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Magnetic fingerprint of a cosmic explosion detected for the first time

Astronomers have made a series of landmark observations of one of the universe’s most violent events. Using the U.S. National Science Foundation Very Large Array (NSF VLA) radio telescope, which is operated by the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO), the team detected polarized light from a gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow for the first time at radio wavelengths.

It also marks the first time scientists have detected Faraday rotation in a GRB, a phenomenon in which magnetic fields cause the polarization of light to twist as it travels through space, revealing how the magnetic environment of these explosions interacts with the light they produce. The findings, led by researchers at the University of Arizona and the University of Utah, offer a new window into the extreme physics driving these titanic explosions.

The paper has been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters and is available on the arXiv preprint server.

Daydreaming algorithm helps AI remember what matters

During the day, our brain acquires new memories; at night, during sleep, it consolidates the important ones and eliminates the useless ones. A similar principle has been applied to Hopfield networks, one of the classic models of artificial intelligence inspired by the workings of the brain. In 2025, Federico Ricci-Tersenghi and colleagues developed Daydreaming, an algorithm that combines the learning of new memories with the elimination of spurious ones, drastically improving the network’s capacity.

One limitation remained, however. These networks lose effectiveness when they work with real-world data, which are rarely perfectly balanced—for example, very bright or very dark images, in which white or black pixels overwhelmingly dominate. In a new study published in the Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment (JSTAT), Ricci-Tersenghi and Japanese colleagues present a new version of the algorithm capable of effectively handling realistic, strongly biased data.

A “classical” neuralnetwork The networks proposed by John Hopfield in 1982—work that would earn him the Nobel Prize in 2024—consist of artificial neurons connected to one another and are among the simplest models of associative memory. “Whenever we see any tree, our brain recalls the concept of a tree. This ability to associate many different representations with the same concept is what we call associative memory,” explains Ricci-Tersenghi, professor of theoretical physics at Sapienza University of Rome and one of the authors of the new study.

CarbonationEmpowered Offshore Deep Cement Mixing Enables Undredged Land

A new study in Communications Engineering reports a construction strategy that could change how offshore reclaimed land is stabilized—using carbonation to strengthen deep cement mixing from microscopic reactions to full in-situ performance.

Conventional deep cement mixing relies on mechanically blending cement and soil, but its long-term durability in waterlogged, newly dredged environments remains a challenge. The researchers propose mixing: a process that uses carbon dioxide to drive mineral formation within the cemented soil matrix, improving both strength and stability.

At the micro-scale, carbonation converts reactive components in the cement into carbonate minerals. This reaction can refine the pore structure, reduce permeability, and bind loose particles more effectively than ordinary curing alone. In practical terms, the cement-soil composite becomes less vulnerable to water ingress and chemical attack.

How a 99yearold mathematician unraveled a centuryold braid mystery

In the 1930s Werner Burau, a German mathematician, introduced a twisted geometrical mystery that would stand for nearly a century.

Previously, mathematicians had shown that knots could be reformulated into something more relatable: braids. A “braid” starts with a collection of strands. To make the braid, one dangles the strands vertically and weaves them downward however they like. Any type of knot, no matter how complicated, can be translated into a braid.

As part of his investigation, Burau neatly translated braid structures into algebraic objects, making them much easier to manipulate mathematically. The objects, called matrices, are grids of numbers that function much like a spreadsheet. But mathematicians of the day worried that his elegant translation was losing information. Did some of these matrices represent more than one braid? If so, they were dubbed “unfaithful.” The problem was determining which, if any, of his braid representations were unfaithful.

Gene therapy reverses complete congenital night blindness in mice, improving vision

A new preclinical study suggests that gene augmentation therapy may restore sight in a severe form of inherited night blindness. The work, reported in Gene Therapy, targets complete congenital stationary night blindness (cCSNB), a disorder in which the retinal circuitry fails to generate reliable visual responses from birth. In mouse models, treatment improved both retinal function and visual performance, offering a promising blueprint for future human therapies.

The researchers focused on augmenting gene activity to compensate for the underlying molecular defect driving defective photoreceptor signaling. Rather than attempting to edit the genome directly, the approach delivers functional genetic instructions to retinal cells, aiming to re-establish healthier visual transduction. This strategy is designed for conditions where disease-causing pathways can be partially rescued by restoring protein expression levels.

Using viral delivery, the team administered a therapeutic vector into the eyes of affected mice. After treatment, they monitored retinal function with electrophysiological assays that quantify how well retinal neurons respond to light. The results showed a measurable shift toward more normal response patterns, indicating that the treated retinas regained function rather than merely delaying degeneration.

Brain waves once seen as noise could help build a biological model of reality

Your brain has something surprising in common with the ocean: waves. Electrical activity washes over the brain’s surface, creating what are called traveling brain waves, or neural traveling waves. These waves cause real differences in your behavior and attention and—again, like ocean waves—can have variable causes, from intrinsic activity to environmental inputs.

A new review article by Salk Institute neuroscientists synthesizes physiological and computational information about these neural traveling waves and draws a new conclusion: Neural traveling waves are a computational engine in the visual cortex. These waves allow the visual cortex (and likely other areas of the brain) to build representations of the external world, enabling our capacity to predict, reconstruct and perceive the world around us.

The piece was published in Neuron on July 21, 2026.

Exploring a smarter way to build climate-resilient roads

Every year from June to September, India experiences the monsoon season. While the visible heavy rainfall often takes the blame for many roads requiring repairs much sooner than expected, a far less visible yet critical force is at play long before the first raindrop falls on the road.

Rigid, or concrete, pavements are a type of road construction that uses concrete slabs. They distribute traffic loads over a wide area and can withstand heavy loads. These pavements are used in places like highways and airports and are becoming increasingly popular on city roads as well.

What is interesting is that, together with their surrounding environments, concrete pavements form an integrated system. Daily temperature fluctuations, such as those due to sunlight and cool nights, along with seasonal changes, result in cycles of heating and cooling of the pavement layers. It is these cycles that create internal stresses within the pavement structure.

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