A team of scientists, led by the researcher at the IAC and the University of La Laguna (ULL) Sebastién Comerón, has found that the galaxy NGC 1277 does not contain dark matter.This is the first time that a massive galaxy (it has a mass several times that of the Milky Way) does not show evidence for this invisible component of the universe. “This result does not fit in with the currently accepted cosmological models, which include dark matter” explains Comerón. In…
… to explore airborne viruses and microorganisms. Researchers show millimeter-sized droplets can be levitated over a pool of silicone liquid for a long-term period — and it enables studying the activity of viruses and microorganisms within airborne aerosols. Self-sustained levitation of millimeter-sized droplets was recently discovered by researchers at Tyumen State University, in Russia, during an experiment to select combinations of immiscible liquids, which don’t form homogeneous mixtures. Researchers Natalia Ivanova and Denis Klyuev noticed something amazing happen: Droplets of…
Waves produced by Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities transfer energy in the solar system. A team led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) has found that NASA’s Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter frequently encounters giant swirling waves at the boundary between the solar wind and Jupiter’s magnetosphere. The waves are an important process for transferring energy and mass from the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun, to planetary space environments. Jake…
A new satellite called XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, pronounced “crism”) aims to pry apart high-energy light into the equivalent of an X-ray rainbow. The mission, led by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), will do this using an instrument called Resolve. XRISM is scheduled to launch from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center on Aug. 25, 2023 (Aug. 26 in Japan). “Resolve will give us a new look into some of the universe’s most energetic objects, including black holes, clusters of…
Waveguiding scheme enables highly confined subnanometer optical fields. Imagine shrinking light down to the size of a tiny water molecule, unlocking a world of quantum possibilities. This has been a long-held dream in the realms of light science and technology. Recent advancements have brought us closer to achieving this incredible feat, as researchers from Zhejiang University have made groundbreaking progress in confining light to subnanometer scales. Traditionally, there have been two approaches to localize light beyond its typical diffraction limit:…
Despite doubts from quantum physics: Research teams from ZARM and Leibniz University Hannover proved Einstein’s theory of relativity with much higher accuracy. The calculations were based on laser measurements of the distance between Moon and Earth. One of the most basic assumptions of fundamental physics is that the different properties of mass – weight, inertia and gravitation – always remain the same in relation to each other. Without this equivalence, Einstein’s theory of relativity would be contradicted and our current…
Scientists move toward engineering living matter by manipulating movement of microparticles. Breakthrough uses lasers to mimic biological and meteorological systems. A team of scientists has devised a system that replicates the movement of naturally occurring phenomena, such as hurricanes and algae, using laser beams and the spinning of microscopic rotors. The breakthrough, reported in the journal Nature Communications, reveals new ways that living matter can be reproduced on a cellular scale. “Living organisms are made of materials that actively pump…
Cooler than a campfire and smaller than Jupiter, this brown dwarf star is a rare find. Astronomers at the University of Sydney have shown that a small, faint star is the coldest on record to produce emission at radio wavelength. The ‘ultracool brown dwarf’ examined in the study is a ball of gas simmering at about 425 degrees centigrade – cooler than a typical campfire – without burning nuclear fuel. By contrast, the surface temperature of the Sun, a nuclear inferno,…
Stars powered with dark matter still need proving but could reveal clues about the nature of one of the universe’s great mysteries. Stars beam brightly out of the darkness of space thanks to fusion, atoms melding together and releasing energy. But what if there’s another way to power a star? A team of three astrophysicists — Katherine Freese at The University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with Cosmin Ilie and Jillian Paulin ’23 at Colgate University — analyzed images…
The future of electronics will be based on novel kinds of materials. Sometimes, however, the naturally occurring topology of atoms makes it difficult for new physical effects to be created. To tackle this problem, researchers at the University of Zurich have now successfully designed superconductors one atom at a time, creating new states of matter. What will the computer of the future look like? How will it work? The search for answers to these questions is a major driver of…
Groundbreaking study demonstrates control over quantum fluctuations, unlocking potential for probabilistic computing and ultra-precise field sensing. A team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has achieved a milestone in quantum technologies, demonstrating for the first time the control of quantum randomness. The team of researchers focused on a unique feature of quantum physics known as “vacuum fluctuations”. You might think of a vacuum as a completely empty space without matter or light. However, in the quantum world, even this “empty” space experiences fluctuations or changes. Imagine a calm sea that suddenly…
Astronomers find answers to mysterious action of ghost stars in our Galaxy. A collaboration of scientists from The University of Manchester and the University of Hong Kong have found a source for the mysterious alignment of stars near the Galactic Centre. The alignment of planetary nebulae was discovered ten years ago by a Manchester PhD student, Bryan Rees, but has remained unexplained. New data obtained with the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope in Chile and the Hubble Space Telescope,…
Experiments at the unique wind tunnel of the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS) in Göttingen show that laws formulated more than 80 years ago and their extensions only incompletely explain turbulent flows. Stirring a cup of coffee creates a turbulent flow with large and very small vortices. The vortices of different sizes influence each other by transferring energy from a larger vortex to a smaller one, down to the smallest vortex, which dissipates in the liquid due…
Scientists at Leipzig University, in collaboration with colleagues at Vilnius University in Lithuania, have developed a new method to measure the smallest twists and torques of molecules within milliseconds. The method makes it possible to track the gene recognition of CRISPR-Cas protein complexes, also known as “genetic scissors”, in real time and with the highest resolution. With the data obtained, the recognition process can be accurately characterised and modelled to improve the precision of the genetic scissors. The results obtained…
Researchers led by Leipzig University have found a ground-breaking application in oncology for the scientific field of Physics of Cancer. This is a milestone for the new research field, proving its clinical relevance for the first time. Based on tissue and cell mechanics and using machine learning, the team developed a marker for cancer cell motility in digital pathology. The marker delivers new information about breast tumours that will improve the ability to predict the risk of metastasis, even after…
The quantum nature of interactions between elementary particles allows drawing non-trivial conclusions even from processes as simple as elastic scattering. The ATLAS experiment at the LHC accelerator reports the measurement of fundamental properties of strong interactions between protons at ultra-high energies. The physics of billiard ball collisions is taught from early school years. In a good approximation, these collisions are elastic, where both momentum and energy are conserved. The scattering angle depends on how central the collision was (this is…
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