This is a tiny cosmic dust particle. The black circles are air filled pockets called vesicles. Credit: Image courtesy of Imperial College London

Bubbles acting like parachutes are deployed by some cosmic dust particles on their entry into Earth’s atmosphere, preventing them from burning up. This is the conclusion of a new study carried out by a researcher from Imperial College London. Cosmic dust particles originate from events such the arrival of comets in the inner solar system and collisions between asteroids, which pulverises them into dust. Some make it through the rapid descent through Earth’s atmosphere, providing microscopic records of some of the earliest events in our solar system.

The researcher found that cosmic dust particles containing water-rich minerals survive atmospheric ...

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An anti-diabetic drug can inhibit the growth of melanoma in older patients by activating an anti-aging gene that in turn inhibits a protein involved in metastatic progression and resistance to targeted therapies for the disease. Even more than other types of cancer, melanoma is a disease of aging, with older patients more frequently diagnosed with the disease and having a worse prognosis. Targeted therapies have brought benefits in terms of overall survival compared to chemotherapy but they are limited by intrinsic or acquired resistance.

Wistar scientists have previously shown that age-related changes in the tumor microenvironment – or the surrounding area where tumor cells crosstalk with normal and immune cells – can drive melanoma progression and therapy resistance...

This mermaid graphic is created from laser-generated bubbles suspended in a liquid “screen” and illuminated with a halogen lamp. Credit: Kota Kumagai, Utsunomiya University

New technology creates color 3D images that don’t require special viewing devices. A new type of display creates 3D images by using a laser to form tiny bubbles inside a liquid “screen.” Instead of rendering a 3D scene on a flat surface, the display itself is three-dimensional, a property known as volumetric. This allows viewers to see a 3D image in the columnar display from all angles without any 3D glasses or headsets. The volumetric bubble display to create changeable color graphics.

“Creating a full-color updatable volumetric display is challenging because many three-dimensional pixels, or voxels, with different col...

Craig Chandler | University Communication Yang holds a piece of the atomic force microscope used to measure the beetle’s surface. A small wire can barely be seen in the middle of the piece. Unseen is a two-nano-size probe attached to the wire, which does the actual measuring.

A better understanding of beetle exoskeletons could help engineer lighter, stronger materials. Such materials could, for example, reduce gas-guzzling drag in vehicles and airplanes and reduce the weight of armor, lightening the load for the 21st-century knight. But revealing exoskeleton architecture at the nanoscale has proven difficult. Nebraska’s Ruiguo Yang, assistant professor of mechanical and materials engineering, and his colleagues found a way to analyze the fibrous nanostructure.

The lightweight exoskeleton i...