A new study of the 28 most populous U.S. cities finds that all are sinking to one degree or another. The cities include not just those on the coasts, where relative sea level is a concern, but many in the interior. Furthermore, using newly granular data, the study finds that some cities are sinking at different rates in different spots, or sinking in some places and rising in others, potentially introducing stresses that could affect buildings and other infrastructure.

In a paper published in National Science Review, an international team of scientists provides seismic evidence of liquid water located 5.4 to 8 kilometers beneath the Martian surface. This water may originate from the ancient ocean that once existed on Mars, which was sequestered into the crust as the planet transitioned to a colder and drier climate during the Amazonian period (beginning ~3 billion years ago).

Life depends on genes being switched on and off at exactly the right time. Even the simplest living organisms do this, but usually over short distances across the DNA sequence, with the on/off switch typically right next to a gene. This basic form of genomic regulation is probably as old as life on Earth. A new study published in Nature by researchers at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and the Centre Nacional d’Anàlisi Genòmica (CNAG) finds that the ability to control genes from far away, over many tens of thousands of DNA letters, evolved between 650 and 700 million years ago. It probably appeared at the very dawn of animal evolution, around 150 million years earlier than previously thought. The critical innovation likely originated in a sea creature, the common ancestor or all extant animals. The ancient animal evolved the ability to fold DNA in a controlled manner, creating loops in three-dimensional space that brought far-flung bits of DNA in direct contact with each other. The discovery was made by exploring the genomes of many of the oldest branches on the animal family tree, including comb jellies like the ‘sea walnut’ (Mnemiopsis leidyi), placozoans, cnidarians, and sponges and single-celled relatives of animals.

MIT physicists captured the first images of individual atoms freely interacting in space. The pictures reveal correlations among the “free-range” particles that until now were predicted but never directly observed.

Satellite constellation has been applied in communication, reconnaissance, navigation, and other space missions, such as GPS, Glonass, Beidou, Starlink, etc. With the rapid development of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations, mega constellation will inevitably become an important means of Earth observation and a key point in the development of future satellite technology. The configuration optimization design of LEO observation mega constellation in complex space environment is a nonlinear problem that is difficult to solve analytically. During the development, constellation design principles have shifted from the uniform coverage requirement to application requirements. However, previous method cannot provide solutions to constellation configuration optimal design based on high-precision orbital propagation.