MIT researchers have discovered that peptides can remain stable and form into, reports Earth.com’s Eric Ralls. “First, we were astounded that peptides remain stable at all in concentrated sulfuric acid, for many weeks on end,” says Prof. Mei Hong, an author on the study. “Even more remarkable was that they adopt specific three-dimensional structures instead of random shapes.”
MIT researchers have discovered that peptides “not only survive in highly concentrated sulfuric acid but take on stable 3D conformations too,” writes Chemical & Engineering News’ Fionna Samuels. “The project started with a new collaboration between [Prof. Sara] Seager and the MIT chemist [Prof.] Mei Hong,” notes Samuels. “In the years since finding phosphine signals in Venusian clouds, Seager had been working her way through the building blocks of life—nucleic acids, amino acids, and lipids—to see if any survived concentrated acid exposure.”
Prof. Susan Solomon joins Cleo Abram’s “HUGE* If True,” to discuss her 1985 research uncovering how chlorofluorocarbons, were depleting the ozone layer, which led to the Montreal Protocol that banned the use of those chemicals. “It was an interesting feeling being under the ozone hole, knowing that half a world away an incredible change [the Montreal Protocol] had just occurred that really had a lot of potential to change things in the future—and indeed it did,” says Solomon.
Prof. Emeritus Kerry Emanuel speaks to The New York Times’ William J. Broad about the use of AI models in predicting hurricanes. “It’s human beings who have to make these calls,” says Emanuel. “[Eventually] AI will be treated as just another form of guidance” along with satellite images and readings from hurricane hunter aircraft that pierce the tempests.
Graduate student Jaida Elcock speaks to Popular Science’s Laura Baisas about tagging a whale shark about 100 miles off the coast of New England, as part of an effort to learn more about the behavior of these giant sea creatures, in the biodiverse northeast canyon and seamounts region of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. “There are whale shark aggregations all over the place. The Philippines, Mexico, Australia, tropical places like that. A lot of these aggregations are also often young individuals, subadult individuals, juveniles,” says Elcock. “Out in the [northeast] canyons, we’re seeing large adults.”
Research Scientist Giovanni Lavezzi speaks to Scientific American’s Jonathan O’Callaghan about managing the number of satellites in Earth’s orbit. “So far [the amount] seems manageable” through active coordination, says Lavezzi. “The problem is how much can we push.”
A study by MIT researchers has found evidence that the first signs of ozone depletion appeared in 1957 in the upper tropical stratosphere, driven by carbon tetrachloride, an industrial chemical introduced in the 1930s and widely used as a dry-cleaning and degreasing agent, writes Gizmodo reporter Ellyn Lapointe. “This finding underscores the importance of long-term atmospheric monitoring so that we can fully understand how it responds to chemical pollution,” Lapointe notes.
A study by MIT scientists uncovered the culprit in the deep-sea mystery of what was reducing the ocean’s carbon-trapping capacity: dense microbe ‘cities’ living inside marine snow (slowly sinking particles of fish poop and other debris), reports Scientific American reporter Damien Pine. “Ultimately everything that’s happening at these microscales—that’s really what’s terraforming our planet,” explains Prof. Andrew Babbin.
Researchers from MIT have created a new model that can predict wave behavior on different planets, reports Kristen French for Nautilus. “On Earth, waves form as wind drags across bodies of water, pushing unevenly on their surfaces. As the waves lengthen, and the distance between crests grows, the waves are increasingly driven by the force of gravity rather than by surface tension,” French writes. “On faraway planets, the size of the waves would depend not only on the strength of gravity and the speed and direction of the wind, but the density of the atmosphere, the viscosity of the liquid in the oceans and lakes, as well as the depth of the bed. All these factors were fed into the PlanetWaves model.”
MIT scientists have developed a new model, dubbed "PlanetWaves," that predicts wave behavior on different planets, showing that the "smallest gust of wind on Titan could generate huge, roiling waves across seas of hydrocarbons," reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. “PlanetWaves is far more than a novel simulator,” writes Paul. “Calculating fluid behaviors on distant planets and moons could help inform engineers building new spacecraft and probes.”
Prof. Richard Binzel speaks with CBS Boston about the success of the Artemis II mission and the future of space exploration. "It's exciting we have humans back in space again," Binzel shared. "It's a real test of a spaceflight system. Surviving reentry and landing safely. That's the real accomplishment here. Showing we can go to the moon but also come back safely."
Using new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers from MIT determined that asteroid 2024 YR4 will not collide with the moon, reports Hannah Devlin for The Guardian. “[Asteroid] 2024 YR4 is exceedingly faint right now, reflecting about as much light as an almond at the distance of the moon,” explain Prof. Julien de Wit and Andy Rivkin PhD '91, who co-led the observations. “Webb is the only observatory that could hope to make these measurements, as it is the only one with the required sensitivity and stability combined with precise moving-target tracking needed to follow and study objects like this.”
Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers from MIT and other institutions have determined that asteroid 2024 YR4 will not collide with the moon, reports Ashley Strickland for CNN. “Every time we observe an asteroid, we reduce the range of possible trajectories,” explains Prof. Julien de Wit. “In this case, the JWST observations both provided very precise positional measurements and significantly extended the time span over which the asteroid has been observed.”
Prof. Richard Teague speaks with CNN reporter Asuka Koda about how an international team of astronomers have “captured the most complete, high-resolution map of the cold gas at the center of the Milky Way, which contains the raw material from which stars and planets are made” using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA. “I think astronomy on this scale is really no longer about small individual people pushing in their labs, but about huge international collaborations,” says Teague. “And I think that’s what’s particularly impressive about this piece of work, just the scale of that collaboration that you need to make it happen.”
Research scientist Judah Cohen served as a panelist for the Boston Globe’s “The Reshaping of New England’s Seasons: What’s Happening to Our Weather?” event, reports Ken Mahan for The Boston Globe. Cohen and his fellow panelists discussed New England weather, sharing insights and answering questions from community members.