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As humanity prepares for longer space missions, including future journeys to the Moon and Mars, scientists are discovering that spaceflight may affect the human body in ways that are still poorly understood. Now, researchers have identified a potential new concern for women: changes in the vaginal microbiome caused by the physical and psychological stresses of space travel. In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers led by Begum Mathyk, MD , a physician-scientist in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, investigated how altered gravity and spaceflight-related stress affect the vaginal microbiome. Published in Frontiers in Microbiology , the study found that parabolic flight can produce short-term physiological stress and cause measurable changes in the vaginal microbiome. Interestingly, the effects were much stronger in the vaginal microbiome than in the oral microbiome. The findings could become increasingly important as space agenci...

Imagine a tiny robot that does not need a motor, battery, gears or complicated electronics to jump. Shine infrared light on it, and it can repeatedly leap into the air, land, return to its original shape and jump again—all without needing an external mechanism to reset it. That is the remarkable behavior demonstrated by researchers at North Carolina State University (NC State), who have developed teardrop-shaped soft robots capable of crawling, jumping forward or even leaping vertically depending on their shape. The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , introduces a simple but powerful mechanism for creating self-resetting jumping motion in soft robots . Although the technology is still at the proof-of-concept stage, it could eventually contribute to robots designed to move across difficult and unpredictable environments. A Robot That Uses Light Instead of a Motor The new robot, described as a “ring leaper,” has an unusually simple structure. It ...

What if the heat produced by a computer, car engine, industrial machine or even sunlight could be used to create cooling instead of simply being released into the environment? Scientists from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany and the University of Tsukuba in Japan have demonstrated a new cooling technology that could make this idea possible. In a prototype system, researchers used two ultra-thin nickel-titanium shape-memory films to convert heat into mechanical motion and then into cooling . The concept could eventually lead to compact, electricity-free cooling systems powered by waste heat or solar energy. The research has been published in Nature Energy . Why Do We Need a New Way to Cool Things? Cooling is essential in modern life. Refrigerators preserve food, air-conditioning systems keep buildings comfortable, and data centers depend on powerful cooling systems to prevent computers and servers from overheating. However, conventional cooling technology has a m...

Air pollution is one of the biggest environmental challenges facing modern cities. Fine particles such as PM2.5 can enter deep into the respiratory system and are associated with serious health concerns. Conventional air purifiers can remove these particles effectively, but they generally depend on electricity, fans, filters and other components. Now, researchers have demonstrated a remarkably simple alternative: a mechanically stimulated triboelectric device that can generate huge numbers of negative air ions without relying on conventional continuous electrical power . The technology, reported by Hengyu Guo and his research team , combines a triboelectric nanogenerator with a corona-type ionization system. In laboratory experiments, a palm-sized device generated up to 10 trillion negative air ions in a single sliding motion and rapidly reduced extremely high concentrations of PM2.5. The approach could open an interesting path toward more sustainable air-cleaning technologies. What A...

A new quantum sensor could give scientists an unprecedented way to measure tiny changes in Earth’s gravity from orbit. NASA has awarded quantum technology company Infleqtion a $20 million follow-on contract to continue developing the Quantum Gravity Gradiometer Pathfinder (QGGPf) , an ambitious mission designed to demonstrate a quantum gravity sensor in space. The latest award brings NASA’s total investment in the program to $40 million and moves the project into an important new stage: building, testing, and preparing the sensor hardware. Led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), QGGPf could become a major milestone in the development of space-based quantum sensing. The mission is intended to show that extremely sensitive quantum measurements can work in the challenging environment of low Earth orbit. A New Way to Measure Earth Gravity may seem constant, but it actually changes slightly from one location to another. These tiny differences are caused by variations in the distri...

The search for planets beyond our Solar System is entering an exciting new era. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is being built to survey enormous areas of the universe and investigate some of the most difficult objects to observe: faint planets orbiting bright stars. After roughly a decade of development, Roman is scheduled for launch on August 30, 2026, at 7:26 a.m. EDT . Named after astronomer Nancy Grace Roman, widely regarded as the “mother of Hubble,” the telescope represents a major step forward in space astronomy. One of its most remarkable technologies is its Coronagraph Instrument (CGI) , designed to directly capture images of exoplanets that are extremely faint compared with their host stars. Behind this capability are highly precise optical systems developed with contributions from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg, Germany. A New Telescope With a Huge View of the Universe Roman will travel to the L2 Lagrange point , approximately 1.5 mill...

Imagine a material that can become extremely soft when you need flexibility, then quickly turn stiff and strong when it needs to carry a heavy load. Unlike traditional materials, its mechanical properties could be adjusted while it is operating. Researchers led by Fang have developed a new type of mechanical metamaterial that could bring this idea closer to reality. Their design uses gears with built-in stiffness variations , arranged into carefully engineered clusters. By controlling how these gears move and interact, the material can continuously change its elasticity without sacrificing stability or strength. The technology could eventually enable more capable robots, adaptive machines, shock-absorbing systems and other smart structures. Why Tunable Materials Matter Most everyday materials have relatively fixed mechanical properties. Steel remains stiff, rubber remains flexible, and plastic generally behaves according to how it was manufactured. Changing these properties while the m...