Tardigrades can survive scorching heat, freezing temperatures, intense radiation, crushing pressure, and the cold vacuum of space. Called water bears, they can survive almost anything you throw at them! They’re so hardy that scientists used to think that they borrowed 17% of their genes from “extremophile” bacteria (bacteria that are able to thrive in extreme environments). But it turns out that the little water bears figured out how to live through extremes all on their own; only 1.2% of their genes are borrowed from other organisms. Read full article here
Science
‘Ghostly’ neutrinos provide new path to study protons
In groundbreaking research, an international collaboration of scientists from the University of Rochester have used a beam of neutrinos to measure the size and shape of the protons that make up the nuclei of atoms. This feat, once thought impossible, provides scientists with a new way of looking at the small components of an atom’s nucleus and opens up a wealth of new information about the structure of an atom’s nucleus and the dynamics of the forces that affect neutrino interactions. The researchers solved the challenge of harnessing neutrinos in large numbers by using a neutrino detector containing a target of both hydrogen and carbon atoms, and over nine years of data collection at Fermilab’s accelerator. Read full article here
Merv
March 25, 2023
