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Physics

Atacama telescope array

With these telescopes of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile, astronomers discovered the most distant galaxy that seems to be filled with dark matter.

C. Malin/ESO

Astronomy
 
Sep 21, 2018
Distant galaxy seems filled with dark matter
an artist's rendition of a rainy stormy sky, with two signs on a signpost in the foreground, one is a triangle with an exlamation mark in the middle, the other is a storm cloud with raindrops falling from it

Residents of Hawaii have survived several major deluges this year. And scientists say a warming climate may make such record-breakers ever more common.

trendobjects/iStockphoto; adapted by L. Steenblik Hwang

Weather & Climate
 
Sep 7, 2018
Hawaii’s record 2018 rains may foretell wetter times ahead
an illustration of a high-energy neutrino shooting out of a blazar

Scientists traced a high-energy neutrino back to its birthplace: a blazar. That galaxy harbors a supermassive black hole that fuels powerful jets of particles.

Science Communication Lab/DESY

Astronomy
 
Aug 8, 2018
Scientists traced an incoming neutrino back to its galactic birthplace
a spider in a tiptoe stance getting ready to take flight

Before ballooning into the breeze, spiders stand on their tiptoes (as here) and let out silk threads. New research suggests electric fields might help spiders decide when to fly.

MICHAEL HUTCHINSON

Animals
 
Jul 30, 2018
Electric currents in the air may cue ‘ballooning’ spiders on when to take off
an image of Mars' souther polar ice sheets from orbit

There may be a 20-kilometer-wide lake hidden under Mars’ southern polar ice sheets. Those ice sheet are shown here in images from a camera on NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft.

Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio Mars Orbiter Camera data/NASA

Planets
 
Jul 26, 2018
Mars appears to have a lake of liquid water
closeup of the sun and solar activity

The radius of the sun gets a smidge smaller the sun is most active, a new study finds.

SOLAR DYNAMICS OBSERVATORY/NASA

Space
 
Jul 9, 2018
An active sun is a somewhat smaller sun
an artist's illustration of a proton

A proton (depicted in this artist’s illustration) is way too small to see. But that hasn’t stopped physicists from exploring the properties of these subatomic particles.

UASUMY/ISTOCKPHOTO

Physics
 
Jul 2, 2018
To witness maximum pressure, peek inside a proton
Venus flytrap

The leaves of the Venus flytrap are snapping shut, jailing its prey through a process called snap-buckling. The outer leaf surface expands until it’s too much for the inner surface of the leaf to bear.

ESBEN_H/ISTOCKPHOTO

Plants
 
Jun 28, 2018
The plant world has some true speed demons
Physicist Mary Upton at Argonne National Laboratory

Physicist Mary Upton lines up equipment just right in preparation for an experiment using X-rays emitted by the Advanced Photon Source.

Argonne National Laboratory

Physics
 
Jun 14, 2018
Photons map the atomic scale to help medicine and more
041818_CG_krill_feat.jpg

A single swimming brine shrimp moves the water near its body. The green lines trace the movement over time of particles in the water as the shrimp swims. Large numbers of the animals moving together could create currents strong enough to stir oceans.

Isabel Houghton

Oceans
 
May 30, 2018
Small swimmers may play huge role in churning the seas