White dwarf stars are thought to follow very specific “rules” – if they’re over a certain mass limit, they’ll explode in a supernova with a very predictable brightness and time. But now Caltech astronomers have found a strange twist: white dwarfs used to explode at lower masses than they do today.
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It’s not unusual to find rust around salt water, but now the pairing might be more useful. Researchers have found that electricity can be produced when salt water flows over the top of thin films of rust. The process was previously seen in – what else – graphene, but rust is far easier to scale up.
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Gravitational waves are usually detected as they sweep across Earth, but astronomers have found a likely source before the waves become detectable. Using Zwicky Transient Facility, the team discovered two dead stars circling each other at lightning speed, with one starting to tear the other apart.
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Strangely enough, the mechanisms behind thirst and satiation are somewhat of a mystery to science. Now researchers from Caltech have investigated and found two connections between body and brain that control the process.
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Most oxygen in the universe isn’t in the form that we need to breathe: molecular oxygen, or O2. Now, researchers at Caltech claim to have created a reactor that can turn carbon dioxide into molecular oxygen, which could help us fight climate change here on Earth or generate oxygen for life in space.
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In the 1990s, the lab of Frances Arnold showed how we can turn evolution to our advantage by manipulating microbes into evolving in a certain way. Now Arnold's team is using the technique to develop new antibiotics.
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We’re now getting new gravitational wave detections so often it almost doesn’t seem special anymore. Barely a month into a new observation run, the LIGO/Virgo collaboration has now reported five new events, including what may be the first ever detection of a black hole swallowing a neutron star.
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Magnetoreception, or the ability to sense the Earth’s magnetic field, pops up throughout the animal kingdom, but it’s generally thought to be something humans missed out on. But new research has found changes in human brain wave activity that seems to be in response to a changing magnetic field.
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In the last few years, evidence suggests there’s an unknown rocky world lurking on the fringes of the solar system. The astronomers who originally proposed the Planet Nine hypothesis have now published two more papers analyzing the case, highlighting a few new clues.
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The CHIME telescope has picked up 13 unexplained radio signals coming from beyond the Milky Way. These fast radio bursts are part of one of the strangest mysteries of modern astronomy, but the new detections could help unlock their source, thanks to a rare one that seems to be repeating.
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