/ en-us Âé¶čÒùÔș internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Âé¶čÒùÔșics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. A blowtorch of seething gases erupting from a volcanically growing monster star has been captured by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. Stretching across 8 light-years, the length of the stellar eruption is approximately twice the distance between our sun and the next nearest stars, the Alpha Centauri system. The size and strength of this particular stellar jet, located in a nebula known as Sharpless 2-284 (Sh2-284 for short), qualifies it as rare, say researchers. /news/2025-09-webb-immense-stellar-jet-outskirts.html Astronomy Wed, 10 Sep 2025 12:50:03 EDT news676727237 A Southwest Research Institute-led team has reported the first detection of gas on the distant dwarf planet Makemake, using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). This discovery makes Makemake only the second trans-Neptunian object, after Pluto, where the presence of gas has been confirmed. The gas was identified as methane. /news/2025-09-methane-gas-dwarf-planet-makemake.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 09 Sep 2025 13:29:03 EDT news676643341 Why has silicon, one of the most common elements in the universe, gone largely undetected in the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, and gas planets like them orbiting other stars? A new study using observations from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope sheds light on this question by focusing on a peculiar object that astronomers discovered by chance in 2020 and called "The Accident." /news/2025-09-cosmic-accident-jupitersaturn-silicon-puzzle.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 09 Sep 2025 13:08:04 EDT news676642082 Astronomers have discovered "dust-shrouded supermassive black holes" in the early universe, less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang—a type of object that had previously escaped detection. /news/2025-09-supermassive-black-holes-shrouded-early.html Astronomy Tue, 09 Sep 2025 10:40:07 EDT news676632469 A multilayer film that reflects heat while letting through light needed for photosynthesis could make greenhouse agriculture more energy- and water-efficient. Such a film has been developed by engineers at the University of California, Davis, and is described in a paper in Advanced Energy & Sustainability Research. /news/2025-09-sunglasses-sustainable-agriculture-multilayer-growth.html Biotechnology Agriculture Tue, 09 Sep 2025 10:36:04 EDT news676632961 The iridescent blue of butterfly wings has inspired researchers to find a solution to a challenge previously considered insurmountable—dynamically tuning advanced optical processes at visible wavelengths. /news/2025-09-butterfly-wings-solution-impossible-optics.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Âé¶čÒùÔșics Tue, 09 Sep 2025 09:19:06 EDT news676628341 In a breakthrough for next-generation technologies, scientists have learned how to precisely control the behavior of tiny waves of light and electrons, paving the way for faster communications and quantum devices. /news/2025-09-terahertz-faster-electronics.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 08 Sep 2025 13:20:04 EDT news676555462 University of Bristol astrophysicists are helping shed new light on an Earth-sized exoplanet 40 light years away where liquid water in the form of a global ocean or icy expanse might exist on its surface. That would only be possible if an atmosphere is present—a big mystery that the scientists are attempting to unravel and now even closer to solving using the largest telescope in space. /news/2025-09-trappist-1e-narrow-possibilities-atmosphere.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Mon, 08 Sep 2025 10:00:02 EDT news676288921 Since the first discovery of planets beyond the solar system in 1995, more than 6,000 exoplanets have been identified. Many of these planets have properties that differ significantly from the eight planets in our solar system. How are such diverse exoplanets formed and evolved, and which of them could potentially become Earth-like planets capable of supporting life? /news/2025-09-glimpse-planet-formation-ab-aurigae.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Fri, 05 Sep 2025 13:09:17 EDT news676296552 Researchers Shinjiro Takano, Yuya Hamasaki, and Tatsuya Tsukuda of the University of Tokyo have successfully visualized the geometric structure of growing gold nanoclusters in their earliest stages. During this process, they also successfully grew a novel structure of elongated nanoclusters, which they named gold quantum needles. /news/2025-09-gold-quantum-needles-sharpen-imaging.html Nanomaterials Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:02 EDT news676196521 This dramatic scene captured by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope looks like a fantastical tableau from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. But truth is even stranger than fiction. In reality, what appears to be a craggy, starlit mountaintop kissed by wispy clouds is actually a cosmic dust-scape being sculpted by the scorching radiation and punishing winds of massive newborn stars. /news/2025-09-pismis-webb-glittering-glimpse-star.html Astronomy Thu, 04 Sep 2025 13:01:03 EDT news676209661 Materials scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have invented the world's first pollen-based sunscreen derived from Camellia flowers. /news/2025-09-cooling-pollen-sunscreen-block-uv.html Ecology Biotechnology Thu, 04 Sep 2025 09:28:04 EDT news676196881 Researchers have made a groundbreaking discovery about hemoglobin, the protein responsible for carrying oxygen throughout the body. The findings challenge decades of scientific assumptions and provide new insights into fundamental biological processes. /news/2025-09-hidden-hemoglobin-carbon-monoxide-held.html Biochemistry Wed, 03 Sep 2025 14:26:04 EDT news676128362 In a distant galaxy called Makani, particles of dust were warmed by the light of newborn stars before being flung out into space by a massive starburst-driven wind. Over the course of 100 million years, the dust traveled farther and farther from Makani's center, ultimately ending up in the reservoir of hot gas that surrounds a galaxy, known as the circumgalactic medium (CGM). /news/2025-09-webb-reveals-space-makani-galaxy.html Astronomy Wed, 03 Sep 2025 14:23:04 EDT news676128181 Microplastics are tiny, plastic fragments—many too small to see—found in the air, soil and water. Measuring their abundance in nature can direct cleanup resources, but current detection methods are slow, expensive or highly technical. Now, researchers publishing in ACS Sensors have developed a living sensor that attaches to plastic and produces green fluorescence. In an initial test on real-world water samples, the biosensor could easily detect environmentally relevant levels of microplastics. /news/2025-09-bacteria-green-quickly-microplastics-samples.html Biochemistry Analytical Chemistry Wed, 03 Sep 2025 08:00:01 EDT news675954302 Polaritons are quasiparticles emerging from strong interactions between light particles (i.e., photons) and matter excitations (e.g., excitons). Over the past few years, researchers have found that these quasiparticles can alter fundamental chemical and physical processes. /news/2025-09-polaritons-enable-tunable-efficient-molecular.html Condensed Matter Optics & Photonics Wed, 03 Sep 2025 07:00:01 EDT news676036386 New research from Michigan State University reveals that photorespiration—long considered a wasteful process—is essential for producing a crucial nutrient for preventing birth defects. /news/2025-09-key-prenatal-vitamin-climate.html Plants & Animals Agriculture Wed, 03 Sep 2025 05:00:01 EDT news675954541 Astronomers have performed radio observations of WTP 14adeqka—a tidal disruption event discovered a decade ago. Results of the observational campaign, published August 22 on the pre-print server arXiv, provide crucial insights regarding the radio emission from this source. /news/2025-09-radio-emission-reveal-delayed-outflow.html Astronomy Mon, 01 Sep 2025 09:50:01 EDT news675938905 The Earth supports the only known life in the universe, all of it depending heavily on the presence of liquid water to facilitate chemical reactions. While single-celled life has existed almost as long as Earth itself, it took roughly three billion years for multicellular life to form. Human life has existed for less than one-10 thousandth of the age of Earth. /news/2025-08-circle-rectangle-earth-easier-telescope.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Mon, 01 Sep 2025 00:00:01 EDT news675590107 For this new Picture of the Month feature, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has provided a fantastic new view of IRAS 04302+2247, a planet-forming disk located about 525 light-years away in a dark cloud within the Taurus star-forming region. With Webb, researchers can study the properties and growth of dust grains within protoplanetary disks like this one, shedding light on the earliest stages of planet formation. /news/2025-08-webb-captures-dusty-wisps-planet.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Fri, 29 Aug 2025 12:30:01 EDT news675687375 Light still holds surprises—as demonstrated by researchers from the Ultrafast Phenomena Lab at the Faculty of Âé¶čÒùÔșics, University of Warsaw, in collaboration with the Institute of Low Temperature and Structure Research, the Polish Academy of Sciences, who have discovered a new enhancement effect in the emission of upconverting nanoparticles. They demonstrated that simultaneous excitation of these nanostructures with two near‐infrared beams of laser light leads to a significant increase in emission intensity. /news/2025-08-invisible-visible-dual-laser-boosts.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Fri, 29 Aug 2025 11:49:03 EDT news675686941 A study led by Jenny Frediani at Stockholm University has revealed a planet-forming disk with a strikingly unusual chemical composition: an unexpectedly high abundance of carbon dioxide (CO2) in regions where Earth-like planets may one day form. /news/2025-08-unusual-rich-disk-young-star.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Fri, 29 Aug 2025 03:00:01 EDT news675590703 For the first time, chemists at ETH Zurich have successfully used extremely short, rotating flashes of light to measure and manipulate the different movements of electrons in mirror-image molecules. They showed that the chirality of molecules is not just a structural but also an electronic phenomenon. /news/2025-08-electrons-reveal-handedness-attosecond.html Analytical Chemistry Wed, 27 Aug 2025 11:41:04 EDT news675513661 By analyzing the data from the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) international database and the Small and Medium Aperture Telescope System (SMARTS), astronomers have inspected a nova in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) known as LMCN 2009-05a. Results of the study, published August 19 on the pre-print server arXiv, disentangle the nature and properties of this nova. /news/2025-08-disentangling-dusty-nova-astronomers-closer.html Astronomy Wed, 27 Aug 2025 10:20:06 EDT news675508596 Clues about how worlds like Earth may have formed have been found buried at the heart of a spectacular "cosmic butterfly." With the help of the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers say they have made a big leap forward in our understanding of how the raw material of rocky planets comes together. /news/2025-08-cosmic-butterfly-reveals-clues-earth.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Wed, 27 Aug 2025 08:49:05 EDT news675503341 An international team of astronomers, co-led by researchers at the University of Galway, has made the unexpected discovery of a new planet. /news/2025-08-astronomers-unexpected-discovery-planet-formation.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Tue, 26 Aug 2025 07:00:02 EDT news675351721 Scientists have devised a new method for mapping the spottiness of distant stars by using observations from NASA missions of orbiting planets crossing their stars' faces. The model builds on a technique researchers have used for decades to study star spots. /news/2025-08-astronomers-star-tess-kepler.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 25 Aug 2025 14:21:05 EDT news675350462 Images taken with the MIRI infrared camera on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have made it possible to observe the first galaxies in long-wavelength infrared light for the first time. Alongside a recent study published in Astronomy and Astrophysics, these images provide new insights into how the first galaxies formed over 13 billion years ago. /news/2025-08-red-galaxies-insights-birth-universe.html Astronomy Mon, 25 Aug 2025 09:35:22 EDT news675333320 Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have conducted spectroscopic observations of a high-redshift galaxy known as XMM-VID1-2075. Results of the observational campaign, presented August 14 on the pre-print server arXiv, suggest that XMM-VID1-2075 is a massive and evolved slow-rotator. /news/2025-08-xmm-vid1-massive-evolved-rotating.html Astronomy Mon, 25 Aug 2025 09:30:01 EDT news675332495 Researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities have made a new discovery by observing and analyzing the first new type of plasma wave in Jupiter's aurora. This research helps us understand "alien aurora" on other planets, which in turn teaches us more about how Earth's magnetic field protects us from the sun's harmful radiation. /news/2025-08-alien-aurora-plasma-jupiter.html Planetary Sciences Sun, 24 Aug 2025 09:30:01 EDT news674813833