Rich Horton Reviews Short Fiction: F&SF and Analog locusmag.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from locusmag.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Image Credit: Jurik Peter/Shutterstock.com
Studies of extraterrestrial atmospheres are enhanced with atomic force microscopy – a scanning probe microscope boasting extremely high resolutions, which make it possible to perform advanced particle analysis at the nanoscale.
Experiments by a team of IGM researchers have recently successfully replicated the atmospheric configuration of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, in laboratory conditions.
Using the relatively new atomic force microscopy (AFM) technique on this gas sample, the scientists were able to perform particle analyses that may provide information about Earth s conditions when life was in its early stages.
What Was on Titan?
Astronomers and geologists have been interested in Saturn’s largest moon for decades. According to scientists, the fog covering the planet in a brownish-orange haze is similar to that which covered Earth 2.8 billion years ago.
Magazines Received, February 2021 locusmag.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from locusmag.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Dung Beetles Use the Sky to Navigate – but How Exactly? 02/01/2021
A pair of dung beetles. Photo: Kev Gregory/Flickr
Placed over the heart in the wrappings of Egyptian mummies, archaeologists have often found carved amulets of scarab beetles, a species of dung beetle. The amulets, many with spells inscribed on them, were intended to help the dead in a final judgment by the jackal-headed god of death, Anubis, who would weigh the hearts of the deceased to assess whether they were worthy of the afterlife.
The ancient Egyptians also believed that a dung beetle drove the movement of the sun, because the sacred scarab (
New Technique Quickly Tells Human Blood from Animal Blood forensicmag.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from forensicmag.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.