Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Every year, NASA's Desert RATS spend two weeks in the Arizona desert conducting tests in anticipation of future lunar exploration. This year, two crew members lived for more than 300 hours inside NASA's new moon vehicle, the Lunar Electric Rover. --by Nikki Staab

How big was the world’s heaviest hailstone? Where is the hottest place on Earth? How fast was the fastest tornado? A new, interactive map of weather extremes lets you find out the answers and lots more. --by Diane Boudreau

Public health officials have to make daunting decisions about disease epidemics. Who should get limited supplies of vaccine? What is the cost of closing schools, businesses or transportation networks? Fortunately, a group of researchers working behind-the-scenes offers some answers. --by Diane Boudreau

Were Europeans solely to blame for decimating the American Indian population, or did weather help? Why do cocaine harvests decrease during rainy seasons? A new book from an ASU climatologist offers answers to some of weather's greatest mysteries. --by Diane Boudreau

Scientists are taking high-speed motion pictures of photosynthetic reactions that happen in a millionth of a millionth of a second. Their results have revealed a surprising twist to photosynthesis. --by Joe Caspermeyer

The world can get fantastically bizarre when you wander mentally out to the edge of the theoretical dimensions of physics. In fact, thinking about the nanoscale universe is mind bending. (part 2 of 3) --by Joe Kullman

Scientists at ASU's Mars Space Flight Facility are using the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter to monitor a new dust storm that has erupted on the Red Planet. --by Robert Burnham

Scientists studying NASA's MESSENGER data have imaged parts of Mercury never seen before. They have found that volcanos played a large role in shaping the planet's surface, and that Mercury's rocks are unusually iron deficient. --by Robert Burnham

Through the Earthscope program, scientists are installing hundreds of seismometers across the U.S. to record earthquakes from around the world and to help them understand what lies beneath the Earth's surface. --by Diane Boudreau

ASU researchers create intricate structures on a scale almost unfathomably small. Their building material is the DNA molecule, which offers nearly limitless construction potential. --by Richard Harth