A model has shown that the subsurface ocean on Jupiter's moon Europa may have deep currents and circulation patterns with heat and energy transfers capable of sustaining biological life.

Astronomers believe Europa is one of the planetary bodies in our solar system most likely to have conditions that could sustain life, an idea reinforced by magnetometer readings from the Galileo spacecraft detecting signs of a salty, global ocean below the moon's icy shell. Without direct measurements of that ocean, scientists have to rely on magnetometer data and observations of the moon's icy surface to account for oceanic conditions below the ice.

Trials are often as partially showmanship along with the facts - both attorneys are trying to pick jurors who are most likely to go their way.

Moral outrage may be a secret weapon. The last time you were morally outraged you probably felt felt angry, but did you also feel disgust? Consider how you might feel in a court of law after watching a video of a heinous crime. 

Thermionic conversion to heat energy, such as light from the sun or heat from burned fossil fuels, can mean very high efficiency, and because of its promise has been researched for over 50 years with little success.

That may soon change, thanks to a new design, dubbed a thermoelectronic generator, described in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy.

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) advocacy has become all the rage at colleges, universities and other institutions as the US government spends billions doing outreach to make students more technical.

A new, internationally agreed radiocarbon calibration curve method will allow key past events to be dated more accurately.

The work led by Professors Paul Blackwell and Caitlin Buck from the University of Sheffield's School of Mathematics and Statistics and Professor Paula Reimer from Queen's University Belfast will lead to improved accuracy for archaeologists, environmental scientists and climate researchers who rely on radiocarbon dating to put their findings onto a reliable time-scale.

The release of the new curve will mean that more precise date estimates can be obtained than previously possible and will reduce uncertainty about the timing of major events in the history and development of humans, plants and animals and the environments in which they lived.

A single dose of the hormone oxytocin, delivered via nasal spray, has been shown to enhance brain activity while processing social information in children with autism spectrum disorders.

 Results showed that oxytocin facilitated social attunement, a process that makes the brain regions involved in social behavior and social cognition activate more for social stimuli (such as faces) and activate less for non-social stimuli (such as cars). 

A new paper in Free Radical Biology and Medicine
suggests that a diet low in vitamin D causes damage to the brain.

In addition to being essential for maintaining bone health, the new evidence found that vitamin D serves important roles in other organs and tissue, including the brain. The study showed that middle-aged rats that were fed a diet low in vitamin D for several months developed free radical damage to the brain, and many different brain proteins were damaged as identified by redox proteomics.

These rats also showed a significant decrease in cognitive performance on tests of learning and memory.

A new paper from the University of South Carolina says that mothers in the U.S. are far less physically active than they were in previous decades and now spend more time engaged in sedentary activities like watching television than in cooking, cleaning and exercising combined.