March 28, 2025: Scientific discovery at the nano scale, Myanmar's earthquake, and a disturbing PFAS report. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | A resident carries belongings over debris next to a damaged building in Naypyidaw on March 28, 2025. Sai Aung MAIN/AFP via Getty Images | | | • Data from 300,000 births reveal 76 ways pregnancy and giving birth change the human body. | 3 min read | | | • Low-intensity ultrasound, a safe, cheap and noninvasive tool, could be used to treat cancer and psychiatric disorders, enhance drug delivery to the brain, and more. | 5 min read | | | Jeff DelViscio/Scientific American | | | The heart of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a great place to take a breath of clean air. Science, Quickly host Rachel Feltman got suited up and entered the MIT.nano laboratory, a shared research space where, in every cubic foot of air, only 100 particles bigger than half a micron float around (step outside and every cubic foot of air will have more than a million such particles). For reference, your hair is about 75 microns wide. To keep it so clean, all the air in the laboratory is replaced every 15 seconds.
What goes on here: Scientific research on the nano scale happens at the level of single atoms, small groups of atoms, or even subatomically. Nanoscale discovery is advancing several fields—contributing to faster and smaller computer processors and more precise molecular clocks to tiny solar cells, and nimbler cell phone technology. Nano-level research of DNA molecules can reveal the single atomic changes that control gene expression. Because so many nano projects are underway at M.I.T., any small dust particle in the air might interfere with experiments.
What the experts say: "Maybe a fifth of all of M.I.T.'s research depends on this facility touching a research element, from microelectronics to nanotechnology for medicine to different ways of rethinking what will [the] next quantum computation look like," MIT.nano director Vladimir Bulović told Feltman. "Any of these are really important elements of what we need to discover, but we need all of them to be explored at nanoscale to get that ultimate performance." | | | • SpaceX's founder and CEO Elon Musk, stated in November that he is "highly confident" that several of his company's "Starships" will launch to Mars in two years, and if those go well, crewed missions will follow in four. But there's a long road to go before any crewed mission to Mars is possible, writes Paul M. Sutter, a NASA adviser and visiting professor of astronomy and physics at Barnard College. For one, Sutter says, Starship would have to make a controlled, powered descent onto Mars (which no lander has ever done). Starship would have to serve as a human-rated deep space vehicle for a crewed mission. And the spacecraft would have to function as an operating base on Mars. "But no Starship has even landed successfully on Earth," says Sutter. "We are very, very far away from these ideas becoming prototypes, let alone robust mission components." | 5 min read | | | Put your scientific knowledge to the test with this week's science quiz. And here is today's Spellements. Send any science words missing from the puzzle to games@sciam.com. This week, a handful of players found googol, the name for the number 10 to the power of 100 (or 1 with 100 zeros behind it). | | | MOST POPULAR STORIES OF THE WEEK | | | • A Prenatal Test of the Fetus Turns Up Cancers in Pregnant Mothers | 10 min read | • 'Artificial Nap' Could Provide Benefits of Sleep—Without Sleeping | 2 min read | • To Win Trust and Admiration, Fix Your Microphone | 3 min read | | | As Rachel observed when she went inside the uber clean MIT.nano lab, she felt she could breathe easier amid the lack of dust mites triggering her allergies. And that is one large (or small?) contradiction of existing as humans on Earth: tiny particles of dust, mold and pollen can make breathing hell. But, as we reported last month, humans can't survive in overly-sterile environments without microbes. Human life it seems requires a delicate balance of invisible particles. This lesson will be soon be front-of-mind as spring kicks into high gear in many places in the U.S. | Thank you for reading Today in Science this week. Send any feedback to: newsletters@sciam.com. Have a lovely weekend. | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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