This week in science

Author

Neil Baugh
November 01, 2023

Happy Wednesday morning! Thanks for joining in for another week. Here’s another This Week in Science picking out some science for you. There’s a quick summary at the bottom if you want to skim.

Enjoy! And let me know what you think by taking the polls at the bottom and/or sending me an email with your thoughts.

Scientists harvest electricity from the movement of molecules - Advanced Science News

A new frontier in clean energy may be on the horizon with nanoscale generators that capture electricity from molecules.

www.advancedsciencenews.com/scientists-harvest-electricity-from-the-movement-of-molecules

There’s no such thing as a stationary molecule. We think of things like the air or the water in a cup as immobile, but really, the individual molecules that make them up are moving constantly.

In this paper, the author’s took advantage of this fact to build microscale generators. They constructed small pillars that generate electricity when pushed around by the random motion of water molecules. While the system doesn’t generate much electricity right now, they hope to scale it up to take advantage of the moving molecules all around us.

Going viral: gene therapy spreads far and wide

A hospital’s investment in revolutionary cell and gene therapy research is not only helping families of ill children, but is also transforming Columbus, Ohio into one of America’s fastest growing biotech hubs.

www.nature.com/articles/d42473-023-00145-1

A hospital in Ohio is turning itself into a biotech hub through it’s investment into gene and cell therapies. This is a behind the scenes look at how an ordinary hospital can play a large role in medical innovation.

Feline Faces: Unraveling the Social Function of Domestic Cat Facial Signals

Lately, there has been a growing interest in studying domestic cat facial signals, but most of this research has centered on signals produced during h…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376635723001419?via%3Dihub

Cats make a lot of faces. They let you know what they’re thinking with squinty eyes, a frown, or by making a lot of noise. This paper takes a dive into cat facial expressions and what they mean.

The Crab Nebula Seen in New Light by NASA’s Webb - NASA

Exquisite, never-before-seen details help unravel the supernova remnant’s puzzling history.

www.nasa.gov/missions/webb/the-crab-nebula-seen-in-new-light-by-nasas-webb

What’s the point of a This Week in Science if I don’t include at least one article of amazing pictures. For this week, I went with an image of the Crab Nebula captured by the Webb telescope. Specifically, scientists were looking at the iron and nickel content of explosions from the Crab Nebula. There’s a nice video in the article walking us through the image.

See you next week for more science,

Neil

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