Earth that has the density of styrofoam. This “puffy planet” outside our solar system may hold opportunities for testing atmospheres that will be useful when assessing future planets for signs of life.

“It is highly inflated, so that while it’s only a fifth as massive as Jupiter, it is nearly 40% larger, making it about as dense as styrofoam, with an extraordinarily large atmosphere,” said Joshua Pepper, astronomer and assistant professor of physics at Lehigh Unive...

It is this nano-machine that evolves to escape treatment by antibiotics, which are small chemicals that have the ability to turn this machine off, literally throwing a spanner in the works (inlay picture.) Credit: Dr Matthew Belousoff, Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute

An international study led by Monash University has discovered the molecular mechanism by which the potentially deadly superbug ‘Golden Staph’ evades antibiotic treatment, providing the first important clues on how to counter superbug antibiotic resistance. Now, the Monash BDI researchers have identified the first important clues on how to ‘retool’ antibiotics to counter the strategies bacteria enlist to evade the life-saving drugs, with the findings published in the journal mBio...