Engineers at MIT have announced that they have cooked up a material that is blacker than anything that has been previously reported. The material is said to be the "blackest black" that has been made so far. MIT's invention is ten times blacker than anything previously recorded.
Scientists are excited about a newly discovered comet that is dubbed Comet C/2019 Q4 as the comet appears to have originated from outside the solar system. The comet was discovered on August 30, 2019, by Gennady Borisov from the MARGO observatory in Nauchnij, Crimea. As of now, there has been no official confirmation that comet C/2019 Q4 is an interstellar comet.
A study out of Florida Atlantic University has found that dolphins are increasingly facing antibiotic resistance similar to humans. The research tracked antibiotic resistance related to bottlenose dolphins for 13 years, finding that since initially reporting high resistance in 2009, the degree of antibiotic resistance among wild dolphins has increased significantly.
Mars is home to a dusty landscape painted with orange and brown hues, pocked with craters, and adorned with a variety of hills and mountains. Depending on where you look, Mars is also home to numerous sheer cliffs that look like long striations when captured from a distance and like near-vertical rock walls when snapped by the Martian rover. One of the latest images of these cliffs includes a clearly visible avalanche.
The government research agency DARPA has announced a new program called Focused Pharma that seeks drug innovations that offer the mental health benefits of psychedelics without the 'significant side effects.' The agency detailed its new program earlier this week, revealing that it has reviewed the growing body of private research on the potential benefits of psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin.
Skygazers across the US will have the rare opportunity to view a 'micromoon' tonight, the earliest viewing times starting in the Pacific time zone with other following. The micromoon will happen on a notable date -- Friday the 13th, making it a fun coincidence for most people. If you miss seeing the moon tonight, you won't get the chance to see another micromoon for more than a year.
A group of researchers from UCLA have created a low-cost device that can generate electricity using a natural cooling phenomenon. The cooling phenomenon is called radiative sky cooling. The team has leveraged that phenomenon to create renewable energy at night that they say could be adapted to provide low-cost electricity to people without access around the world.
Scientists at Imperial College London have created a new bio-inspired robot that takes inspiration from flying fish. The robot can propel itself out of the water and glide through the air. The challenge for robots of this sort is the transition from the water to the air.
Global warming may lead to a drastic reduction in the availability of an essential omega-3 fatty acid that is needed for brain development in mammals, among other things. Docosahexaenoic acid, more commonly called DHA, is primarily acquired from eating seafood and fish, though it can also be acquired from fatty acid supplements. The production of DHA is mostly reliant on biochemical reactions that are very sensitive to temperature changes.
With the immense distance between star systems in this galaxy of ours, it isn't often that we get the chance to study interstellar objects - otherworldly bodies that were born in different systems and have made their way to our own - up close and personal. Up until recently, there was only one known interstellar object to visit our solar system, which was a body known as 'Oumuamua in 2017. Now, it seems that 'Oumuamua has some company on the list of interstellar objects to visit our solar system.
The Hubble Space Telescope has produced the latest portrait of Saturn, one featuring the planet and its rings in their entirety. The image was captured using the space telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 in late June, though the Hubble team only shared the final image with the public today. The portrait was taken during Saturn's closest approach to Earth in June, showing the unique characteristics of the planet at this point in time.
Scientists from the Eindhoven University of Technology have created an artificial leaf that uses the power of the sun to create cheap medicines. The team says that their tech is a "mini-reactor" that is similar to real leaves in nature that can absorb sunlight to drive chemical reactions. The team has been able to get the artificial leaves to create two types of medicine.