Enlace Patrocinado

A twisted protein sheds light on chronic damage disease in deer

A male white tailed deer looks to the left on a sunny winter day

Enlace Patrocinado The misfolded proteins responsible for a fatal neurological disease in deer have a twist. The first detailed structure of an infectious prion that causes chronic wasting disease, or CWD, reveals features that could help guide vaccine development or explain why the disease has not yet made the leap to humans, researchers report Oct. … Read more

Antimatter can travel by truck, proton test shows

A metal box hangs on straps in a full warehouse-type space as four people look on

Enlace Patrocinado A truck full of antimatter would make for a seriously epic road trip. And scientists are now one step closer to transporting the substance in vehicles. Scientists at the European laboratory CERN have demonstrated the ability to transport a cloud of subatomic particles on board a truck, using protons as a support for … Read more

Why this physicist is bringing thermodynamics into the quantum age

Nicole Yunger Halpern is looking at the camera while smiling widely. She has long brown hair and wears glasses.

Enlace Patrocinado Imagine Victorian London, but its skies are filled with airplanes. Steam robots crowd the streets, mingling with people in hats and cloaks. This kind of retrofuturistic mash-up is the fantasy realm of steampunk, a genre of literature, film, and other creative media. Theoretical physicist Nicole Yunger Halpern sees her specialty, the field of … Read more

A materials scientist seeks to extract lithium from untapped resources

Chong Liu is standing to the right, facing the camera, in a lab. She is wearing a navy jacket and blue nitrile gloves. She has long black hair and wears glasses.

Enlace Patrocinado Electric vehicles promise to help us move away from fossil fuels, but they present a new problem: how to get enough lithium that EV batteries require (SN: 5/7/19). Materials scientist Chong Liu of the University of Chicago has some ideas. Existing technology can only extract lithium from sources with highly concentrated ions, such … Read more