Using smart materials to deploy a Dark Age explorer

One of the most significant constraints on the size of objects placed into orbit is the size of the fairing used to put them there. Large telescopes must be stuffed into a relatively small fairing housing and deployed to ...

A sun protection mechanism helps plants to survive

Just as people can get sunburned, plants can also suffer from too much sunlight. To stay healthy, they use an internal "sun protection mechanism." Pierrick Bru, a Ph.D. student working with Alizée Malnoë at Umeå Plant ...

Proba-3 satellite: Seeing in the dark

One of the precision formation flying Proba-3 satellites as seen from the other during ground testing. The pair will fly in orbit relative to one another down to millimeter scale precision, but in order to do this must keep ...

Why 40°C is bearable in a desert but lethal in the tropics

This year, even before the northern hemisphere hot season began, temperature records were being shattered. Spain for instance saw temperatures in April (38.8°C) that would be out of the ordinary even at the peak of summer. ...

What causes decline of tropical seagrass meadows?

Seagrass, a group of aquatic angiosperms, grows in shallow waters in the coastal sea and contributes most of the primary production while participating in many important ecological processes. Heat stress threatens the survival ...

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