Blogs

Some recommended apps that can be downloaded from the Apple App Store:

Solar Walk, described below.

1.TED

Researchers from Japan have for the first time created a ‘marshmallow-like’ superhydrophobic aerogel that acts effectively as a sponge to soak up hydrocarbons and can then be ‘wrung out’ and reused.

The hairs in the ear that detect sounds (auditory hair cells) have been grown in mice whose hair cells had been damaged. The mice did not have their full hearing restored, but an increase in their measured hearing threshold was recorded.

Rows of the auditory hair cells in the ear:

On Saturday the search for life beneath the ice in the Antarctic ran into a complication with the main boiler used to heat the water that powers the drill by melting through the thick ice.

The Voyager spacecraft have been on a trajectory towards the edge of the solar system for 35 years, since they completed their first mission to tour the outer planets. Voyager 1 is currently the most distant man-made object from Earth and is close to becoming the first to enter interstellar space, the region outside of the sun’s sphere of influence. 

Passengers can to fly to Australia in four hours (instead of around 23 hours) with the help of a new engine cooling system invented by British scientists to revolutionise space flight.

The new ‘Sabre’ (Synergistic Air-breathing Rocket Engine) cycle air-cooling system engine is capable of cooling the air entering it from 1,000°C to -150°C in one hundredth of a second without the formation of ice, which would block air flow.

Over 17 000 delegates are expected to fly into Doha, Qatar, for talks on climate change over the next two weeks.

Some commentators are confident that the talks could make real progress towards cuts in carbon emissions.

Others are sceptical.

The Bexsero or 4CMenB vaccine, which protects against group B meningococcus, has recently been granted a licence for the immunisation of children older than two months.

Subglacial lakes are formed when geothermal heat beneath Antarctica melts the ice from below. Gravity and ice pressure cause this water to flow and collect in the valleys of the continent, far beneath the surface of the ice.