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    New Webb Image Reveals Dusty Disk Like Never Seen Before

    January 13, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    These two images are of the dusty debris disk around AU Mic, a red dwarf star located 32 light-years away in the southern constellation Microscopium. Scientists used Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) to study AU Mic. NIRCam’s coronagraph, which blocked the intense light of the central star, allowed the team to study the region very close to the star. The location of the star, which is masked out, is marked by a white, graphical representation at the center of each image. The region blocked by the coronagraph is shown by a dashed circle.
    Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and K. Lawson (Goddard Space Flight Center). Image processing: A. Pagan (STScI)

    NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has imaged the inner workings of a dusty disk surrounding a nearby red dwarf star...

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    Study reveals Obesity-related Trigger that can lead to Diabetes

    January 12, 2023, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that a defect in an enzyme called APT1 interferes with the ability to secrete insulin, contributing to the development of Type 2 diabetes in people who are overweight or obese. In this microscopic image of the surface of an insulin-secreting beta cell from a mouse with diabetes, granules containing insulin are green; granules containing a protein affected by APT1 are red; and the yellow granules are those that release excess insulin due to a defect in APT1.

    Many with elevated insulin levels also have defects in an enzyme key to fatty acid processing...

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    Converting Temperature Fluctuations into Clean Energy with Novel Nanoparticles and Heating Strategy

    January 12, 2023, Categories  Physics, Chemistry/Nanotechnology, Biology/Biotechnology, Environment/Geology

    Illustration of potential applications of combining pyroelectric materials and the localized thermo-plasmonic effect of noble metal nanomaterials. Photo credit: Dr Lei Dangyuan’s group / City University of Hong Kong

    Pyroelectric catalysis (pyro-catalysis) can convert environmental temperature fluctuations into clean chemical energy, like hydrogen. However, compared with the more common catalysis strategy, such as photocatalysis, pyro-catalysis is inefficient due to slow temperature changes in the ambient environment...

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    Ultracool Dwarf Binary Stars Break Records

    January 12, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Credit: Adam Burgasser/University of California San Diego

    Northwestern University and the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) astrophysicists have discovered the tightest ultracool dwarf binary system ever observed.

    The two stars are so close that it takes them less than one Earth day to revolve around each other. In other words, each star’s “year” lasts just 20.5 hours.

    The newly discovered system, named LP 413-53AB, is composed of a pair of ultracool dwarfs, a class of very low-mass stars that are so cool that they emit their light primarily in the infrared, making them completely invisible to the human eye. They are nonetheless one of the most common types of stars in the universe.

    Previously, astronomers had only detected three short-period ultracool dwarf bi...

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