Plasma

The results of a major trial testing convalescent plasma therapy for COVID-19 in high-risk outpatients have been peer-reviewed and published. The once-promising therapy was found to be ineffective in preventing disease progression in high-risk patients.

Bacterial infections of the middle ear are quite common, particularly in children, yet they can be difficult to treat. An experimental new device has been designed to help, by zapping the bacteria with plasma.

More than 40 years after launch, Voyager 1 is still making new discoveries. The latest achievement by the craft is the detection of a faint, plasma “hum,” indicating that there may be more activity in interstellar gas than previously thought.

A clinical trial run by the NIH exploring the efficacy of convalescent plasma in treating mild to moderate COVID-19 patients has been halted. In a similar conclusion to prior trials, the once-promising treatment was deemed unlikely to be of any benefit.

Scientists have found evidence of a “space hurricane” for the first time. The storm, made up of swirling clouds of plasma, raged in Earth’s upper atmosphere for hours, dumping huge amounts of electrons like rain in a system that resembles a regular hurricane.

Scientists have made a breakthrough in the way we study this plasma, managing to trap an ultracold form of it in a magnetic "bottle" for the first time, an achievement that could act as a springboard for research into nuclear fusion energy.

A crewed mission to Mars may be more practical thanks to a new rocket concept developed by Fatima Ebrahimi, a physicist at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), that uses magnetic fields to generate thrust.

Like weeds that grow back if you don’t remove the roots, cancer can keep returning thanks to stem cells. A new “designer” DNA molecule eradicates these cancer stem cells, with tests in mice showing promising early results in preventing relapse.

Early findings from a clinical trial suggest severely ill COVID-19 patients do not benefit from a therapy involving infusions of plasma from those recovered from the disease. The trial continues to investigate the therapy in moderately ill patients.

Astronomers have mapped out a huge invisible region of the galaxy next door. Hubble has detailed the size and structure of Andromeda's gas halo – and found that it’s already bumping up against that of the Milky Way, in advance of a cosmic collision.

A Chinese team has demonstrated a prototype of a microwave plasma thruster capable of working in the Earth's atmosphere and producing thrust with an efficiency comparable to the jet engines you'd find on modern airliners – under laboratory conditions.

As researchers rekindle a more than 100-year-old therapy, using blood from recovered COVID-19 subjects as a treatment for newly infected patients, a team in New York is thrusting this old, experimental treatment into the 21st century.