By harnessing the capabilities of the 8.1-meter Gemini South telescope in Chile, which is part of the International Gemini Observatory operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, astronomers have obtained the sharpest image ever of the star R136a1, the most massive known star in the Universe. Their research, led by NOIRLab astronomer Venu M. Kalari, challenges our understanding of the most massive stars and suggests that they may not be as massive as previously thought.

Scientists at University of Missouri and Webster University find climate change is linked to the decline of bumblebees in alpine regions of the Rocky Mountains.

Rice University receives National Science Foundation support to turn living cells, starting with bacteria, into random-access memory devices. These will be able to store and report data about their environments.

Subhrajit Bhattacharya, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics at Lehigh University, recently won support from the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program for his proposal to use topological abstraction for robot path planning. Robotic systems have become increasingly important in industries such as transportation, manufacturing, and healthcare, and his approach could make those systems even more reliable.

A newly-discovered walking shark that breaks all of the rules for survival is the focus of a first-of-its-kind study that examined differences in walking and swimming in neonate (newly-hatched) and juvenile walking sharks. Despite dissimilarities in body shapes – neonates have bulging bellies and juveniles are slender – the three aquatic gaits they use (slow-to-medium walking, fast-walking and swimming) did not differ. Kinematics between neonate and juvenile epaulette sharks did not alter during early development.