Physicists led by the University of Iowa have learned how a type of aurora on Mars is formed.

In a new study, the physicists studied discrete aurora, a light-in-the-sky display that occurs mostly during the night in the red planet’s southern hemisphere. While scientists have known about discrete aurora on Mars-which also occur on Earth – they did not know how they formed...

University of Central Florida researchers are developing new photonic materials that could one day help enable low power, ultra-fast, light-based computing. The unique materials, known as topological insulators, are like wires that have been turned inside out, where the current runs along the outside and the interior is insulated.

Topological insulators are important because they could be used in circuit designs that allow for more processing power to be crammed into a single space without generating heat, thus avoiding the...

A unique new instrument, coupled with a powerful telescope and a little help from nature, has given researchers the ability to peer into galactic nurseries at the heart of the young universe.

After the big bang some 13.8 billion years ago, the early universe was filled with enormous clouds of neutral diffuse gas, known as Damped Lyman-α systems, or DLAs. These DLAs served as galactic nurseries, as the gasses within slowly condensed to fuel the formation of stars and galaxies. They can still be observed today, but it isn’t easy.

“DLAs are a key to understanding how galaxie...

Researchers from the Girona Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBGI) and Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) in Barcelona, Spain, have identified the role of an amino acid in humans, mice and flies suffering depression. It is proline, an amino acid that is present in a wide variety of foods. The results, published in the scientific journal Cell Metabolism, also associate the consumption of a proline-rich diet with a greater tendency to develop depression.

The study was led by Dr. José Manuel Fernández-Real and Dr. Jordi Mayneris-Perxachs, from the research group on Nutrition, Eumetabolism and Health at the IDIBGI and CIBEROBN, and Dr...