There are few experiences quite like witnessing the aurora borealis. Commonly known as the northern lights, these colorful ribbons of light appear to dance in the sky over the planet’s high latitudes, attracting sky chasers and photographers. The light also catches the eye of astronauts, who have snapped numerous photos of northern and southern lights from their unique perch on the International Space Station. Astronaut Randy “Komrade” Bresnik shot this photograph on September 15, 2017, as the space station passed over Ontario, Canada....

A pair of new papers report measurements of the Martian atmosphere’s composition by NASA’s Curiosity rover, providing evidence about the loss of much of Mars’ original atmosphere. Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) suite of laboratory instruments inside the rover has measured the abundances of different gases and different isotopes in several samples of Martian atmosphere. Isotopes are variants of the same chemical element with different atomic weights due to having different numbers of neutrons, such as the most common carbon isotope, carbon-12, and a heavier stable isotope, carbon-13....

This is Northrop Grumman’s 18th contracted resupply mission to the International Space Station. This Cygnus, dubbed the S.S. Sally Ride, is scheduled to arrive at the space station on Wednesday, November 9. Watch as scientific investigations on ovarian cell development, climate change’s effects on mudflow structures, a study on how plants adapt to grow space, the first satellites from Uganda and Zimbabwe, and a bioprinter all travel aboard the 18th Northrop Grumman commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station....

Viruses can inflame and disrupt connections between the olfactory system, which governs the sense of smell, and the part of the brain associated with memory and learning, possibly accelerating the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. The findings, published on December 13 in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, could lead to new therapies that detect Alzheimer’s disease (AD) earlier while helping to illuminate the role that viruses and the olfactory system play in driving the illness....

As people in the U.S. prepare to set their clocks ahead one hour on Sunday, March 12, 2023, I find myself bracing for the annual ritual of media stories about the disruptions to daily routines caused by switching from standard time to daylight saving time. About one-third of Americans say they don’t look forward to these twice-yearly time changes. And nearly two-thirds would like to eliminate them completely, compared to 21% who aren’t sure and 16% who would like to keep moving their clocks back and forth....

People whose sleep pattern goes against their natural body clock are more likely to have depression and lower levels of wellbeing, according to a largescale new study. Research led by the University of Exeter, published in Molecular Psychiatry, also found the most robust evidence to date that being genetically programmed to be an early riser is protective against major depression, and improves wellbeing. Researchers suggest this may be because society is set up to be more aligned to early risers, through the standard 9-5 working pattern....

DESI is an international science collaboration managed by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) with primary funding for construction and operations from DOE’s Office of Science. By gathering light from some 30 million galaxies, project scientists said DESI will help them construct a 3D map of the universe with unprecedented detail. The data will help them better understand the repulsive force associated with dark energy that drives the acceleration of the expansion of the universe across vast cosmic distances....

The discovery of a new bird-like dinosaur from the Jurassic period challenges widely accepted theories on the origin of flight. Co-authored by Dr. Gareth Dyke, Senior Lecturer in Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Southampton, the paper describes a new feathered dinosaur about 30 cm in length which pre-dates bird-like dinosaurs that birds were long thought to have evolved from. Over many years, it has become accepted among paleontologists that birds evolved from a group of dinosaurs called theropods from the Early Cretaceous period of Earth’s history, around 120-130 million years ago....

Changing skins Cells are surrounded by a layer of membrane lipids that protect them from changes in their environment such as temperature, much in the same way that our skin changes when we are cold or exposed to the sun. Lead author and NIOZ senior scientist Laura Villanueva explains why they make such interesting biomarkers. “When a cell dies, these lipids preserve like fossils and hold ancient-old information on Earths’ early environmental conditions....

Hair analysis could be the key to understanding adolescent drug usage, as a new study uncovers almost double the number of children were found to be using substances than those who admitted to it in a US survey. Published in the peer-reviewed journal American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, the research looking at more than 1,300 children, aged nine to 13, found a 9% increase in substance use when adding hair analysis results to those of the survey....

Chemists are close to showing that DNA could form spontaneously from chemicals which were present during primordial Earth. If they succeed, the work could imply that DNA could predate the birth of life as we know it. The scientists published their findings in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. DNA is essential to all life on Earth, yet most biologists think that life began with RNA, not DNA. DNA stores genetic information, but RNA can fold itself into complex shapes that can clamp onto other molecules and speed up chemical reactions....

“The science has never supported the old eight glasses thing as an appropriate guideline if only because it confused total water turnover with water from beverages and a lot of your water comes from the food you eat,” says Dale Schoeller, a University of Wisconsin–Madison emeritus professor of nutritional sciences who has been studying water and metabolism for decades. “But this work is the best we’ve done so far to measure how much water people actually consume on a daily basis — the turnover of water into and out of the body — and the major factors that drive water turnover....

Advances in the fields of biomaterials and nanotechnology could lead to big breakthroughs in the fight against dangerous viruses like the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. In APL Bioengineering, by AIP Publishing, researchers from the Indian Institute of Science describe two possibilities being explored by scientists in the field to make vaccines more effective and build surfaces that could fight and kill viruses on their own. “It is important not just in terms of COVID,” said author Kaushik Chatterjee....

Hurricane Ian roared across Florida over September 28–29, 2022, as one of the most powerful storms ever to make landfall in the state. The category-4 hurricane hit the southwestern coast of Florida with several feet of storm surge, backed by sustained winds of 150 miles (240 kilometers) per hour, before dumping more than a foot of rain in wide swaths across the state. Millions of residential and business customers lost electric power and light in the hours after the storm passed....

In order to explore a pattern of temperature change in a region of water in the subpolar North Atlantic known as a warming hole that has been cooling over the last century, the UM Rosenstiel School researchers utilized a cutting-edge climate model. According to scientists, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which carries energy to the North Atlantic, has been thought to be the cause of this cooling. “However, our study shows the warming hole during the past century is unlikely due to a slowdown of the AMOC....

More than half of Earth’s rivers freeze over every year. These frozen rivers support important transportation networks for communities and industries located at high latitudes. Ice cover also regulates the amount of greenhouse gasses released from rivers into Earth’s atmosphere. A new study from researchers in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department of Geological Sciences found that annual river ice cover will decline by about six days for every one degree Celsius increase in global temperatures....

These ancient creatures can squeeze through the tiniest cracks, fit snugly into tight spaces and survive in harsh environments: There aren’t many spaces that are off-limits to an insect. That’s why researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have created tiny bug-inspired robots that can carry out tasks in hard-to-reach spaces and inhospitable environments. “These robots could be used to access confined areas for imaging or environmental evaluation, take water samples, or perform structural evaluations,” said Junfeng Gao, who led the work as a PhD student in industrial engineering at the Swanson School of Engineering....

With the rise of the digital age, the amount of WiFi sources to transmit information wirelessly between devices has grown exponentially. This results in the widespread use of the 2.4GHz radio frequency that WiFi uses, with excess signals available to be tapped for alternative uses. To harness this under-utilized source of energy, a research team from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Japan’s Tohoku University (TU) has developed a technology that uses tiny smart devices known as spin-torque oscillators (STOs) to harvest and convert wireless radio frequencies into energy to power small electronics....

This spectacular image of the star cluster Messier 47 was taken using the Wide Field Imager camera, installed on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. This young open cluster is dominated by a sprinkling of brilliant blue stars but also contains a few contrasting red giant stars. Messier 47 is located approximately 1,600 light-years from Earth, in the constellation of Puppis (the poop deck of the mythological ship Argo)....

Most of what we know about how COVID can affect the brain has come from studies of severe infection. In people with severe COVID, inflammatory cells from outside the brain can enter brain tissue and spread inflammation. There may be changes to blood vessels. Brain cells can even have changes similar to those seen in people with Alzheimer’s disease. For the first time, a new study has investigated the effects of mild COVID (that is, infection that doesn’t lead to a hospital admission) on the brain....