Microorganisms cultured in a liquid medium are usually subjected to shaking to provide the oxygen necessary for their growth. However, this creates physical or shear stress on the microbes. Researchers from Japan have now developed a “static” culturing method that uses a gas-permeable polymer to culture bacteria without the need for shaking. This innovative approach saves valuable space, energy, and resources in microbiology research.

On Sept. 26, 2024, Hurricane Helene slammed into the Gulf Coast of Florida, inducing storm surges and widespread impacts on communities in its path. At the same time, NASA’s Atmospheric Waves Experiment, or AWE, recorded enormous swells in the atmosphere that the hurricane produced roughly 55 miles above the ground. 

Frank and Peggy Taplin Member George N. Wong, Visitor Lia Medeiros, and Professor James Stone, all from the Institute's School of Natural Sciences, have developed an innovative technique to search for black hole light echoes. Their novel method, which will make it easier for the mass and the spin of black holes to be measured, represents a major step forward, since it operates independently of many of the other ways in which scientists have probed these parameters in the past.

Readily available thermoelectric generators operating under modest temperature differences can power CO₂ conversion, according to a proof-of-concept study by chemists at the University of British Columbia (UBC). The findings open up the intriguing possibility that the temperature differentials encountered in an array of environments—from a typical geothermal installation on Earth to the cold, desolate surface of Mars—could power the conversion of CO₂ into a range of useful fuels and chemicals.

A common way ecologists predict population counts may be an unreliable way of forecasting future bird counts in urban areas, meaning scientists may be overestimating and underestimating the losses of certain species.

Reporting in the journal Nature, Caltech-led researchers have uncovered where FRBs are more likely to occur in the universe—massive star-forming galaxies rather than low-mass ones. 

Tiny grains from asteroid Ryugu are revealing clues to the magnetic forces that shaped the far reaches of the solar system over 4.6 billion years ago. The findings suggest the distal solar system harbored a weak magnetic field, which could have played a role in forming the giant planets and other objects.