fMRI signals in the brain’s visual cortex as an individual views the checkerboard stimulus. The green, blue and dark blue spots represent signals produced within a fraction of a second after stimulation with dark blue being the fastest responding areas. Source: Lewis, et al.2

By significantly increasing the speed of fMRI, researchers have been able to image rapidly fluctuating brain activity during human thought. fMRI measures changes in blood oxygenation, which were previously thought to be too slow to detect the subtle neuronal activity associated with higher order brain functions...

Ghost imaging ANU. Credit: ANU

ANU physicists have used ‘ghost imaging’ technique to create an image of an object from atoms that never interact with it. This is the first time that ghost imaging has been achieved using atoms, although it has previously been demonstrated with light, leading to applications being developed for imaging and remote sensing through turbulent environments.The atom-based result may lead to a new method for quality control of nanoscale manufacturing, including atomic scale 3D printing.

A/Professor Andrew Truscott said the experiment relied on correlated pairs of atoms. The pairs were separated by ~6cm and used to generate an image of the ANU logo. “One atom in each pair was directed towards a mask with the letters ‘ANU’ cut-out…...

Small near-Earth asteroids are important targets of study because not much is known about them. By characterizing the smallest of the bunch, scientists can better understand the population of objects from which they originate: large asteroids, which have a much smaller likelihood of impacting Earth. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Astronomers have obtained observations of the smallest asteroid ever characterized in detail. At 6 feet in diameter, the tiny space rock is small enough to be straddled by a person in a hypothetical space-themed sequel to the iconic bomb-riding scene in the movie “Dr. Strangelove.” Interestingly, the asteroid, named 2015 TC25, is also one of the brightest near-Earth asteroids ever discovered...

Pluto, shown here in the front of this false-color image, has a bright ice-covered ‘heart.’ The left, roughly oval lobe is the basin provisionally named Sputnik Planitia. Sputnik Planitia appears directly opposite Pluto’s moon, Charon (back). Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

Heart’s location and Charon’s existence led to heart’s formation. Pluto’s “icy heart” is a bright, two-lobed feature on its surface that has attracted researchers ever since its discovery by the NASA New Horizons team in 2015. Of particular interest is the heart’s western lobe, informally named Sputnik Planitia, a deep basin containing 3 kinds of ices – frozen nitrogen, methane and CO — and appearing opposite Charon, Pluto’s tidally locked moon...