For many people, "protein" is the key element of a food order. However, beyond the preferred choice of meats or plant-based alternatives, proteins encompass a large class of complex biomolecules whose chemical structure is encoded in our genes. Proteins have critical functions in living cells; they help repair and build body tissues, drive metabolic reactions, maintain pH and fluid balance, and keep our immune systems strong.

The hidden rhythms of proteins
To perform their important functions, many proteins have a dynamic molecular structure capable of adopting multiple conformations. For a long time, scientists have suspected that proteins don't change shape at random. Instead, they seem to move according to deep, slow rhythms—like a building that sways gently in the wind rather than shaking violently.

Those slow rhythms guide how a protein bends, twists, and shifts between its different forms. If one could understand those rhythms, one might be able to predict—and even hurry along—the protein's movements.

The problem is that many tools scientists have to make predictions of molecular motion were built for simpler cases. They work well for fast, tiny vibrations, like the quick trembling of a guitar string. But the slow, sweeping motions of proteins are different. They're messy, uneven, and irregular.

A new way to read motion
Recently, the research group of Associate Professor Matthias Heyden in ASU's School of Molecular Sciences has found a new way forward. They developed a method that can tease out these slow, important motions from short computer simulations—snapshots lasting only billionths of a second.

Even better, the method is remarkably reliable: run it again and again, and it tells the same story each time. They have published this work in Science Advances.

Better understanding protein fluctuations, in turn, predicts which larger motions the protein is capable of, and that knowledge can greatly improve drug design, enable more effective cancer treatments, and help find a solution to antibiotic resistance.

Artemis II astronauts will soon set off to fly around the Moon—but their journey started here, on Earth. 🌎

Meet the crew and see how they prepared for this historic moment in Moonbound, free to watch on NASA+. go.nasa.gov/4v1GOVa

NASA's Artemis II mission remains on track for its planned April 1 launch, the space agency announced in a prelaunch news conference Tuesday (March 31).

At the news event, held at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA managers emphasized that both the vehicle and team are ready to fly, with current conditions not pointing to any major last-minute technical concerns. The briefing also broke down the two biggest possible spoilers of tomorrow's launch the weather on the ground and in space.

Yesterday (March 30), the sun produced a X1.4-class solar flare tied to a coronal mass ejection, prompting NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center to issue a G2 geomagnetic storm watch for March 31 and G1 watches for April 1 (the planned launch date) and April 2. Events like solar flares can interfere with radio communications, navigation systems and spacecraft operations, as well as expose astronauts to harmful radiation.

However, Mark Berger, NASA's Launch Weather Officer for the Artemis II mission, highlighted that the flare is not currently expected to affect the launch. Artemis launch criteria is designed to avoid liftoff during severe solar conditions, but based on the latest outlook, this flare appears to be something NASA is monitoring rather than something that is stalling the launch.

Artemis II will be launching from Florida on April 1st at 22:24 UTC. Watch on NASA's broadcast

A view no human has seen in over 50 years. 🚀

During Artemis II, astronauts will travel from Earth to around the Moon, conducting science from a unique vantage point, with our planet visible outside their windows.

Here’s what we’ll learn: go.nasa.gov/4sCE8vI

A view of Earth from Artemis II. If you can see your region, then you might be able to spot Artemis II with a telescope or binoculars.

Imagine trying to spot a firefly hovering next to a lighthouse from several kilometres away. That's essentially the challenge astronomers face when searching for Earth like planets around other stars. The planet is there, it’s just completely lost in the overwhelming blaze of its host star. Solving that problem is the whole point of a tiny but extraordinarily precise piece of glass called an optical vortex phase mask.

NASA's planned Habitable Worlds Observatory, a future space telescope designed specifically to hunt for signs of life beyond our Solar System, will need to image faint exoplanets directly. To do that, it must suppress incoming starlight by a factor of ten billion. Even a perfect mirror can't achieve that on its own. When light passes through a telescope's circular aperture, it spreads outward into a ringed pattern of light called an Airy pattern, a fundamental consequence of the physics of waves. Those rings can be millions of times brighter than a nearby exoplanet, and they have to go.

That's where the vortex phase mask comes in. Placed at the focal point of the telescope, it applies a carefully engineered delay to the starlight, one that increases continuously as you move around the centre of the mask, like the rising thread of a screw. The result is that the starlight cancels itself out through destructive interference, and what's left can be blocked by a simple aperture stop, leaving only the faint planet light to reach the detector. Light from the exoplanet, arriving at a slight angle, misses the mask's centre and passes through unaffected.

The most promising version of this technology uses a thin layer of liquid crystal polymer, whose long molecular chains can be precisely oriented to manipulate light differently depending on its polarisation direction. Because the delay is produced geometrically rather than by the material's chemical properties, it works across a wide range of wavelengths and that’s crucial for a telescope that needs to analyse the full colour spectrum of a planet's atmosphere.

Live from Kennedy: Artemis II launch coverage is underway. We are tracking every milestone of today's historic launch! Visit our blog for detailed updates:
go.nasa.gov/4v90Ux6

Artemis II will be launching from Florida on April 1st at 22:24 UTC. Watch on NASA's broadcast

The Artemis II astronauts, now suited up for launch, are headed to the launch pad.

The crew includes NASA astronauts Astro Reid, Victor Glover, and Christina H Koch, and CSA ASC astronaut Jeremy R. Hansen.

The Artemis II crew is boarding Orion. 

Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy are taking their seats atop the most powerful manned rocket ever built. They have trained for years for this moment, and now they are preparing to execute a mission that will take us back around the Moon and begin the next chapter of human space exploration.

The hatch is now closed.

The Artemis II astronauts are now strapped into their seats and ready for launch.