A chiral surprise in the rainforest

Forests such as the Amazon rainforest emit huge amounts of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC) into the atmosphere. These compounds impact the physical and chemical properties of the atmosphere and also our climate. ...

NASA plans to visit a near-Earth asteroid

In a few years a NASA spacecraft will seek the building blocks of life in a shovelful of asteroid dirt. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, targeted for launch in September 2016, will intercept asteroid 1999 RQ36, orbit it for a year, ...

Geographic isolation drives the evolution of a hot springs microbe

Sulfolobus islandicus, a microbe that can live in boiling acid, is offering up its secrets to researchers hardy enough to capture it from the volcanic hot springs where it thrives. In a new study, researchers report that ...

Bubble-recoil could be used to cool microchips, even in space

The bubbles that form on a heated surface create a tiny recoil when they leave it, like the kick from a gun firing blanks. Now researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago, under funding from NASA, have shown how ...

History's impostors inspire modern bureaucracy

"Identity theft" seems a uniquely 21st-century crime, and is very common in the contemporary world. But in a new book, Prof. Miriam Eliav-Feldon of Tel Aviv University's Department of History observes that identity theft ...

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