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For the study, the researchers conducted microscopy analyses of a zircon grain obtained from Black Beauty, which builds off a 2022 study involving the same zircon grain where researchers found the grain had experienced being “shocked” from a meteorite impact long ago. For this latest study, the researchers found that the zircon grain contained unique evidence regarding past liquid water on the Red Planet.

“We used nano-scale geochemistry to detect elemental evidence of hot water on Mars 4.45 billion years ago,” said Dr. Aaron Cavosie, who is a senior lecturer in the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Curtin University and a co-author on the study. “Hydrothermal systems were essential for the development of life on Earth and our findings suggest Mars also had water, a key ingredient for habitable environments, during the earliest history of crust formation. Through nano-scale imaging and spectroscopy, the team identified element patterns in this unique zircon, including iron, aluminum, yttrium and sodium. These elements were added as the zircon formed 4.45 billion years ago, suggesting water was present during early Martian magmatic activity.”

You can know a lot of things about birds just by the shape of their wings. A seafaring albatross, stretching out its sail-like airfoils, lives a very different life from a ground-dwelling antpitta with its long legs and short, stubby wings that it uses in rare, short bursts of flight.

But can bird wing shape tell scientists something useful about how nature is organized?

Research from Washington University in St. Louis says that bird wing shape—a proxy for long-distance flying ability—is a trait that influences biodiversity patterns on around the world.

The Adaptive Immunity and Immunoregulation Section (AIIS) in the Laboratory of Allergic Diseases at #NIAID is seeking an exceptional candidate for a postdoctoral fellowship position.


The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the largest institutes in the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), conducts and supports basic and applied research to better understand, treat, and ultimately prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases.

A postdoctoral fellowship position is available immediately in the Adaptive Immunity and Immunoregulation Section (AIIS) within the Laboratory of Allergic Diseases, NIAID. AIIS seeks highly motivated and collaborative candidates with a strong publication record who are capable of independent reasoning and excited about learning new technologies.

AIIS aims to define the cellular and molecular mechanisms controlling the balance between protective and pathogenic adaptive immune responses to allergens and pathogens. With a particular focus on memory T and B cells and T follicular helper (Tfh) cells, the lab utilizes state-of-the-art cellular and molecular approaches, including in vivo models of infection and allergy, multi-color flow cytometry, adoptive transfer experiments, cell fate tracking experiments, bone marrow chimeras, parabiosis surgery, imaging, conditional knockout and transgenic models, RNA-Seq, and single-cell technologies to characterize memory B-and T-cell responses in different models of food and respiratory allergens and infections.

Tesla’s annual holiday software update for its vehicles will begin rolling out next week with an official Apple Watch app, SiriusXM support, and more than a dozen other features.

The Apple Watch app is one of the highlights and will let owners perform some basic functions offline while in Bluetooth range, like locking and unlocking their car, adjusting the climate, and popping open the front trunk. Tesla’s iOS app leaked the Apple Watch news back in October, so while it is a welcome addition, it may be less of a surprise than some of the other features.

Ryan Serhant’s eponymous brokerage has been in rapid growth mode this year following the success of the Netflix show “Owning Manhattan,” and now investors want in on the action.

SERHANT. announced Monday that it secured $45 million in a seed funding round led by real estate venture capital firm Camber Creek and participation from Left Lane Capital.

The investment — which is going to SERHANT. Technologies, the umbrella company that includes the brokerage — will be used to develop the company’s AI platform known as S.MPLE. The company believes S.MPLE will optimize workflows and help scale other parts of its business, including the brokerage.

A remarkable proof-of-concept project has successfully manufactured nanoscale diodes and transistors using a fast, cheap new production technique in which liquid metal is directed to self-assemble into precise 3D structures.

In a peer-reviewed study due to be released in the journal Materials Horizons, a North Carolina State University team outlined and demonstrated the new method using an alloy of indium, bismuth and tin, known as Field’s metal.

The liquid metal was placed beside a mold, which the researchers say can be made in any size or shape. As it’s exposed to oxygen, a thin oxide layer forms on the surface of the metal. Then, a liquid is poured onto it, containing negatively-charged ligand molecules designed to pull individual metal atoms off that oxide layer as positively-charged ions, and bind with them.