Phys.org news

Phys.org / Failed supernova provides clearest view yet of a star collapsing into a black hole

Astronomers have watched a dying star fail to explode as a supernova, instead collapsing into a black hole. The remarkable sighting is the most complete observational record ever made of a star's transformation into a black ...

8 hours ago in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Unique 'inside out' planetary system reveals rocky outer world

A global team of astronomers, led by the University of Warwick, have used a European Space Agency (ESA) telescope to discover a planetary system that turns our understanding of planet formation upside down, with a distant ...

8 hours ago in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Elephant trunk whiskers exhibit material intelligence, revealing the secret behind an amazing sense of touch

A new study from an interdisciplinary German research collaboration, led by the Haptic Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS), reveals the secret to the gentle dexterity of the ...

8 hours ago in Biology
Phys.org / Jupiter-family comet 41P/TGK slows down and reverses spin after perihelion

New analysis on 2017 Hubble images of the Jupiter-family comet, 41P/Tuttle–Giacobini–Kresak (41P/TGK), indicates that the comet underwent a spin reversal between April and December 2017. While this behavior is not unheard ...

8 hours ago in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Basic research on Listeria bacteria leads to unique cancer therapy

After nearly 40 years of research on how Listeria bacteria manipulate our cells and battle our immune system to cause listeriosis, Daniel Portnoy and his colleagues have discovered a way to turn the bacteria into a potent ...

2 hours ago in Biology
Phys.org / Gravitational lensing technique unveils supermassive black hole pairs

Supermassive black hole binaries form naturally when galaxies merge, but scientists have only confidently observed a very few of these systems that are widely separated. Black hole binaries that closely orbit each other have ...

6 hours ago in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Climate change is driving rising agricultural water use in Central Asia

Even as farmers shift toward less water-intensive crops, climate change is pushing agricultural water consumption upward in Central Asia. A new study by IAMO researchers shows that rising temperatures and atmospheric water ...

5 hours ago in Earth
Phys.org / New 3D printing ink uses 70% lignin and recycles with water

Additive manufacturing (AM) methods, such as 3D printing, enable the realization of objects with different geometric properties, by adding materials layer-by-layer to physically replicate a digital model. These methods are ...

5 hours ago in Chemistry
Phys.org / Silicon metasurfaces boost optical image processing with passive intensity-based filtering

Of the many feats achieved by artificial intelligence (AI), the ability to process images quickly and accurately has had an especially impressive impact on science and technology. Now, researchers in the McKelvey School of ...

5 hours ago in Physics
Phys.org / Photonic integrated circuits enable programmable non-Abelian 'braiding' of light states

A research team has successfully implemented a programmable spinor lattice on a photonic integrated circuit (PIC). This platform enables the realization of non-Abelian physics, in which the outcome of operations depends on ...

6 hours ago in Physics
Phys.org / Scientists uncover Iron Age origins of Vietnamese tooth blackening practices

Not everyone wants their teeth to be white and gleaming. Tooth blackening is a recognized part of modern Vietnamese culture, and a recent discovery hints that the roots of this practice may stretch all the way back to the ...

12 hours ago in Other Sciences
Phys.org / Yangtze River fishing ban halts seven decades of biodiversity decline

The Yangtze River Basin, a global biodiversity hotspot, has endured severe ecological degradation over several decades due to intense human activity, leading to a marked decline in aquatic biodiversity. In order to halt this ...

6 hours ago in Biology