Poor old Venera 9, the Soviet Union’s Venus lander, separated from its orbiter and made a hot, violent descent through the dense Venusian atmosphere on October 22, 1975, landing hard on a circular shield designed to crumple and absorb the impact. It only survived the intense surface conditions for 53 minutes, transmitting data regarding clouds, light irradiance, temperature and atmospheric chemistry, as well as the first image ever taken of the surface of another planet. And then it died. But its findings were significant because Venus and Earth are similar terrestrial planets believed to have formed through similar processes.

It’s fair to say that while Earth and Venus are siblings, with comparable size and composition, they are vastly different in...

Credit: Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST)

Professor Park Chi-Young’s team successfully developed an atypical porous polymer material that can completely remove phenolic organic contaminants in water at ultra-high speeds. The porous material developed can efficiently remove not only microplastics in the water but also very small-sized volatile organic compounds (VOCs) based on photothermal effect. At the same time, it is expected to be utilized as a high-efficiency adsorption material that can be commercialized in the future as it has cost competitiveness based on raw materials and enables a solar-based water purification process.

Water pollution caused by the rapid development of the chemical industry is a pressing problem, and various water purificatio...

New insights into the opposing actions of serotonin-producing nerve fibres in mice could lead to drugs for treating addictions and major depression.

Scientists in Japan have identified a nerve pathway involved in the processing of rewarding and distressing stimuli and situations in mice.

The new pathway, originating in a bundle of brain stem nerve fibres called the median raphe nucleus, acts in opposition to a previously identified reward/aversion pathway that originates in the nearby dorsal raphe nucleus...

A new smart skin developed at Stanford University might foretell a day when people type on invisible keyboards, identify objects by touch alone, or allow users to communicate by hand gestures with apps in immersive environments.

In a just-publish paper in the journal Nature Electronics the researchers describe a new type of stretchable biocompatible material that gets sprayed on the back of the hand, like suntan spray...