For the past year, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has been traveling through a transition zone from a clay-rich region to one filled with a salty mineral called sulfate. While the science team targeted the clay-rich region and the sulfate-laden one for evidence each can offer about Mars’ watery past, the transition zone is proving to be scientifically fascinating as well...

Majorana fermions promise information technology with zero resistance. A new, multi-node FLEET review investigates the search for Majorana fermions in iron-based superconductors.

The elusive Majorana fermion, or ‘angel particle’ proposed by Ettore Majorana in 1937, simultaneously behaves like a particle and an antiparticle — and surprisingly remains stable rather than being self-destructive.

Majorana fermions promise information and communications technology with zero resistance, addressing the rising energy consumption of modern electronics (already 8% of global electricity consumption), and promising a sustainable future...

Scientists have found a way to bypass the need for biological photosynthesis altogether and create food independent of sunlight by using artificial photosynthesis. The technology,
published in Nature Food, uses a two-step electrocatalytic process to convert CO2, electricity, and water into acetate ( main component if vinegar). Food-producing organisms then consume acetate in the dark to grow. The hybrid organic-inorganic system could increase the conversion efficiency of sunlight into food, up to 18x more efficient for some foods.

Photosynthesis has evolved in plants for millions of years to turn water, carbon dioxide, and the energy from sunlight into pl...

Researchers have shown in a single model the full story of how gas travels in the center of the Milky Way — from being blown off by stars to falling into the black hole.

Looks can be deceiving. The light from an incandescent bulb seems steady, but it flickers 120 times per second. Because the brain only perceives an average of the information it receives, this flickering is blurred and the perception of constant illumination is a mere illusion.

While light cannot escape a black hole, the bright glow of rapidly orbiting gas (recall the images of M87’s black hole and Sgr A) has its own unique flicker. In a recent paper, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, Lena Murchikova, William D...