The James Webb Space Telescope has detected the farthest “fast radio burst” ever seen, providing more clues about these mysterious explosions.
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Gravity and quantum information linked through a derivation of Einstein’s equations
Recent research shows that gravity and quantum information are deeply connected and that the shape of spacetime can be traced back to the way information is stored in quantum fields.
Einstein’s theory of general relativity describes gravity as the curvature of space and time caused by matter and energy. Quantum theory, on the other hand, describes the microscopic world. Uniting the two is one of the biggest open problems in physics.
In 1995, the physicist Ted Jacobson showed that Einstein’s equations can be derived from thermodynamics, the physics of heat and entropy, much like the laws governing a gas emerge from the motion of its molecules. This suggested that gravity might not be fundamental but could emerge from something deeper.
Webb spots possible early-universe supernova just days after it happened
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected a possible supernova in the early universe just days after the star exploded. Called AT 2026abck, the transient lies in a star-forming galaxy at a redshift of 5.017 and was found without the help of gravitational lensing. JWST observations suggest the event was caught only about four to 10 days after the explosion. The paper was posted to the arXiv preprint server on Sept. 29.
Supernovae in the early universe offer a direct view of how massive stars lived and died when galaxies were young, metal-poor and forming stars in bursts. Their rate also gives an independent measure of the cosmic star-formation history. But they are difficult to observe because the light they emit gets stretched and redshifted to infrared wavelengths by the time it reaches us.
The James Webb Space Telescope, with its exceptional infrared vision, has made it possible to detect over 200 potential supernova events with host galaxy redshifts out to around 6. Beyond redshift 4 (when the universe’s age was 1.5 billion years), most candidates have been observed only once or a few times, and few have been caught within days of exploding. At redshifts greater than 5, only one supernova has been confirmed based on its spectra, and only because it was gravitationally magnified up to 30 times by a galaxy cluster.
Newly discovered 3D ‘chair’ shape can fill all space without repeating patterns
Software developer Ioannis Tsiokos has reported the discovery of a three-dimensional shape, which roughly resembles a chair, that can fill space infinitely without repeating a pattern. The shape follows certain mathematical rules that make it the first of its kind in three dimensions. The AI-assisted findings are described in an arXiv preprint paper.
Mathematicians have long been on the lookout for aperiodic monotiles—shapes that can fill space through tiling without gaps or overlaps, and without any globally repeating arrangements. The usual rules allow for locally recurring patterns, but shifting the entire tiling by a nonzero distance and recovering exactly the same arrangement is forbidden.
A two-dimensional version of such a shape was reported in 2023. This “hat” tile was a 13-sided polykite and was proven to be the first true aperiodic monotile. Later the same year, another 2D version, called the “spectre” tile, was reported. The hat tile required its mirror image to properly tile the plane without gaps, while the spectre did not.
Sequence changes help modified mRNA avoid protein-making errors to improve vaccine design
When the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 turned our world upside down, mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 brought a breakthrough. Their success established modified mRNA as a powerful foundation for vaccines and opened the way for new mRNA-based technologies, with potential applications ranging from vaccines against other infectious diseases to cancer immunotherapy.
Researchers led by Marina Rodnina and Panagiotis Poulis from the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences (Göttingen, Germany) have now uncovered an important aspect of how such modified mRNAs are translated into proteins. In their study published in Nature Communications, they show why ribosomes can occasionally shift into the wrong reading frame when translating modified mRNA and how these errors can be largely avoided through mRNA sequence design.
Quantum physicists trace a century of controlling spin
A concept from the field of quantum mechanics, spin is a property of particles that has no direct counterpart in everyday experience. Since the early 20th century, researchers have learned to manipulate it deliberately by means of precisely shaped electromagnetic pulses. This has resulted in two technologies that are widespread today: magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is commonplace in hospitals, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) is used to determine the structures of proteins and to develop new drugs. The mathematical framework of optimal control theory can be used to improve these technologies.
“The question it answers is a practical one,” explains Christiane Koch, professor of theoretical physics at Freie Universität Berlin. “Given a quantum system and the fields I can apply to it, how do I reach the state I want as quickly, as reliably and as accurately as possible—and how well can it be done at all, in principle?”
The gains are considerable: Pulses designed in this way invert nuclear spins about 10 times faster than the conventional pulses previously in use, and in magnetic resonance imaging they make it possible to build the constraints of a real scanner directly into the design of the experiment.
New detector spots AI-generated work by examining ideas, not words
It’s no secret that an ever-increasing number of scientists use AI to help with their papers. While tasks such as polishing text are generally permissible if declared, using the technology to write papers, or parts of papers, from scratch and passing them off as original work is not. But it’s happening.
As a result, editors and conference organizers are using AI detectors to spot AI use. However, these tools can make mistakes, which is far from ideal.
Step forward IdeaLens, a new kind of detector that looks at the ideas behind a text rather than the words themselves. Unlike Pangram and other AI detectors that examine word choices and sentence patterns, it looks for clues in the underlying ideas and arguments. The research is described in a paper posted to the arXiv preprint server.
3D imaging technique examines nuclear fuel rod corrosion at nanoscale resolution
The cladding tubes of the fuel rods used in nuclear reactors must remain leak-tight—despite the risk of corrosion from the surrounding cooling water and despite the radiation they are exposed to during operation. It is therefore important to know how quickly corrosion layers form and how porous they are.
Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have now used a new technique to visualize these changes in the cladding material in three dimensions for the first time, achieving a resolution in the nanometer range.
Another distinguishing feature of their experiment is that the samples they examined were taken from cladding tubes that had actually been in service in a nuclear power plant. The tubes were able to withstand the stresses involved: They were still leak-tight.
3D map of rice development charts gene activity across plant’s entire life cycle
Rice is one of the world’s most familiar staple foods, but how does a single cell develop into a rice plant with specialized tissues and organs? A new study offers a detailed look at this process through a three-dimensional (3D) spatiotemporal atlas covering 10 organs and 61 developmental stages across the rice life cycle, from seed to seed.
The study, published in Cell, was conducted by a research team led by professor Yang Weicai from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (IGDB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with several other research teams.
The plant life cycle alternates between a haploid phase, which produces sperm and egg cells, and a diploid phase, which develops following fertilization. In plants, the diploid zygote develops into a multicellular organism through coordinated cell divisions and cell fate specification. Understanding how these processes are regulated across different tissues and developmental stages is a fundamental goal of developmental biology.