How can educational media impact a child’s learning outcomes? This is what a recent study published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psycholog | Technology

Astronomers may have caught a still-forming planet in action, carving out an intricate pattern in the gas and dust that surrounds its young host star. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), they observed a planetary disc with prominent spiral arms, finding clear signs of a planet nestled in its inner regions. This is the first time astronomers have detected a planet candidate embedded inside a disc spiral.
“We will never witness the formation of Earth, but here, around a young star 440 light-years away, we may be watching a planet come into existence in real time,” says Francesco Maio, a doctoral researcher at the University of Florence, Italy, and lead author of this study, published on July 21 in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
The red supergiant Betelgeuse likely has a companion star, astronomers have confirmed.
Long theorized to share an orbit with Betelgeuse — an extremely bright star that may go supernova in the next few thousand years — a sun-size companion star has finally appeared in unique observations taken with the Gemini North telescope high on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea.
An academic whose work reaches beyond the Ivory Tower is rare. Scholarly writing tends to be highly technical, filled with footnotes and references, and often lacks a compelling narrative to captivate the reader. Not to mention that the work itself is usually deemed irrelevant and impractical for public knowledge.
The American philosopher Daniel Dennett (1942−2024) was, without a doubt, one of these generational thinkers who transcended the academic box. Why? His writing is filled with clear and interesting thought experiments, allowing anyone to grasp his theories, which span from philosophy, cognitive science and evolutionary biology to farming, sailing, and religion. Any curious person can find a relevant topic relating to their life in Dennett’s vast body of work, and it will likely have them questioning whether they actually understood the topic in the first place.
To celebrate the life and work of Dennett, the aptly named Dennett Prize was introduced in 2024. Like Dennett, the winner should “challenge received ideas and introduce new perspectives.” The prize is presented as part of the International Center for Consciousness Studies (ICCS) annual conference, held this year in Heraklion, Crete, earlier this month. The inaugural winner of the Dennett Prize was given to Andy Clark, professor of cognitive philosophy at the University of Sussex.