Science

A five year survey by the South Pole Telescope has produced a catalogue of more than seven thousand galaxy clusters, some dating back nearly eight billion years, giving astronomers their most detailed map yet of the universe's largest structures. Hidden inside the data is something even the researchers did not expect, a discovery that is quietly reshaping how we think star formation unfolded across the history of the universe.

The Outer Space Treaty from 1967 prohibits weapons in space. But a satellite launched by Russia has generated suspicion. Despite claims that it's a normal satellite, some things about it suggest otherwise. New research proposes a way to detect atomic weapons in space, helping enforce the treaty.

A new result using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shows that the outer spiral arms in the Milky Way galaxy may reach wider than previously thought. This finding may lead astronomers to adjust their understanding of our home galaxy’s structure.

With its ability to observe the red-shifted light from early galaxies, the JWST has revealed some surprises. Many massive galaxies in the early Universe had ceased star formation and were already quenched hundreds of millions of years sooner than thought. By examining their morphology, new research shows that mergers that were previously hidden from view are responsible.

Here's an observing guide to both familiar and lesser-known deep-sky objects that inhabit our galaxy's equatorial zone. The post Steamy Nights at the Galactic Equator appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

We might be living through a comet shower created by a star that millions of years ago jostled the Oort Cloud surrounding the solar system. The post Did a Passing Star Shower Us with Comets? appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The gold standard of scientific review, peer review by researchers’ colleagues, is in crisis. AI might offer a solution but has problems of its own.

A story of seashells.ScienceAlert stories are written, fact-checked, and edited by humans, never generated by AI. Don't miss a story, subscribe here.

Meet D factor.ScienceAlert stories are written, fact-checked, and edited by humans, never generated by AI. Don't miss a story, subscribe here.

The fast-charging performance of lithium-ion batteries is strongly influenced by the structure of porous electrodes and its evolution during battery operation. In such electrodes, ionic transport is governed by the electrolyte conductivity as well as by the porosity, tortuosity and thickness of the electrode. The latter parameters undergo both reversible and irreversible changes, induced by the lithiation and delithiation of graphite particles and by the formation of the solid–electrolyte interp

Artificial vision is employed in applications ranging from self-driving cars to advanced robotics. However, most “artificial eyes” do not work well in complex real-world conditions, such as sudden strong glare, dimness or uneven light levels. Such devices also rely on complex and rigid electronic circuitry to adjust their sensitivity to light and on post-algorithmic processing for accurate image recognition. A research team headed up at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of Chin

As a child, Enrique Bordallo would gaze in awe at the starry night sky in rural Spain. Next month's solar eclipse has now made his passion a popular obsession.

New research could help make future mRNA vaccines easier to store and distribute. The study, involving RMIT University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School, identified conditions that help protect the particles that carry mRNA in dry vaccine patches, offering practical guidance for future patch design.

When electrons are placed in a strong magnetic field and cooled to very low temperatures, they stop behaving independently and instead act as a collective fluid. This is known as a fractional quantum Hall (FQH) system. In this regime, the electrons lose their individual behaviour and act as one correlated system. The strong interactions between them produce quasiparticles called anyons. These are not real particles but effective ones that emerge from the collective behaviour, and they have unusu

Molecules such as glycine, the simplest amino acid, can crystallise into different polymorphs with the same chemical composition but different structures. The two phases of glycine are α-glycine, which forms easily and is stable in bulk conditions, and β-glycine, which is difficult to produce and unstable in the bulk. However, β-glycine is piezoelectric; it generates electricity when compressed or bent and is therefore technologically useful. In this work, the researchers developed a new method

Federal trade and industrial policies have triggered a new wave of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the United States, with some companies committing billions of dollars to U.S.-based manufacturing. Now, an analysis in Contemporary Economic Policy has found that FDI raises employment but has no significant effect on income in rural U.S. counties.

Most veterans and U.S. military service members who die by firearm suicide don't disclose their suicidal intentions in the month before their death, according to Rutgers researchers. Their study, published in The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, examined the patterns of 28,600 individuals with a history of military service who died by firearm suicide between 2013 and 2021. Using data from the National Violent Death Reporting System, researchers sought to understand how ofte

Accumulation of DNA damage in the brain's neurons may contribute to the development of Alzheimer's disease. New research in FEBS Open Bio demonstrates the therapeutic potential of a drug that targets this process.

A study published in Ecography has assessed how climate change may be destabilizing interactions between predators and prey in the wild—specifically, how owl–prey interactions have responded to environmental variability and resource availability over 24 years in the semi-arid ecosystem of Bosque Fray Jorge National Park in Chile.

A recent review of published research provides some evidence that a small but noteworthy minority of transmasculine people (trans, nonbinary, and other gender-expansive people who were assigned female at birth) have pregnancies (6%–9%) and children (4%–9%), including after transition. The systematic review published in Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica also found possibly higher miscarriage rates and very little evidence on postnatal depression rates in transmasculine people who beca