PRINCETON, N.J.--A new laser-based uranium enrichment technology may provide a hard-to-detect pathway to nuclear weapons production, according to a forthcoming paper in the journal Science & Global Security by Ryan Snyder, a physicist with Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security.

One example of this new third-generation laser enrichment technique may be the separation of isotopes by laser excitation (SILEX) process which was originally developed in Australia and licensed in 2012 for commercial-scale deployment in the United States to the Global Laser Enrichment consortium led by General Electric-Hitachi. Research on the relevant laser systems is also currently ongoing in Russia, India and China.

Researchers, led by Carnegie Mellon University President Subra Suresh and MIT Principal Research Scientist Ming Dao, have created a new computer model that shows how tiny slits in the spleen prevent old, diseased or misshapen red blood cells from re-entering the bloodstream. Members of this multidisciplinary team include specialists in mathematics, supercomputing, clinical medicine, engineering and computational biology.

Scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), all parts of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), describe how combining engineered anthrax toxin proteins and existing chemotherapy drugs could potentially yield a therapy to reduce or eliminate cancerous tumors. The findings, based on testing in mice, will appear this week in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Red blood cells must be small and flexible enough to squeeze through the tiniest capillaries of the body, where they deliver oxygen to surrounding cells. In the late 1960s, scientists proposed that the minute dimensions of these capillaries, which are less than 4 micrometers in diameter, are responsible for defining the size and shape of red blood cells.

However, a new study led by MIT researchers reveals that these blood cell traits are actually determined by the smallest opening in the spleen. This narrow passage, known as the interendothelial slit, imposes a more stringent "physical fitness test" that all blood cells must pass before continuing to circulate through the body.

San Antonio -- June 27, 2016 -- A Southwest Research Institute-led team has discovered an elusive, dark moon orbiting Makemake, one of the "big four" dwarf planets populating the Kuiper Belt region at the edge of our solar system. The findings are detailed in the paper "Discovery of a Makemakean Moon," published in the June 27 issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Matthew Gdovin, an associate professor in the UTSA Department of Biology, has developed a newly patented method to kill cancer cells. His discovery, described in a new study in The Journal of Clinical Oncology, may tremendously help people with inoperable or hard-to-reach tumors, as well as young children stricken with cancer.

Gdovin's top-tier research involves injecting a chemical compound, nitrobenzaldehyde, into the tumor and allowing it to diffuse into the tissue. He then aims a beam of light at the tissue, causing the cells to become very acidic inside and, essentially, commit suicide. Within two hours, Gdovin estimates up to 95 percent of the targeted cancer cells are dead.