Whether it's robotic rovers heading to Mars or, one day, a crew of astronauts, a round-trip journey is an incredibly long one. But there may be a way to find a shortcut. A new study published in the journal Acta Astronautica suggests that hundreds of days could be shaved off a return trip to the Red Planet by using the early orbital data of asteroids. This could bring the total mission time down to as low as 153 days.
At least 10 million Americans lost their homes during the 2008–09 global financial crisis. In the aftermath, Congress passed the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which was intended to promote financial stability, protect consumers from predatory financial practices, and prevent taxpayer-funded bailouts.
The Center for Coastal Climate Resilience (CCCR) at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has partnered with The Nature Conservancy to develop a new tool for funding wetland conservation and restoration projects through verifiable "Coastal Resilience Assets." The value of these assets is based on the storm and flood protection benefits that the wetlands provide.
At first glance, the white plastic box with a bright orange floor looks like something for storing children's toys. However, the box isn't used to store Lego bricks; it contains real mice—with the aim of minimizing their suffering. "This box allows laboratory animals to be observed in a humane and standardized way, whether by us here in Zurich or by researchers on the other side of the world," says Oliver Sturman, Head of the 3R Hub.
Fast-food workers in California may be earning more money, but their employers are cutting their hours to make up for the cost of higher pay. That's from a new study published in Applied Economic Letters in early March. Northeastern University postdoctoral research fellow Hitanshu Pandit, who was the author on the paper, used cellphone data to analyze the impact of a law that increased the Golden State's minimum wage for fast-food workers by 25%.
Dolphins are famous for their speed and agility in the water, but what exactly allows them to swim so effectively? Scientists have been asking this question for years, hoping to learn how to optimize propulsion in fluids from these elegant creatures.
Finding planets used to be a painstaking business. Astronomers would fix their gaze on a handful of carefully chosen stars, watch and wait, and hope to catch the faint dip in starlight that signals a world passing in front of its host. It worked. It worked brilliantly. But it also meant we were fishing with a very small net in a very big ocean.
Scientists at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, CSIRO Darwin Laboratories and La Trobe University have identified key ecological needs of Caladenia formosa (elegant spider-orchid) for the first time, to improve conservation outcomes. Their findings are published in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.
A new study reveals how a remarkable group of plants on the Galápagos Islands developed their diverse leaf shapes—offering unique insight into evolution at the genetic level. A large international team of researchers has studied evolution in the plant group Scalesia, also known as the Galápagos giant daisies. The research was recently published in Nature Communications.
Scientists at Ames National Laboratory developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool that accelerates discovery of materials needed for next-generation fusion energy systems. The tool, DuctGPT, combines advanced AI with physics-based modeling to help researchers predict materials with the appropriate properties to function in the extreme conditions inside of fusion reactors.
