Olivier Sorgho is senior editor at Notes from Poland, covering politics, business and society. He previously worked for Reuters.
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Visualization of Merging Black Holes and Gravitational Waves
Source: Ashtekar A, Paraizo DE, Shu J (2026). “Thermodynamics of Black Holes, Far from Equilibrium.” Physical Review Letters. DOI 10.1103/3c1r-v8f1. Published June 24, 2026. Selected as Editor’s Suggestion. Penn State University. ScienceDaily, July 13, 2026. Quotes: Abhay Ashtekar, Penn State. Video.
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TESS just found a planet in a new way—and more may be hiding in its eight years of data
For the first time, NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission has identified a planet orbiting a distant star thanks to its warping of space-time. Unlike the star-hugging transiting planets TESS regularly reveals, the newfound microlensing world is a super-Jupiter orbiting far from its host star.
“When TESS launched, no one expected it to ever be capable of finding this kind of planet,” said University of New Mexico professor Diana Dragomir. “The discovery implies that there are probably other microlensing planets hiding in TESS’s data that we hadn’t previously thought to look for.”
Astronomers first became aware of the alerting microlensing event, called Gaia23bra b, in 2023 using ESA’s (European Space Agency) now-retired Gaia space telescope. Gaia23bra b is fundamentally different from the transiting planets normally found by TESS. Instead of causing a dimming, the star-planet system magnified the light of a more distant background star (the “source”).
AI tool improves prediction of who will respond to cancer immunotherapy drugs
Cancer immunotherapy drugs known as immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) can be miracle drugs for cancer patients, curing some and turning deadly disease into a manageable chronic condition in others. But these drugs work for only a subset of patients, with few indications why—a knowledge gap that has detrimental effects on patient prognosis, clinical trial recruitment and research that could lead to new therapies.
A new artificial intelligence model called COMPASS, developed by Harvard Medical School researchers and their colleagues, improves prediction of which patients are most likely to respond to ICIs. Using data from patients treated in the past, the model outperformed the best existing approaches by 8.5%. It makes its predictions based on patients’ tumor gene activity and provides a rationale for its output.
If these results are validated in a future clinical trial, COMPASS could lead to better personalized medicine for cancer patients, more efficient trial enrollment for new therapies and new drug targets for researchers to explore.
A 200-year-old physics experiment could help build future computers
Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have found a much simpler way to produce unusual light structures known as optical skyrmions by reviving a classic optics experiment that dates back more than 200 years.
Optical skyrmions are tiny, stable swirling patterns formed within the properties of light. Their structure has often been compared to the spines of a hedgehog. Because they can potentially encode and store information, researchers see them as promising building blocks for future data storage, communications, and computing technologies.
Instead of relying on expensive, highly engineered metamaterials that have traditionally been needed to generate optical skyrmions, the NTU team created them by shining a laser at a small circular disc. The approach provides a far simpler way to produce, study, and control these complex light structures.
Six massive landslides discovered on icy Pluto
Scientists have detected evidence of landslides on Pluto for the first time. A paper published in the journal Icarus reports that images taken by the New Horizons spacecraft during a flyby revealed six large landslides in three impact craters.
These mass movements of ice, rock and debris are common on Earth and have been detected elsewhere in our solar system, including Mars and Ceres, a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. But evidence from icy Pluto has been nonexistent until now, even though it has steep crater walls and rugged icy terrain where landslides could occur.
Secure glass containers for storing chemical waste through laser welding
As the adoption of electric vehicles continues to grow, so does the need for the safe and permanent storage of battery materials and industrial chemical waste. Certain waste streams require disposal in what are known as Category IV landfills, which impose particularly stringent requirements on storage containers. These must simultaneously ensure environmental protection, safe handling and long-term structural integrity.
Glass is a highly promising material for this application: It is exceptionally chemically inert—meaning it reacts with virtually no other substances—making thick-walled glass containers especially well-suited for the permanent containment of hazardous materials. Glass containers are also of particular interest in the context of potential new recycling methods in the future. The stored residual materials do not react with the containers and can be readily recovered from them.
Until now, these glass containers have been manufactured primarily using thermal gas processes. However, these are limited by uncontrolled heat input, high residual stresses and restricted automation potential. Laser welding, on the other hand, enables high processing speeds and shows excellent potential for automation.