/ en-us Â鶹ÒùÔº internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Â鶹ÒùÔºics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Researchers have used the centuries-old idea of pinhole imaging to create a high-performance mid-infrared imaging system without lenses. The new camera can capture extremely clear pictures over a large range of distances and in low light, making it useful for situations that are challenging for traditional cameras. /news/2025-09-revive-pinhole-camera-gen-infrared.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 11 Sep 2025 10:00:01 EDT news676649162 Led by Assistant Professor Kou Li, a research group at Chuo University, Japan, has developed a synergetic strategy among non-destructive terahertz (THz)–infrared (IR) photo-monitoring techniques and ultrabroadband sensitive imager sheets toward demonstrating in-line real-time multi-scale quality inspections of pharmaceutical agent pills. /news/2025-09-permeable-pharmaceuticals-real-tablet-quality.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 10 Sep 2025 20:00:01 EDT news676716336 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 Timely information on a company's production activities is crucial for investors and policymakers, yet it remains scarce as financial reports and other broader economic indicators like the Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) are only released periodically. This information lag makes it difficult to assess a company's operational health in real time. /news/2025-09-economic-indicator-potential-business-sustainable.html Economics & Business Tue, 09 Sep 2025 16:44:04 EDT news676655042 Extremophiles are a favorite tool of astrobiologists. But not only are they good for understanding the kind of extreme environments that life can survive in, sometimes they are useful as actual tools, creating materials necessary for other life, like oxygen, in those extreme environments. A recent paper from Daniella Billi of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, published in pre-print form in Acta Astronautica, reviews how one particular extremophile fills the role of both useful test subject and useful tool all at once. /news/2025-09-extremophile-martian-dirt-survives-space.html Space Exploration Astrobiology Tue, 09 Sep 2025 15:03:03 EDT news676648981 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 Â鶹ÒùÔºics 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 While it may appear as just another spiral galaxy among billions in the universe, this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals a galaxy with plenty to study. The galaxy, NGC 7456, is located over 51 million light-years away in the constellation Grus (the Crane). /news/2025-09-image-hubble-spies-galaxy.html Astronomy Sat, 06 Sep 2025 10:40:01 EDT news676287416 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 Large exoplanets are more easily detected than small ones. It's axiomatic. While large planets block out more starlight during transits, small planets block out much less, letting them hide in the overpowering glare from their stars. To help detect sub-Jupiter mass exoplanets, astronomers search for the effect these planets can have on their surroundings. /news/2025-09-clues-dusty-disk-potential-exoplanet.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 05 Sep 2025 11:46:29 EDT news676291584 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 Researchers from the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Department of Entomology and Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics have developed a technique that uses infrared light and machine learning to reveal the sex of blow fly larvae found on human remains. This innovative approach may help investigators estimate time of death with greater speed and accuracy. /news/2025-09-based-insect-analysis-sharpens-forensic.html Biotechnology Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 04 Sep 2025 11:18:04 EDT news676203482 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 Cape Town has consistently been one of the metropolitan regions in South Africa with the highest murder rates. It has more than double the national average, and is currently ranked second overall and 16th worldwide. Many victims are discovered only after their bodies have decomposed, burned, or been exposed to the elements. That makes identification difficult and delays justice. /news/2025-09-bodies-decompose-cape-town-forensic.html Biotechnology Other Wed, 03 Sep 2025 13:00:03 EDT news676120801 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 The recent discovery of the third known interstellar object (ISO), 3I/ATLAS, has brought about another round of debate on whether these objects could potentially be technological in origin. Everything from random YouTube channels to tenured Harvard professors have thoughts about whether ISOs might actually be spaceships, but the general consensus of the scientific community is that they aren't. /news/2025-09-technosignatures-interstellar.html Astrobiology Mon, 01 Sep 2025 09:59:03 EDT news675939541 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 All (or at least most) astronomical eyes are on 3I/ATLAS, our most recent interstellar visitor that was discovered in early July. Given its relatively short observational window in our solar system, and especially its impending perihelion in October, a lot of observational power has been directed toward it. /news/2025-09-jwst-reveals-3iatlas-coma-largely.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Mon, 01 Sep 2025 09:01:03 EDT news675936061 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