Science & Technology

New Horizons team members just pulled off “eclipse” observations of a body at the far outer reaches of the solar system, showing August eclipse tourists how it’s done.

Changes in a liquid as it becomes a glass are related to repulsion between its atoms as they are crowded together. Although scientists have long believed the poorly understood glass transition must have atomic underpinnings, this is the first time they have been demonstrated experimentally.

Michael King, AB ’87, has worked in cities around the globe to improve street design. He’s a “traffic calmer,” making streets safer for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists.

Why does biodiversity grade from exuberance at the equator through moderation at mid-latitudes toward monotony at higher ones? Data from an international network of long-term forest dynamics research sites is finally providing an answer.

Elastin and collagen serve as the body’s building blocks. Any genetic mutation short-circuiting their function can have a devastating, and often lethal, health impact. For the first time, new research led by engineers at Washington University in St. Louis takes a closer look at both genetic and mechanical attributes, to better understand a disorder that affects how elastin and collagen function.

Just as people endlessly calculate how to upsize or downsize, bacteria continually adjust their volume (their stuff) to fit inside their membrane (their space). But what limits their expansion? The answer will surprise you.

Most organisms share the biosynthetic pathways for making crucial nutrients because it is is dangerous to tinker with them. But now a collaborative team of scientists has caught plants in the process of altering where and how cells make an essential amino acid.

Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis and Princeton University developed a new way to dive into the cell’s tiniest and most important components. What they found inside membraneless organelles surprised them, and could lead to better understanding of fatal diseases such as cancer, Huntington’s and ALS.

NASA’s senior Mars rover, Opportunity, is examining rocks at the edge of Endeavour Crater for signs that they may have been either transported by a flood or eroded in place by wind.

It’s easy to make up a story to explain an evolved trait; proving that’s what happened is much harder. Here scientists test ideas about cooperative breeding in birds and find a solution that resolves earlier disagreements.