News in Brief
- Astronomy
Uranus moon count: 27 and rising
Two more moons might be lurking around Uranus, causing material in the planet’s rings to clump up, Voyager 2 data suggest.
- Health & Medicine
Nose cells fix knee cartilage
A small clinical trial suggests that using nose cells to patch knee cartilage could be a viable treatment for injuries.
- Planetary Science
First peek under clouds reveals Jupiter’s surprising depths
Jupiter’s colorful bands originate several hundred kilometers beneath the cloud tops, the Juno spacecraft reveals.
- Genetics
Zika disrupts cellular processes to impair brain development
Discoveries about how Zika virus slows brain cell development could lead to treatments.
- Health & Medicine
‘Three-parent baby’ boy healthy so far
A baby boy born with donor mitochondrial DNA seems to be healthy, researchers report at a meeting.
- Planetary Science
Possibly cloudy forecast for parts of Pluto
Reflective patches on Pluto could be hints of rare cloud formation on the dwarf planet.
- Planetary Science
Lava may be flowing from Venus volcano
Lava flows might explain a hot spot seen in data from Venus Express spacecraft.
- Planetary Science
Comet 67P cracking under pressure
Cracks developing on comet 67P are signs of stress building in the neck of the comet that could lead to its two ends snapping apart.
- Computing
AI system learns like a human, stores info like a computer
A new artificial neural network hooked up to extra memory can learn to solve complex problems.
- Astronomy
Cosmic census of galaxies updated to 2 trillion
A new census of the cosmos suggests that there might be 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, about 10 times as many as previous estimates.
- Animals
Hot and spicy pain signals get blocked in naked mole-rats
Naked mole-rats have a protein that interrupts pain signal.
- Life
Ocean archaea more vulnerable to deep-sea viruses than bacteria
Deep-sea viruses kill archaea disproportionately more often than bacteria, a killing spree with important impacts on the global carbon cycle.
