A research team led by Rice University physicist Frank Geurts has successfully measured the temperature of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) at various stages of its evolution, providing critical insights into a state of matter believed to have existed just microseconds after the big bang, a scientific theory describing the origin and evolution of the universe. The findings were published in Nature Communications Oct. 14.

SAN ANTONIO — October 14, 2025 — Dr. Chris Thomas of Southwest Research Institute’s Mechanical Engineering Division has been named an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

The research described in this paper gives proof of the assumption, previously made by other researchers, that blocks of CO2 ice can play a role in the creation of dune gullies on Martian dunes. However, how these blocks carved the peculiar dune gullies remained unknown. Experiments performed by the authors showed, for the first time, how blocks of CO2 can indeed create such gullies – a process that does not occur here on Earth and that had never been observed before. One of the reasons that this research is so important is that it shows the importance of having facilities with which these kinds of phenomena can be studied – phenomena that we do not know on Earth and that may occur, in different forms, on other planets with conditions even more different from ours than those on Mars. Furthermore, by better understanding the seasonal processes that shape landscapes on Mars, we are also better prepared for future Mars missions.

Any life on Mars in the past, present, or future would have to contend with challenging conditions including, among others, shock waves from meteorite impacts and soil perchlorates—highly oxidizing salts that destabilize hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions. Purusharth I. Rajyaguru and colleagues subjected Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is a widely used model yeast, to shock waves and perchlorates. Yeast exposed to 5.6 Mach intensity shock waves survived with slowed growth, as did yeast subjected to 100 mM sodium salt of perchlorate (NaClO4)—a concentration similar to that in Martian soils.

An AI system that can predict what a patient’s knee X-ray will look like a year in the future could transform how millions of people with osteoarthritis understand and manage their condition, according to research by the University of Surrey.