When Voyager 2 flew by Uranus and Neptune 40 years ago, astronomers were surprised that it detected no global dipole magnetic fields, like Earth's. The explanation: the ice giants are layered and unmixed, which prevents large scale convection to create a dipole field. But what substances would remain immiscible? A UC Berkeley scientist modeled the interiors and found that water-rich and hydrocarbon-rich layers naturally form at extreme pressure and temperature, and they do not mix.

A wearable electrical nerve stimulation device can provide relief to people experiencing the persistent pain and fatigue linked to long COVID

When bats can’t hear, new research finds that these hearing-dependent animals employ a remarkable compensation strategy.

In a new Northwestern Medicine study, scientists sought to better understand how humans evolved to become so skilled at thinking about what’s happening in other peoples’ minds. The findings could have implications for one day treating psychiatric conditions such as anxiety and depression.

University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers have found a way to simultaneously mitigate three types of defects in parts produced using a prominent additive manufacturing technique called laser powder bed fusion. 

Penn Engineers have cooked up a new way to improve mRNA delivery, developing an optimal “recipe” for ionizable lipids — key ingredients in lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), the molecules behind the COVID-19 vaccines and other innovative therapies. The method, described in Nature Biomedical Engineering, mirrors the iterative process of developing a culinary dish and may lead to safer, more effective mRNA vaccines and therapeutics.

Researchers at Rice have found a new way to improve a key element of thermophotovoltaic systems, which convert heat into electricity via light. Rice engineer Gururaj Naik and his team designed a thermal emitter that can deliver high efficiencies within practical design parameters.

The one-year project is assessing how spongy moth defoliation shapes the survival of blacklegged ticks, the main vectors of the pathogens that cause Lyme disease, babesiosis, and anaplasmosis.  “We know from our previous research that if it's very warm and dry, that's really bad for some life stages of ticks,” said Ostfeld. “So if this defoliation by the spongy moths is changing temperature and humidity conditions on the ground, it could influence their survival, and as a consequence, our risk of getting sick from tick-borne disease.”