Lifeboat Foundation

A new study finds clues lurking in the Red Planet’s soil. The question of whether Mars ever supported life has captivated the imagination of scientists and the public for decades. Central to the discovery is gaining insight into the past climate of Earth’s neighbor: was the planet warm and wet, with seas and rivers much like those found on our own planet? Or was it frigid and icy, and therefore potentially less prone to supporting life as we know it? A new study finds evidence to support the latter by identifying similarities between soils found on Mars and those of Canada’s Newfoundland, a cold subarctic climate.

The study, published July 7th in Communications Earth and Environment, looked for soils on Earth with comparable materials to Mars’ Gale Crater. Scientists often use soil to depict environmental history, as the minerals present can tell the story of landscape evolution through time. Understanding more about how these materials formed could help answer long-standing questions about historical conditions on the red planet. The soils and rocks of Gale Crater provide a record of Mars’ climate between 3 and 4 billion years ago, during a time of relatively abundant water on the planet — and the same time period that saw life first appear on Earth.

“Gale Crater is a paleo lakebed — there was obviously water present. But what were the environmental conditions when the water was there?” says Anthony Feldman, a soil scientist and geomorphologist now at DRI. “We’re never going to find a direct analog to the Martian surface, because conditions are so different between Mars and Earth. But we can look at trends under terrestrial conditions and use those to try to extrapolate to Martian questions.”

Lithium (Li) secondary batteries, commonly used in electric vehicles, store energy by converting electrical energy to chemical energy and generating electricity to release chemical energy to electrical energy through the movement of Li-ions between a cathode and an anode. These secondary batteries mainly use nickel (Ni) cathode materials due to their high lithium-ion storage capacity. Traditional nickel-based materials have a polycrystalline morphology composed of many tiny crystals which can undergo structural degradation during charging and discharging, significantly reducing their lifespan.

One approach to addressing this issue is to produce the cathode material in a “single-crystal” form. Creating nickel-based cathode materials as single large particles, or “single crystals,” can enhance their structural and chemical stability and durability. It is known that single-crystal materials are synthesized at high temperatures and become rigid. However, the exact process of hardening during synthesis and the specific conditions under which this occurs remain unclear.

To improve the durability of nickel cathode materials for electric vehicles, the researchers focused on identifying a specific temperature, referred to as the “critical temperature,” at which high-quality single-crystal materials are synthesized. They investigated various synthesis temperatures to determine the optimal conditions for forming single crystals in synthesis of a nickel-based cathode material (N884). The team systematically observed the impact of temperature on the material’s capacity and long-term performance.

The Big Bang: The moment when our universe — everything in existence — began…Right? Turns out, it’s not quite that simple. Today, when scientists talk about the Big Bang, they mean a period of time – closer to an era than to a specific moment. Host Regina Barber talks with two cosmologists about the cosmic microwave background, its implications for the universe’s origins and the discovery that started it all. Interested in more space science? Email us at [email protected].

They also found that, although the power achieved by the conventional PSO algorithm was approximately 0.15% higher than that attained by the QPSO algorithm under the same conditions, the QPSO was able to beat the conventional PSO in more challenging conditions.

“Specifically, the quantum algorithm generates 3.33% more power in higher temperature tests and 0.89% more power in partial shading tests,” they emphasized. “Additionally, the quantum algorithm displays lower duty cycles, with a reduction of 3.9% in normal operating conditions, 0.162% in high-temperature tests, and 0.54% in partial shading tests.”

Elon Musk says his startup Neuralink has implanted a brain chip into a second patient and plans to perform another eight trials later this year.

Almost half the electrodes are working… for now.

DNA contains foundational information needed to sustain life. Understanding how this information is stored and organized has been one of the greatest scientific challenges of the last century.

With GROVER, a new large language model trained on human DNA, researchers could now attempt to decode the complex information hidden in our genome.

Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft is about to dock with the International Space Station on its 21st resupply mission.

Chromosomes are threadlike structures composed entirely of DNA that reside in the cells of all living things. Each one of these biological databanks contains a wealth of genetic information that scientists can use to glean insights into the history and evolution of life on Earth. Normally, the remains of dead creatures degrade over time, causing DNA to fragment. Most ancient animal DNA discovered to date has been incomplete, often comprised of fewer than 100 base pairs out of the billions that once made up the full sequence of the organism.

However, the 52,000-year-old skin sample at the heart of this research was taken from behind the ear of a mammoth discovered in Northern Siberia in 2018. An intensive analysis of the sample revealed the presence of complete fossil chromosomes. These chromosomes, each measuring billionths of a meter in length, had seemingly been frozen in a glass-like state for tens of thousands of years. Knowing the shape of an organism’s chromosomes can help researchers to assemble entire DNA sequences of extinct creatures, a task previously deemed nearly impossible due to DNA degradation over time.

“This is a new type of fossil, and its scale dwarfs that of individual ancient DNA fragments — a million times more sequence,” explained Erez Lieberman Aiden, a corresponding author on the study and director of the Center for Genome Architecture at the Baylor College of Medicine.

Space-based solar power, an innovative concept that involves capturing solar energy in space and transmitting it to Earth, offers limitless opportunities in system design, manufacturing and deployment. This technology has the potential to revolutionize the energy industry, addressing global clean energy demands while minimizing environmental impact.

The availability of space resources, such as asteroid mining and lunar regolith utilization, presents opportunities for companies that invest in technologies and techniques to extract and process these resources, including precious metals, water and rare minerals.

The importance of continued investment in space exploration cannot be overstated. As space technology advances, businesses must consider potential applications in their industries. Collaboration between space agencies and private companies is key to driving innovation and economic growth, offering countless opportunities for the future.