Zika structure mapped for first time

New microscopy images of the virus reveal a bumpy, golf ball‒shaped structure, similar to that of the dengue and West Nile viruses, researchers report March 31 in Science. It’s the first time scientists have gotten a good look at Zika, the infamous virus that has invaded the Americas and stoked fears that it is causing birth defects and a rare autoimmune disease (SN: 4/2/16, p. 26).
Cracking Zika’s structure is like getting the blueprints of an enemy’s base: Now scientists have a better idea of where to attack. “This certainly gives us great hope that we will be able to find a vaccine or antiviral compounds,” says study coauthor Michael Rossmann of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., who’s known for mapping the first structure of a common cold virus in 1985.
Researchers have been racing to solve Zika’s structure, says UCLA microbiologist Hong Zhou. “I was trying to work on the same thing myself.” But the new study’s authors beat everybody. “I was impressed they were able to do it so quickly,” Zhou says.

Read more at Science News

For rechargeable batteries that crush the competition, crush this material

By chemically modifying and pulverizing a promising group of compounds, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have potentially brought safer, solid-state rechargeable batteries two steps closer to reality.

These compounds are stable solid materials that would not pose the risks of leaking or catching fire typical of traditional liquid battery ingredients and are made from commonly available substances.

Read more at EurekAlert - Breaking News

Science Education can be creative

WHEN STUDENTS (ESPECIALLY non-science majors) take required science classes, there is a reason. It’s not so that they can learn about the names of the planets or which plants you can eat (but that is useful to know). The primary reason that students are required to take a science class is to help them understand the nature of science.

Let’s focus on just one aspect of the nature of science that often gives students (and all sorts of people) problems.

Science Is a Creative Process

Here are some examples from the history of science.

• Einstein used curved space-time to explain gravity (and other things).
• Euler and Lagrange created the calculus of variations in order to solve the brachistochrone problem (path between two points with the shortest time). Oh, and calculus of variations is used in Lagrangian Mechanics—so it’s sort of a big deal.
• Schrödinger developed an equation with wave-like properties to use in Quantum Mechanics.
• Bohr created a model of the atom to explain the spectrum of light produced by hydrogen gas.

Read more on Wired - Science News

He Drew the Sun for 40 Years, But Now His Telescope Is Dying

MOST MORNINGS, STEVE Padilla rides in an open-air elevator to the top of the 150-Foot Solar Tower at Mount Wilson Observatory, in the mountains just east of Los Angeles. When he opens the dome, sunlight beams in. Padilla aligns two mirrors in the century-old telescope, sending a reflection of the Sun toward a lens. Downstairs, a 17-inch image of the star appears on a piece of paper.

Padilla catches a ride back down in the elevator and stands before the paper. It’s time to draw.

Read More from Wired, Science News

Polluted air causes 5.5 million deaths a year new research says

More than 5.5 million people worldwide are dying prematurely every year as a result of air pollution, according to new research.

Most of these deaths are occurring in the rapidly developing economies of China and India.
The main culprit is the emission of small particles from power plants, factories, vehicle exhausts and from the burning of coal and wood.
The data was compiled as part of the Global Burden of Disease project.
Scientists involved in the initiative say the statistics illustrate how far, and how fast, some nations must travel to improve the air their citizens breathe.

Read More

Gravitational waves have been detected for the first time

TWO black holes circle one another. Both are about 100km across. One contains 36 times as much mass as the sun; the other, 29. They are locked in an orbital dance, a kilometre or so apart, that is accelerating rapidly to within a whisker of the speed of light. Their event horizons—the spheres defining their points-of-no-return—touch. There is a violent wobble as, for an instant, quintillions upon quintillions of kilograms redistribute themselves. Then there is calm. In under a second, a larger black hole has been born.

It is, however, a hole that is less than the sum of its parts. Three suns’ worth of mass has been turned into energy, in the form of gravitational waves: travelling ripples that stretch and compress space, and thereby all in their path. During the merger’s final fifth of a second, envisaged in an artist’s impression above, the coalescing holes pumped 50 times more energy into space this way than the whole of the rest of the universe emitted in light, radio waves, X-rays and gamma rays combined

Read More

100-Foot Asteroid to Buzz Earth Next Month

An asteroid as long as a basketball court will give Earth a close shave next month — though scientists aren't sure just how close.

The near-Earth asteroid 2013 TX68, which is thought to be about 100 feet in diameter, will zoom past our planet on March 5. The space rock could come as close as 11,000 miles — less than 5 percent of the distance from Earth to the moon — or stay up to 9 million miles away during the flyby, NASA officials said.

Read More