In the Feb. 16 SN: Robots roll into the classroom, brain zaps for severe depression, particle colliders of the future, how to walk like a tetrapod, sleepless nights boost Alzheimer's proteins and more.
PIMPLED PAINTINGS Many oil paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe, including this 1941 work titled “Pedernal,” are slowly being damaged by a type of “acne” forming under the paint.
Georgia O'Keeffe. Pedernal, 1941. Oil on canvas, 19 x 30 1/4 inches. Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Gift of The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation. © Georgia O'Keeffe Museum [2006.5.172]
PATTERNS APLENTY Pollen from flowering plants comes in myriad shapes (as seen in these scanning electron microscope images, gray). Computer simulations based on a physics process called phase separation reproduced the grains’ shapes (orange).
SEM images: PalDat.org; Simulations: Asja Radja
MODERN MILK Seven species of animals, including yaks (shown), are milked in Mongolia today; recent research suggests that yaks were milked in the region 3,000 years ago, too.
C. Warinner
WARMED FROM WITHIN? Mars has frigid polar ice caps. But a theoretical underground chamber of magma could help melt ice near the south pole, creating what some scientists think is a lake hiding under the ice.
NASA, ESA and STScI
