By combining comprehensive high-pressure measurements and first-principles calculations, a research group has discovered the pressure-induced unusual evolution of superconductivity (SC) and exotic interplay between SC and charge-density-wave (CDW) order in a natural bulk van der Waals heterostructure.
The human brain’s remarkably prolonged development is unique among mammals and is thought to contribute to our advanced learning abilities. Disruptions in this process may explain certain neurodevelopmental diseases.
Now, a team of researchers led by Prof. Pierre Vanderhaeghen (VIB-KU Leuven), together with scientists of Columbia University and Ecole Normale Supérieure has discovered a link between two genes, present only in human DNA, and a key gene called SYNGAP1, which is mutated in intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorders.
Their study, published in Neuron, provides a surprisingly direct link between human brain evolution and neurodevelopmental disorders.
Scientists found living microbes in a 2-billion-year-old rock in South Africa, providing insights into early life on Earth and potentially aiding the search for life on Mars.
Researchers have discovered pockets of living microbes within a sealed fracture of a 2-billion-year-old rock from the Bushveld Igneous Complex in South Africa, an area known for its rich ore deposits. This is the oldest example of living microbes found within ancient rock to date.
To confirm that the microbes were indigenous to the ancient core sample and not caused by contamination during the retrieval and study process, the research team refined a technique they previously developed involving three types of imaging – infrared spectroscopy, electron microscopy, and fluorescent microscopy. These microbes could provide novel insights into the early evolution of life, and aid the search for extraterrestrial life in similarly aged rock samples brought back from Mars.
“Tidal heating plays an important role in the heating and orbital evolution of celestial bodies,” said Alex Hayes, professor of astronomy.
“It provides the warmth necessary to form and sustain subsurface oceans in the moons around giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn.”
Researchers have developed a Martian atmospheric evolution model to propose a new theory about Mars’s past. Although Mars is currently a cold, dry planet, geological evidence suggests that liquid water existed there around 3 to 4 billion years ago. Where there is water, there is usually life. In their quest to answer the burning question about life on Mars, researchers at Tohoku University created a detailed model of organic matter production in the ancient Martian atmosphere.
Organic matter refers to the remains of living things such as plants and animals, or the byproduct of certain chemical reactions.
Whatever the case, the stable carbon isotope ratio (13C/12C) found in organic matter provides valuable clues about how these building blocks of life were originally formed, giving scientists a window into the past.
Snails on a tiny rocky islet evolved before scientists’ eyes. The marine snails were reintroduced after a toxic algal bloom wiped them out from the skerry. While the researchers intentionally brought in a distinct population of the same snail species, these evolved to strikingly resemble the population lost over 30 years prior.
Study uncovered evidence of diverse species living 800 million years ago, revealing early evolution and suggesting life diversified earlier.
“The isotope values of these carbonates point toward extreme amounts of evaporation, suggesting that these carbonates likely formed in a climate that could only support transient liquid water,” said Dr. David Burtt.
Was the planet Mars ever habitable and what conditions led to it becoming the uninhabitable world we see today? This is what a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences hopes to address as a team of researchers from the United States and Canada investigated how carbonate minerals found within Gale Crater on Mars could help paint a clearer picture of past conditions on the Red Planet and whether it was habitable. This study holds the potential to help scientists better understand the formation and evolution of Mars and whether it once had the necessary conditions to support life as we know it.
Studying carbonate minerals is important due to their ability to tell scientists how a climate formed and evolved over time, with these carbonate minerals containing large amounts of carbon and oxygen isotopes, specifically Carbon-13 and Oxygen-18, which the study notes is the highest amount of these isotopes identified on the Red Planet. Carbon-13 and Oxygen-18 are known as environmental isotopes, which are used to better understand the interactions between a planet’s ocean and atmosphere and how life could exist. While Earth is the only known planet to support life, studying these isotopes on Mars could help scientists better understand if life could have formed on Mars long ago.
Continue reading “The Habitable Mars? Examining Isotopes in Gale Crater” »
An infrared detector is sensitive to a wide range of intensities and could potentially pick up biomarkers from exoplanet atmospheres.
Many areas of astrophysics, cosmology, and exoplanet research would benefit from a highly sensitive and stable detector for light at wavelengths in the 10–100 µm range. Now researchers report building a detector that operates at 25 µm and that is suitable for hours-long operation in a telescope pointed at faint sources [1]. The device exploits the extreme sensitivity to light of a superconducting material patterned into a miniature photo-absorptive structure. The researchers expect that the design will find use in space telescopes launched in the next few years.
Light at wavelengths in the range 10–100 µm may carry crucial spectroscopic clues about biogenic gases in exoplanet atmospheres and could also help astrophysicists pin down details of early planetary formation and galactic evolution. Yet building detectors for this range of wavelengths is challenging for several reasons, says astrophysicist Peter Day of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Because the light from these sources is so faint, the detector has to perform stably over many hours of observation. Each pixel of the detector has to be capable of registering single photons yet also be accurate for sources as much as 100,000 times brighter than the faintest detectable source. The detector must also have an efficient way to read out information rapidly from thousands of identical pixels.
Ian Pamerleau: “We used multiple observations made with Dawn data as motivation for finding an ice-rich crust that resisted crater relaxation on Ceres. Different surface features (e.g., pits, domes and landslides, etc.) suggest the near subsurface of Ceres contains a lot of ice.”
Was the dwarf planet Ceres once an ocean world like Europa and Enceladus? If so, how did it become the cratered and icy world we see today? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address as a team of researchers from Purdue University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) investigated the formation and evolution of the internal geological processes of Ceres and how this could help scientists better understand ocean worlds throughout the solar system.
“We think that there’s lots of water-ice near Ceres surface, and that it gets gradually less icy as you go deeper and deeper,” said Dr. Mike Sori, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University and a co-author on the study. “People used to think that if Ceres was very icy, the craters would deform quickly over time, like glaciers flowing on Earth, or like gooey flowing honey. However, we’ve shown through our simulations that ice can be much stronger in conditions on Ceres than previously predicted if you mix in just a little bit of solid rock.”
Continue reading “How Ceres Challenges Our Understanding of Icy Bodies” »
