Science

The Muon experiment. Credit: Reidar Hahn / Fermilab Seven years ago, a huge magnet was transported 5,150 km over land and sea in hopes of studying a subatomic particle called muon. Muons are closely related to electrons that orbit each atom and form the building blocks of matter. The electron and the muon both have properties precisely predicted by our …

U.S. researchers have revealed a significant upgrade to the CRISPR gene editing system, which, unlike its predecessor, can target specific genes with high precision and make completely reversible changes. The new gene editing technology, developed by Whitehead Institute member Jonathan Weissman and University of California San Francisco assistant professor Luke Gilbert, is called CRISPRoff. It is able to control a …

Some of the oldest human art in Europe is completely hidden from view, tucked away in the narrow crawl spaces of deep, dark and winding caves. To see the walls themselves, let alone decorate them, Stone Age artists would have needed to crawl around with multiple torches, and archaeologists now suspect everything that smoke induced an altered state of consciousness. …

It is a huge step towards diversity. NASA plans to land the first colored person on the moon as part of an international space program, a representative of the agency said Friday. “NEW: @NASA lands the first woman and * the first colored person * on the Moon during the Artemis program,” tweeted NASA Press Secretary Jackie McGuinness. The news …

NASA engineers have decided to postpone the Ingenuity helicopter’s debut flight to Mars until at least Wednesday, April 14, after running into a minor computer failure during a rotor spin test late Friday night, the agency said Saturday. The small craft is healthy, but engineers need more time to review telemetry data from the unexpected hiccup before proceeding. Ingenuity, a …

2012 Lyrid meteor shower as captured by astronaut Don Pettit aboard the International Space Station. NASA After a long hiatus, the meteor season is back with the annual highlight of the Lyrid meteor shower this month. The first three months of most years represent a relatively dry spelling for night sky lovers, as typically not much happens between Quadrant meteor …

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter is scheduled to take off as soon as possible on April 14 in the first ever attempt to drive, controlled flight on another planet, a delay from the original scheduled launch date. While the lift-off was originally scheduled for Sunday, April 11, the agency announced the delay Saturday afternoon. MARS PERSEVERANCE ROVER TAKES A SELFIE WITH …

A new CRISPR method allows researchers to silence most genes in the human genome without altering the underlying DNA sequence – and then reversing the changes. Credit: Jennifer Cook-Chrysos / Whitehead Institute New, reversible CRISPR method can control gene expression while remaining underlying DNA sequence unchanged. Over the past decade, the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system has revolutionized gene technology, enabling …

When the results of an experiment do not agree with predictions from today’s best theory, something is turned off. Fifteen years ago, physicists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory discovered something confusing. Muons – a type of subatomic particle – moved in unexpected ways that did not match theoretical predictions. Was the theory wrong? Was the experiment turned off? Or exciting …

It is an unidentified liquid object. Oregon officials are trying to determine if dirt that washed ashore Friday afternoon belonged to a SpaceX rocket. More than 100 SpaceX rockets have been launched into orbit since 2010. The alleged space debris, a large black cylindrical tube, washed up along Alsea Bay in Lincoln County and was reported to local police shortly …