ScienceNow: Smile and prepare to be vaporized! In what you might call the most violent snap-shot ever, physicists have used a blast of x-rays to determine the structure of a tiny object, even as the x-rays blew it apart. The “single-shot” technique marks an important step toward deciphering the structure of proteins by zapping just a single molecule--a potentially revolutionary technique that physicists hope to perfect with the world’s first x-ray lasers, currently under construction in the U.S., Germany, and Japan.
The finding that the Saturnian moon may host layers of icy slush instead of a global ocean could change how planetary scientists think about other icy moons as well.
Modeling the shapes of tree branches, neurons, and blood vessels is a thorny problem, but researchers have just discovered that much of the math has already been done.
January 29, 2026 12:52 PM
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