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Nube is an almost invisible dwarf galaxy discovered by an international research team led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in collaboration with the University of La Laguna (ULL) and other institutions.

The name was suggested by the 5-year-old daughter of one of the researchers in the group and is due to the diffuse appearance of the object. Its surface brightness is to faint that it had passed unnoticed in the various previous surveys of this part of the sky due to the object’s diffuse appearance as if it were some kind of ghost. This is because its stars are so spread out in such a large volume that “Nube” (Spanish for “Cloud”) was almost undetectable.

This newly discovered galaxy has a set of specific properties which distinguish it from previously known objects. The research team estimate that Nube is a dwarf galaxy 10 times fainter than others of its type, but also 10 times more extended than other objects with a comparable number of stars.

A crippling fuel leak forced a U.S. company on Tuesday to give up on landing a spacecraft on the moon.

Astrobotic Technology’s lander began losing fuel soon after Monday’s launch. The spacecraft also encountered problems keeping its solar panel pointed towards the sun and generating solar power.

“Given the propellant leak, there is, unfortunately, no chance of a soft landing on the moon,” Astrobotic said in a statement.

A new study in Physical Review Letters illuminates the intricacies of energy exchanges within bipartite quantum systems, offering profound insights into quantum coherence, pure dephasing effects, and the potential impact on future quantum technologies.

In quantum systems, the behavior of particles and energy transfer are governed by probability distributions and wave functions, adding layers of complexity to the understanding of energy exchanges.

The exploration of energy exchanges in quantum systems inherently involves tackling the complexities arising from quantum decoherence and the scales at which quantum systems operate, introducing sensitivity.

New research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience has found an association between a reduction in gray matter in the brain and early onset psychosis (EOP).

The study, published in Molecular Psychiatry, is the largest ever brain imaging study in EOP and has provided unprecedented levels of detail about the illness. It shows that in contrast to other mental health disorders, people with EOP have a reduced volume of gray matter across nearly all regions of their brain. Researchers hope that this detailed mapping could be used to assist in future diagnosis, as well as to track the effects of treatment in patients with EOP.

EOP occurs before the age of 18 during a critical period of development in the brain. Individuals diagnosed with the illness are likely to experience severe and long-lasting symptoms that respond less well to treatment. Despite this, research into EOP has been limited in sample size and statistical power.

Adults with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have smaller cerebellums, according to new research from a Duke-led brain imaging study.

The cerebellum, a part of the brain well-known for helping to coordinate movement and balance, can influence emotion and memory, which are impacted by PTSD. What isn’t known yet is whether a smaller cerebellum predisposes a person to PTSD or PTSD shrinks the brain region.

“The differences were largely within the posterior lobe, where a lot of the more cognitive functions attributed to the cerebellum seem to localize, as well as the vermis, which is linked to a lot of emotional processing functions,” said Ashley Huggins, Ph.D., the lead author of the report who helped carry out the work as a postdoctoral researcher at Duke in the lab of psychiatrist Raj Morey, M.D.

A new study published in The Astrophysical Journal reveals new evidence for standard gravity breaking down in an idiosyncratic manner at low acceleration. This new study reinforces the evidence for modified gravity that was previously reported in 2023 from an analysis of the orbital motions of gravitationally bound, widely separated (or long-period) binary stars, known as wide binaries.

The new study was carried out by Kyu-Hyun Chae, a professor of physics and astronomy at Sejong University in Seoul, South Korea, with wide binaries observed by European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope.

Gravitational anomalies reported in 2023 by Chae’s study of wide binaries have the unique feature that orbital motions in binaries experience larger accelerations than Newtonian predictions when the mutual gravitational acceleration is weaker than about 1 nanometer per second squared and the acceleration boost factor becomes about 1.4 at accelerations lower than about 0.1 nanometer per second squared.

Textile research has highlighted the advances in electroluminescent threads as suitable biomaterials for driving growth in the wearable electronics market. While the direct embroidery of textiles with custom designs and patterns can offer substantial benefits, machine embroidery can challenge the integrity of these threads.

In a new report of applied science and engineering published in Science Advances, Seungse Cho and a team of scientists in biomedical engineering and medicine in the U.S., present embroiderable, multicolor, electroluminescent threads in blue, green, and yellow, that show compatibility with standard embroidery methods.

The researchers used the threads to stitch decorative designs onto a variety of consumer fabrics, without compromising their wearability or light-emitting capacity. The scientists illuminated specific messages or designs on the consumer products for the purpose of developing emergency alerts on helmet liners and as physical hazard signs.

Scientists examine how friction forces propel development in a marine organism. As the potter works the spinning wheel, the friction between their hands and the soft clay helps them shape it into all kinds of forms and creations. In a fascinating parallel, sea squirt oocytes (immature egg cells) harness friction within various compartments in their interior to undergo developmental changes after conception. A study from the Heisenberg group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), published in Nature Physics, now describes how this works.

New Compounds for Organometallic Chemistry – Sandwich Complexes in the Form of Rings Are Kept Together by Their Own Energy.

Sandwich compounds are special chemical compounds used as basic building blocks in organometallic chemistry. So far, their structure has always been linear. Recently, researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the University of Marburg were the first to make stacked sandwich complexes form a nano-sized ring. Physical and other properties of these cyclocene structures will now be further investigated.

Evolution of Sandwich Complexes.