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They say that going to space changes you. Often, what’s being referenced is a shift in mindset, a renewed sense of perspective that comes from seeing our world from above, a phenomenon that’s been called the overview effect. But it seems unlikely that rocketing off into the atmosphere, experiencing powerful g-force acceleration followed by a … Read more

One of the farthest known quasars seems to have shut down the creation of new stars in all the galaxies within its vicinity. A quasar is a powerful source of light, created by torrid gas orbiting a gargantuan black hole at the center of a galaxy. The intense radiation from one quasar, named VIK J2348-3054, … Read more

Contrary to a previous report, there’s no evidence of an intermediate-mass black hole in Omega Centauri, the Milky Way’s most massive and luminous globular star cluster, a new study finds. Instead, a hive of much smaller black holes diving into and out of the tightly packed star cluster’s center can explain the movement and distribution … Read more

Rogue waves are freakishly large ridges of water known for rising out of the blue to ambush hapless ships and beachgoers. But a new artificial intelligence model can predict most of these surprising swells up to five minutes in advance, mechanical engineers Thomas Breunung and Balakumar Balachandran of the University of Maryland in College Park … Read more

Neutrinos are known for funny business. Now scientists have set a new limit on a quantum trait responsible for the subatomic particles’ quirkiness: uncertainty. The lightweight particles morph from one variety of neutrino to another as they travel, a strange phenomenon called neutrino oscillation (SN: 10/6/15). That ability rests on quantum uncertainty, a sort of fuzziness intrinsic … Read more

Head-scratching observations of distant galaxies are challenging cosmologists’ dominant ideas about the universe, potentially leading to the implication that the strange substance called dark matter doesn’t exist. That’s one possible conclusion from a new study published June 20 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The finding “raises questions of an extraordinarily fundamental nature,” says Richard Brent … Read more

When bloodstream infections set in, fast treatment is crucial — but it can take several days to identify the bacteria responsible. A new, rapid-diagnosis sepsis test could cut down on the wait, reducing testing time from as much as a few days to about 13 hours by cutting out a lengthy blood culturing step, researchers … Read more

The cosmos may have something in common with a doughnut. In addition to their fried, sugary goodness, doughnuts are known for their shape, or in mathematical terms, their topology. In a universe with an analogous, complex topology, you could travel across the cosmos and end up back where you started. Such a cosmos hasn’t yet been … Read more

Keep your eyes on the night sky this summer, scanning for the constellation Corona Borealis, and if you are lucky, you may glimpse what appears to be a new star winking on in the dark. The brightening point of light will not be a new star, but a nova eruption about 3,000 light-years from Earth. … Read more

Meet graphene’s newest metallic cousin, goldene. For the first time, researchers have created a free-standing sheet of gold that’s just one atom thick. The development, reported in the April 16 Nature Synthesis, could someday allow scientists to use less gold in electronics and chemical reactions, says materials physicist Lars Hultman of Linköping University in Sweden. … Read more