European scientists have gathered tiny fungi that take shelter in Antarctic rocks and sent them to the International Space Station. After 18 months on board in conditions similar to those on Mars, more than 60% of their cells remained intact, with stable DNA. The results provide new information for the search for life on the red planet. Lichens from the Sierra de Gredos (Spain) and the Alps (Austria) also travelled into space for the same experiment.

HOUSTON -- (Jan. 28, 2016) -- In a surprising find, physicists from the United States, Germany and China have discovered that nuclear effects help bring about superconductivity in ytterbium dirhodium disilicide (YRS), one of the most-studied materials in a class of quantum critical compounds known as "heavy fermions."

The discovery, which is described in this week's issue of Science, marks the first time that superconductivity has been observed in YRS, a composite material that physicists have studied for more than a decade in an effort to probe the quantum effects believed to underlie high-temperature superconductivity.

MADISON, Wis. -- In a twist of virtual fate, people with the best 3-D vision are also the people most likely to suffer from motion sickness while using virtual reality displays.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison demonstrated this irony by playing motion-heavy videos for study participants through the Oculus Rift -- a 3-D virtual reality headset worn like a pair of goggles.

Nearly two-thirds of the study subjects quit watching the videos early, overcome by nausea in the virtual environment for much the same reason discomfort catches up to people in real-world situations.

Motion sickness is the product of mismatched sensory information.

Analysis of ancient Babylonian tablets reveals that, to calculate the position of Jupiter, the tablets' makers used geometry, a technique scientists previously believed humans had not developed until at least 1,400 years later, in 14th century Europe. These tablets are the earliest known examples of using geometry to calculate positions in time-space and suggest that ancient Babylonian astronomers may have influenced the emergence of such techniques in Western science. In this Report, Mathieu Ossendrijver discusses the translation of four almost completely intact tablets that were most likely written in Babylon between 350 and 50 BCE. They depict two intervals from when Jupiter first appears along the horizon, calculating the planet's position at 60 and 120 days.

Fat is back, at least in some sense. It has just been replaced with polyunsaturated fats in the minds of nutritionists. 

Studies on low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets and the recently popular fad called the Mediterranean diet have shown similar results in weight loss but are mixed when it comes to cholesterol, mostly because nutritional epidemiology relies on people remembering what they ate. To try and augment those, studies are done with animals, and they can provide some guidance but are often misused (what food hasn't been found to be a carcinogen in rats by now?). Still, that is what we have and they can at least provide some guidance on what works best for improved health. Then studies can be done with people.

A new simple nanowire manufacturing technique uses self-catalytic growth process assisted by thermal decomposition of natural gas. According to the research team, this method is simple, reproducible, size-controllable, and cost-effective in that lithium-ion batteries could also benefit from it.

In their approach, they discovered that germanium nanowires are grown by the reduction of germanium oxide particles and subsequent self-catalytic growth during the thermal decomposition of natural gas, and simultaneously, carbon sheath layers are uniformly coated on the nanowire surface.