Science

Tattoo inks not only allow for vivid designs, but their brightness and unique spectral fingerprint could be a useful tool to find cancer cells. (Courtesy: the Zavaleta Lab at USC; tattoo and design by Adam Sky) Sometimes, the answers to difficult questions are within plain sight. That is what researchers at the University of Southern

WASHINGTON — NASA says they are still not sure of the source of a small air leak on the International Space Station after the crew spent a second weekend confined to a single module there. The Expedition 63 crew of NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Roscosmos cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner remained inside the

WASHINGTON — NASA has selected SpaceX to launch a space science mission and several secondary payloads, the latest in a series of wins by SpaceX for NASA science missions. NASA announced Sept. 28 it awarded a contract to SpaceX for the launch of its Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) spacecraft in 2024 from Cape

Join the audience for a live webinar at 3 p.m. BST/10 a.m. EDT on 13 October 2020 exploring the fundamentals of TERS through the history of near-field spectroscopic optics Want to take part in this webinar? Tip-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (TERS) provides the vibrational information of a sample with nanometric resolution. Obtaining physico-chemical information with such

HELSINKI — China added to its Earth observation capabilities with the clandestine launch of two satellites from Taiyuan late Saturday. The unexpected launch of a Long March 4B rocket carrying satellites HJ-2A (Huanjing-2A) and HJ-2B took place at 11:23 p.m. Eastern Saturday. While Chinese launches are rarely publicly announced ahead of time, the publishing of

WASHINGTON — NASA has delayed the launch of a mission to Saturn’s moon Titan by a year, citing budget challenges created by the coronavirus pandemic. In a Sept. 25 statement, NASA said the Dragonfly mission, which had been scheduled to launch in 2026, will instead launch in 2027. The change in launch date will not

Thermosensitive liposomes release encapsulated drugs when heated with focused ultrasound. (Courtesy: Kullervo Hynynen) Improving the delivery of chemotherapy drugs to solid tumours while minimizing harmful side effects is key to optimizing cancer treatments. One promising approach lies in the use of thermosensitive liposomes (TSLs) that release encapsulated drugs upon heating, such as doxorubicin-loaded TSL (TSL-Dox),

VALLETTA, Malta — Launch startup HyImpulse successfully tested its 16,800-pounds-force hybrid rocket motor this month at German space agency DLR’s Lampoldshausen facility. Headquartered in Neuenstadt am Kocher, Germany, HyImpulse is developing its three-stage SL1 launch vehicle designed to carry payloads of up to 500 kilogram to Sun-synchronous orbit. The light-lift launch vehicle will be powered

The United States is on the verge of a new space age. Despite civil unrest and the continuing pandemic, the future for space exploration and development looks bright. Provided we successfully navigate the legal and economic challenges, the benefits for humanity can be enormous. Both the public and private sectors recently made bold moves. NASA

[embedded content] “The wobbling shadow of the M87* black hole” is a video made by astronomers working on the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), which in 2019 found the first direct visual evidence of a black hole and its “shadow”. The video above is an animation of three years in the life of the black hole

WASHINGTON — Italy is the latest country to sign an agreement to cooperate with NASA on the Artemis human lunar exploration program, although the details of Italy’s participation have yet to be worked out. In a Sept. 25 ceremony held by videoconference, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and Riccardo Fraccaro, undersecretary to Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe

WASHINGTON — The British government, seeking a replacement for the Galileo satellite navigation system, said it will consider alternatives to an original plan to develop its own satellite constellation. In a Sept. 24 statement, the British government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said an ongoing study to examine the feasibility of a U.K.

Sound into light: the new device converts ultrasound directly into light. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/FusionMS) The first ultrasound imaging device that converts acoustic signals directly into light has been created by Hyeonggeun Yu and colleagues at North Carolina State University in the US.  The device was fabricated by depositing an organic LED onto a piezoelectric crystal and

WASHINGTON — NASA is taking the next small step in its efforts to promote commercialization of low Earth orbit by flying a cosmetics company’s product to the International Space Station, a project that has prompted questions from one senator. Among the payloads on a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft launching to the ISS Sept. 29

WASHINGTON — Several NASA astrophysics missions in various stages of development are likely facing delays because of the coronavirus pandemic, an agency official said. At a Sept. 21 meeting of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee, Paul Hertz, director of NASA’s astrophysics division, said the agency anticipated a number of missions, big and small, will

By: Hannah Pell On September 20th, 2019 — one year ago today as I write this — the infamous Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant was permanently shut down. TMI Unit-2 has been shuttered since the partial meltdown in 1979, an event described as the “most serious accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant

This week’s podcast focuses on Peer Review Week, an annual event honouring the vital role that peer review plays in maintaining the quality of published scientific papers. But while peer review is important, it’s certainly not perfect. The quality of reviews is not always up to scratch – as the darkly comic website Shit My Reviewers

WASHINGTON — NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine urged Senate appropriators to provide full funding of Artemis as some members questioned the agency’s emphasis on its lunar exploration program. Bridenstine, testifying before the commerce, justice and science subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee Sept. 23, said that NASA needed the full $3.2 billion it requested in its