A new portable Raman analyzer can accurately measure very low concentrations of hydrogen gas in ambient air, which could be useful for detecting hydrogen leaks.

We know exercise is good for our body, but what about our brains? A new study from the University of Missouri suggests that exercise plays a crucial role in keeping our minds sharp, even when one of the brain’s key energy sources isn’t available.

The study, led by Mizzou researchers Taylor Kelty and R. Scott Rector, offers fresh insight into brain health and suggests that exercise could play a bigger role in preventing cognitive decline than previously thought.

Researchers in Nikolaus Rajewsky’s lab at Max Delbrück Center combined high-resolution, single-cell spatial technologies to map a tumor’s cellular neighborhoods in 3D and identify potential targets for personalized cancer therapy. They describe their findings in two separate papers in Cell Systems.

Researchers from the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed and validated a coupled xenon-transport and reactor dynamics model for molten salt reactors. This model enables simulations of dynamic and frequency response of liquid-fueled MSRs, which is validated against a broad spectrum of experiment data from the MSRE. The new simulation framework reveals the unique power-to-flowrate and power-to-void frequency responses of the MSRE. In addition, plant responses during the unique initiating events of off-gas system blockage and loss of circulating voids are simulated.

Plant-based seafood alternatives should have similar flavors, textures and nutritional content to the foods they mimic. And recreating the properties of fried calamari rings, which have a neutral flavor and a firm, chewy texture after being cooked, has been a challenge. Building off previous research, a team publishing in ACS Food Science & Technology describes successfully using plant-based ingredients to mimic calamari that matches the real seafood’s characteristic softness and elasticity.

The U.S. National Science Foundation Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, the world’s most powerful solar telescope, operated by the NSF National Solar Observatory (NSO) near the summit of Maui’s Haleakalā, recently reached a major milestone as one of its groundbreaking instruments, the Visible Tunable Filter (VTF) achieved first light. The VTF is the world’s largest imaging spectro-polarimeter - a highly sophisticated instrument designed and built by a team at the Institut für Sonnenphysik (KIS) in Freiburg, Germany. It is the fifth and final first-generation instrument to be integrated, emerging as a crucial one among the Inouye’s instrument suite.