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Nine Nobel Prize Predictions for 2019

(Credit: Abigail Malate/Copyright American Institute of Physics)

(Inside Science) — Every year, the Nobel Prizes in physiology or medicine, physics, and chemistry honor great advances and discoveries in science. Last year, one of our top contenders in medicine — checkpoint inhibitors for cancer therapy — won. We were not as successful in the other two categories. But buoyed by that modicum of success, we will again attempt to summarize nine top contenders for these famous scienc …

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Baby Binary Star Gives Astronomers a Glimpse at How Planets Like Tatooine Form

With the help of ALMA’s dust-penetrating gaze, researchers got this snapshot of a young stellar pair in action. (Credit:ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Alves et al.)

Astronomers recently imaged two budding stars locked in a gravitational waltz that twisted their planet-forming disks into a pretzel-shaped knot.

The stars, recently imaged with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), are giving astronomers a unique look at a nascent binary system. The discovery sheds new light on how …

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Planet Nine Might Be a Black Hole the Size of a Baseball

Tiny black holes are thought to speckle the universe, and new research posits the solar system may have captured one. (Credit: nagualdesign/Tom Ruen/Wikimedia Commons)

Something strange may be lurking in the outer solar system. The odd orbits of distant space rocks suggest there’s a giant, elusive world dubbed Planet Nine waiting out there to be discovered. But now, in a new research paper, a team of scientists suggest something far stranger may be influencing the orbits of these distant w …

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This New Prosthetic Leg Hooks Into Users’ Nervous Systems

One of the study participants walking with a prototype of the new prosthetic leg. (Credit: Federica Barberi)

A new prosthetic leg integrates with a wearer’s nervous system to give real-time feedback about their environment. Users can report they can “feel” where their artificial leg is in space, giving them the ability to complete a range of tasks previously out of reach.

Researchers described tests with the new prosthetic in Science Translational Medicine this week in three patients with …

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NASA Paying Four Companies to Learn How to Make Fuel on the Moon

The space agency is dishing out almost $20 million to research creating rocket fuel from material found on the Moon and Mars. (Credit: NASA Goddard)

NASA has awarded a total of $17.4 million to
four private aerospace companies to study and produce technologies that could help
future space missions create fuel on the Moon and Mars.

The companies include Jeff Bezo’s spaceship company, Blue Origin, as well as Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The other two recipients are OxEon Energy, a Utah-based  …

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Dads Who Drink Right Before A Pregnancy Might Harm Their Baby’s Health, Too

Potential dads should lay off the alcohol before conceiving a child, new research says. (Credit: G-Stock Studio/Shutterstock)

We’ve known for decades that pregnant women who drink alcohol put their baby at risk of developmental problems. New research out today in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology examined a connection that gets less attention — dad’s drinking habits.

Paternal drinking in the three months before conception was associated with a 44 percent increase in risk …

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Young People on Cell Phones Are Catching Up to Their Parents’ Keyboard Typing Speeds

Younger cellphone users are closing the gap between how fast they type on a mobile device and how fast the average keyboard user can type. (Credit: Jacob Lund/Shutterstock)

Texting on a flip phone keyboard in the early 2000s wasn’t a speedy affair. But fast-forward almost two decades later, and we can type out everything from texts to emails on our smartphones. And as time goes on, scientists say our typing speeds are increasing — possibly more than previous studies predicted.

New rese …

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The Andromeda Galaxy Has Swallowed Up Multiple Dwarf Galaxies, Study Finds

The Andromeda Galaxy, located some 2.5 million light-years from Earth, burns brightly in ultraviolet light in this image taken by NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are the big fish in our corner of the universe, surrounded by dozens of smaller dwarf galaxies. Together, this cosmic community makes up what scientists call the “Local Group.”

Astronomers believe that the largest galaxies grow by attracting and consuming these  …

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Nuclear War Between India and Pakistan Could Devastate the Entire Planet

A test of the first hydrogen bomb by the U.S. in 1952 as part of Operation Ivy. (Photo courtesy of National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office)

Skies darkened by smoke worldwide. Cities in ruins, leaving millions dead. Droughts and crop failures spreading famine for years. The realities of nuclear war are difficult to imagine. But, says a team of researchers, they deserve our attention.

New research in Science Advances spells out the potential ramifications of nuclear warf …

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NASA Poised for Record-Breaking Number of Spacewalks

The first in a planned series of 10 spacewalks will kick off on October 6. (Credit: NASA)

NASA announced a series of 10 spacewalks happening over the next three months in part of a marathon effort to complete repairs and upgrades to the International Space Station.

The events could ultimately set a new record for the most spacewalks in such a short time period, at least in the era since 2011, when construction was completed on ISS.

The first spacewalk is scheduled for Sunday, Octobe …