Unleash 2025 with Archibald Montgomery Low’s visionary spark—where drones, TV, and rocket bikes foretold a future we’re only just embracing.
Photo credit: NASA / Matthew Dominick NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick captured this incredible image of a brilliant red and green aurora in Earth’s thermosphere from the International Space Station (ISS). It was taken from the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft on Oct. 7, 2024 around 273 miles above the Indian Ocean. Expedition 72 Flight Engineer Matthew Dominick dedicated much of his personal time to photography, amassing nearly 500,000 photos of Earth as well as snapshots of life aboard the International Space Station. This is a very impressive feat considering that he traveled 99,708,603 total statute miles around our home planet. We.
Non-neural cells can mimic memory-like behavior. These cells ‘remember’ chemical patterns over time, showing that memory mechanisms aren’t exclusive to the brain but rely on fundamental cellular processes.
NASA’s nuclear propulsion breakthrough promises Mars trips in 45 days. Combining nuclear and plasma systems boosts efficiency, safety, and interplanetary mission success.
Donald J. Cram, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist who taught andconducted research at UCLA for more than 50 years and is remembered bythousands of undergraduates for singing and playing guitar in class, died ofcancer June 17 at his home in Palm Desert. He was 82.
A renowned scientist who was as comfortable riding the waveswith friends in the San Onofre Surfing Club as he was in his lab at UCLAconstructing complex molecular models, Cram won the Nobel Prize in 1987 and theNational Medal of Science in 1993 for his work in host-guest chemistry, a fieldhe helped to create. In 1998, he wasranked among the 75 most important chemists of the past 75 years byChemical and Engineering News.
“DonaldCram stands alone in the incredible variety, beauty and depth of hisaccomplishments,” read the citation for Cram’s National Medal of Science. “His investigations have helped give thisscience its form and sophistication. Hetruly brought art to science by making his science an art.”
Penn Engineers have modified lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) — the revolutionary technology behind the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines — to not only cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB) but also to target specific types of cells, including neurons. This breakthrough marks a significant step toward potential next-generation treatments for neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
In a new paper in Nano Letters, the researchers demonstrate how peptides — short strings of amino acids — can serve as precise targeting molecules, enabling LNPs to deliver mRNA specifically to the endothelial cells that line the blood vessels of the brain, as well as neurons.
This represents an important advance in delivering mRNA to the cell types that would be key in treating neurodegenerative diseases; any such treatments will need to ensure that mRNA arrives at the correct location. Previous work by the same researchers proved that LNPs can cross the BBB and deliver mRNA to the brain, but did not attempt to control which cells the LNPs targeted.
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Scientists are debating whether concepts such as memory, consciousness, and communication can be applied beyond the animal kingdom, Zoë Schlanger wrote in our June 2024 issue.
“Consciousness was once seen as belonging solely to humans and a short list of nonhuman animals that clearly act with intention,” Schlanger wrote in an article adapted from her book, “The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth.”
“Yet seemingly everywhere researchers look, they are finding that there is more to the inner lives of animals than we ever thought possible. Scientists now talk regularly about animal cognition; they study the behaviors of individual animals, and occasionally ascribe personalities to them. Some scientists now posit that plants should likewise be considered intelligent.”
“Not so long ago, treading even lightly in this domain could upend a scientist’s career,” Schlanger continued. The popular 1973 book “The Secret Life of Plants” included real science, but also featured wildly unscientific projection; many scientists were unable to reproduce its claims, Schlanger wrote, causing a decades-long avoidance of plant-behavior studies.
A decade later, a paper by David Rhoades, a zoologist and chemist at the University of Washington, proposed that trees were communicating with one another to defend against a caterpillar infestation. Rhoades was ridiculed by peers; his discovery ended up buried, even as it opened new lines of inquiry. “Four decades on, the idea that plants might communicate intentionally with one another remains a controversial concept in botany,” Schlanger wrote. Definitions of communication are slippery; intentionality is even harder to show.