NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover recently attempted its first-ever sample collection of the Martian surface on August 6. However, data shows that while the rover’s drill successfully drilled into the surface, no regolith was collected in the sample tube.
Meanwhile, as Perseverance was preparing for the sample collection event, a team of researchers using ESA’s Mars Express orbiter found evidence that previously thought of lakes of water underneath Mars’ south pole might actually be made of clay.
Wind farms certainly allow for the production of clean energy. Although they are 100% renewable, they still have problems. They have high costs, disfigure the landscape, produce noise pollution, and above all, have a heavy impact on fauna, and in particular on birds.
The Spanish startup Vortex Bladeless has developed a bladeless turbine that can revolutionize wind energy, especially at the household level, and become the alternative to solar panels. The design of the Spanish firm has already received the approval of Norway’s state energy company, Equinor.
The new turbine, which has also been called the “Skybrator” due to its phallic shape, is capable of harnessing energy from winds without the sweeping white blades everyone associates with wind power. It generates wind energy thanks to vibration and without generating the environmental and visual impact on the fauna of the large wind farms.
A new study on thin films of glass shows how they can be fabricated to be denser and more stable, providing a framework for new applications and devices through better design.
NASA’s Perseverance drilled into the surface of Mars but failed in its initial attempt to collect rock samples that would be picked up by future missions for analysis by scientists on Earth.
Researchers have synthesised a mirror image enzyme that allowed them to constructing the longest ever strand of mirror DNA. The team also demonstrated how this L-DNA could be used as a robust biorthogonal information repository.
Louis Pasteur first proposed the idea of a mirror image version of biological systems more than 160 years ago, following the discovery of molecular chirality. All natural DNA contains the D form of the chiral sugar deoxyribose, but it may be possible for a mirror system to be built using L-deoxyribose instead.