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NASA’s Psyche mission is on its way to explore a metal-rich asteroid in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. All was going well since its launch in October 2023 until nasa announced a decrease in fuel pressure for the propulsion system. It uses a solar electric propulsion system, generating thrust with four electric ion engines that expel xenon ions, giving the spacecraft a gentle nudge in the opposite direction. It has been firing its thrusters continuously since May 2024, but in April 2025, engineers detected the pressure drop. Thankfully they have redundancy built in but are still troubleshooting the issue.

When ISS astronauts return home, they have a hot ride back to Earth's surface. It's been that way since the beginning of human spaceflight to orbital space and beyond. The incoming vehicle uses friction with Earth's atmosphere to slow down to a safe landing speed. The "hot ride" part comes because that friction builds up high temperatures on the spacecraft's "skin". Without protection, the searing heat of atmospheric re-entry could destroy it. This same heating happens to incoming meteoroids as they whip through Earth's atmosphere.

If astronomy has a Holy Grail, it's another habitable world. To find one, NASA is working with partners to develop the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). The HWO would be the first telescope built to detect Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars. China is building the Closeby Habitable Exoplanet Survey (CHES), and new research shows that by working together, HWO and CHES would amplify their results.

There is a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, and it's not alone. There is also likely a forest of binary black holes, neutron stars, and white dwarfs. All of these emit gravitational waves as they gradually spiral ever closer together. These gravitational waves are too faint for us to detect at the moment, but future observatories will be able to observe them. This poses an interesting astronomical challenge.

As fast fashion continues to fill wardrobes and landfills at a staggering pace, new research suggests that the future of fashion might lie not in fabric, but in pixels.

Magnetar flares, colossal cosmic explosions, may be directly responsible for the creation and distribution of heavy elements across the universe, suggests a new study.

Our brain is a complex organ. Billions of nerve cells are wired in an intricate network, constantly processing signals, enabling us to recall memories or to move our bodies. Making sense of this complicated network requires a precise look into how these nerve cells are arranged and connected. A new method makes use of off-the-shelf light microscopes, hydrogel and deep learning.

An artificial intelligence (AI) model improved outcomes in hospitalized patients by quadrupling the rate of detection and treatment of delirium. The model identifies patients at high risk for delirium and alerts a specially-trained team to assess the patient and create a treatment plan, if needed.

Researchers have identified several features on Mars that look surprisingly similar to conditions on Earth. One notable feature is giant wave-like landforms called solifluction lobes, which are in cold, mountainous regions of Earth, like the Arctic or Rocky Mountains. These are slow-moving patterns similar to fluids running downhill, but on Mars, they're 2.6 times larger because of its lower gravity. They can grow much taller before collapsing on Mars.

Organ transplant is a potentially lifesaving medical intervention, but there is a critical lack of donor organs. Even in a wealthy country like the US, there are about 100,000 people on the waiting list for an organ transplant, but only about 23 thousand organs become available each year. About 6 thousand people die each year while on the waiting list. For this […]

The post Pig Heart Xenografts for Infants first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

A UK parliamentary committee has greenlit gene-edited plants. This is great news, as it will boost food production and reduce waste, says Michael Le Page

What new technologies or methods can be developed for more efficient in-situ planetary subsurface analyses? This is what a recent study presented at the 56th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated how a novel instrument called OptiDrill could fill existing technological voids regarding the sampling and collection of regolith (top dust layer) and subsurface samples on a myriad of planetary bodies throughout the solar system.

A research team has developed a groundbreaking technology poised to revolutionize next-generation displays and electronic devices.

The mathematics of graphs has helped reveal a principle that limits the strength of quantum correlations – and explains why physicists have never measured any stronger connections in some post-quantum realm

To understand how chaotic the early Solar System was, we need only gaze at the Moon. Its cratered surface bears the scars from multitudes of collisions. The early Solar System was like a debris field where objects smashed into each other in cascades of collisions. The same must be true in all young solar systems, and in a new paper, researchers simulated a collision between two massive planets to see what would happen.

A new study suggests the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to rapidly analyze vast amounts of biodiversity data could revolutionize conservation efforts by enabling scientists and policymakers to make better-informed decisions.

A new discovery about the slime ejected by velvet worms could revolutionize sustainable material design. The findings outline how a naturally occurring protein structure, conserved across species from Australia, Singapore and Barbados over nearly 400 million years of evolution, enables the slime's transformation from liquid to fiber and back again. It's a discovery that could inspire next-generation recyclable bioplastics.

A team of researchers has developed a cost-effective, high-throughput technology for detecting nanoplastics and microplastics in the environment. These particles are pervasive, posing health and environmental risks, yet detecting them at the nanoscale has been difficult. The 3D-printed HoLDI-MS test platform overcomes the limitations of traditional mass spectrometry by enabling direct analysis of samples without requiring complex sample preparation. The researchers say it also will work for detection of waterborne plastic particles. HoLDI-MS stands for hollow-laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry.

Electronic devices rely on materials whose electrical properties change with temperature, making them less stable in extreme conditions. A discovery that challenges conventional wisdom in physics suggests that bismuth, a metal, could serve as the foundation for highly stable electronic components. The researchers observed a mysterious electrical effect in ultra-thin bismuth that remains unchanged across a wide temperature range, from near absolute zero (-273 C) to room temperature.

Electronic devices rely on materials whose electrical properties change with temperature, making them less stable in extreme conditions. A discovery that challenges conventional wisdom in physics suggests that bismuth, a metal, could serve as the foundation for highly stable electronic components. The researchers observed a mysterious electrical effect in ultra-thin bismuth that remains unchanged across a wide temperature range, from near absolute zero (-273 C) to room temperature.