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Citizen scientists discover five tightly packed exoplanets
Five new planets have been discovered outside our solar system, all orbiting a sun-like star located within the constellation Aquarius, nearly 620 light years from Earth. The alien worlds are considered super-Earths, sizing in at two to three times larger than our own blue planet.All five exoplanets are likely scorchingly hot: Each planet comes incredibly…
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Peel-and-go printable structures fold themselves
As 3-D printing has become a mainstream technology, industry and academic researchers have been investigating printable structures that will fold themselves into useful three-dimensional shapes when heated or immersed in water.In a paper appearing in the American Chemical Society’s journal Applied Materials and Interfaces, researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and…
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Zeroing in on the chemistry of the air
We breathe it in and out every few seconds, yet the air that surrounds us has chemical activity and variations in its composition that are remarkably complex. Teasing out the mysterious behavior of the atmosphere’s constituents, including pollutants that may be present in tiny amounts but have big impacts, has been the driving goal of…