Planning a Career at the Intersection of Science, Policy and Law - My Summer Internship - American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Newswise — Tucked away in the far southern part of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus is the Food Science Pilot Plant, a flexible, state-of-the-art space for food processing. As part of the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition and working alongside the Integrated Bioprocessing Research Laboratory, the Pilot Plant includes a food analysis laboratory, product development kitchen, and the pilot plant itself, which features an array of food processing equipment that allows scientists and external clients in food manufacturing to develop and test novel products at scales well beyond the lab bench. “We develop foods made from crops grown on University of Illinois farms, produce products for University Dining, test new ingredients and processing methods, and scale products such as extruded cereals, snacks, powders, beverages, and other foods,” said Jedi Brown, a Senior Pilot Plant specialist. The plant is also an educational asset for future food science leaders.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher Isaiah Santistevan led the development of three-dimensional simulations exploring how a nuclear device could deflect or disrupt an asteroid threatening Earth. Credit: Blaise Douros/LLNL Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers are developing three-dimensional simulations to examine how a nuclear device could be used to deflect or potentially disrupt an asteroid threatening Earth.

Milky Way’s first microblazar candidate sits 12,000 light-years away, offering a rare ground-level lab for studying relativistic jetsA black hole 12,000 light-years away is firing a jet of plasma almost directly toward Earth. At that distance, no known or expected danger to Earth has been identified by the researchers or the institutions involved. What astronomers have actually found is rarer and more interesting than a threat. Researchers have identified IRAS 18293-0941 as a compelling candidate for the Milky Way’s first microblazar, a class of object that gives astrophysicists a close-up laboratory for studying some of the most violent physics in the galaxy. What Astronomers FoundThe discovery centers on a binary system whose black hole expels plasma jets at close to three-quarters the speed of light, pointed almost directly toward Earth. The system pairs a hot, massive star with a black hole that completes a full orbit roughly every 11.38 days. Material drawn from the companion star feeds the black hole, and some of that matter gets expelled outward as opposing jets traveling at approximately three-quarters the speed of light. Terminology matters here.