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SPHEREx imaging reveals increased sublimation activity on 3I/ATLAS

The interstellar object, 3I/ATLAS, was first discovered in July 2025, and made its closest approach to the sun (perihelion) in late October. New observations of 3I/ATLAS were taken in December from the SPHEREx observatory—a near-infrared space observatory used for spectrophotometry. The analysis of these observations was recently discussed by a team of scientists in a paper on arXiv, and reveals some dramatic differences from the data taken before 3I/ATLAS reached perihelion.

SPHEREx first analyzed spectrographic data from 3I/ATLAS in August, shortly after its discovery. At the time, the interstellar object was moving inward, getting closer to the sun, but still between Jupiter and Mars.

At this time, spectrographic analysis showed “barely detectable” H2O-gas, according to the study authors, along with a CO2 coma. The CO2 gas production was estimated in a prior study to be about 9.4 × 1026 molecules/sec, with upper limits for H2O and CO being much lower. Carbon-based organic compounds (collectively referred to as C-H), like methanol (CH3OH), formaldehyde (H2CO), methane (CH4), and ethane (C2H6) were not detectable at the time.

A twitch in time? Quantum collapse models hint at tiny time fluctuations

Quantum mechanics is rich with paradoxes and contradictions. It describes a microscopic world in which particles exist in a superposition of states—being in multiple places and configurations all at once, defined mathematically by what physicists call a “wavefunction.” But this runs counter to our everyday experience of objects that are either here or there, never both at the same time.

Typically, physicists manage this conflict by arguing that, when a quantum system comes into contact with a measuring device or an experimental observer, the system’s wavefunction “collapses” into a single, definite state. Now, with support from the Foundational Questions Institute, FQxI, an international team of physicists has shown that a family of unconventional solutions to this measurement problem—called “quantum collapse models”—has far-reaching implications for the nature of time and for clock precision.

They published their results suggesting a new way to distinguish these rival models from standard quantum theory, in Physical Review Research, in November 2025.

It started with a cat: How 100 years of quantum weirdness powers today’s tech

A hundred years ago, quantum mechanics was a radical theory that baffled even the brightest minds. Today, it’s the backbone of technologies that shape our lives, from lasers and microchips to quantum computers and secure communications.

In a sweeping new perspective published in Science, Dr. Marlan Scully, a university distinguished professor at Texas A&M University, traces the journey of quantum mechanics from its quirky beginnings to its role in solving some of science’s toughest challenges.

“Quantum mechanics started as a way to explain the behavior of tiny particles,” said Scully, who is also affiliated with Princeton University. “Now it’s driving innovations that were unimaginable just a generation ago.”

How light suppresses virulence in an antibiotic-resistant pathogen

Light is a universal stimulus that influences all living things. Cycles of light and dark help set the biological clocks for organisms ranging from single-celled bacteria to human beings. Some bacteria use photosynthesis to convert sunlight into energy just like plants, but other bacteria sense light for less well-known functions.

In 2019, Sampriti Mukherjee, Ph.D., and her team at the University of Chicago discovered that far-red light, part of the light spectrum near the infrared range, prevents the formation of biofilms by the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Biofilms form when communities of bacteria cluster together and attach to surfaces like medical devices or tissues. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an antibiotic-resistant bacterium, normally found in the soil and water, that is known to cause difficult to treat infections in hospitalized patients, especially those with weakened immune systems, lung diseases, or large wounds like burns. Figuring out how to prevent this pathogen from forming biofilms could help treat these dangerous infections.

Internet Gaming Disorder is affecting a significant portion of young adults

Researchers out of Spain and Italy report a globally pooled Internet Gaming Disorder prevalence of 6.1% among adults ages 18–35. Internet Gaming Disorder is considered a condition for further study in DSM-5-TR, with official classification in ICD-11.

Gaming problems often get viewed as an adolescent concern, while evidence indicates growing vulnerability in young adults. Late adolescents and young adults tend to show higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress, along with lower self-esteem, compared to healthy regular gamers.

DSM-5-TR includes nine criteria for Internet Gaming Disorder, including preoccupation with gaming, withdrawal symptoms, tolerance, unsuccessful attempts to control gaming habits, loss of interest in previous hobbies, continued excessive gaming despite problems, deception about the extent of gaming, gaming used to escape negative mood, and jeopardizing relationships or opportunities. Diagnosis requires at least five of those nine criteria within 12 months.

Newly discovered metallic material with record thermal conductivity upends assumptions about heat transport limits

A UCLA-led, multi-institution research team has discovered a metallic material with the highest thermal conductivity measured among metals, challenging long-standing assumptions about the limits of heat transport in metallic materials.

Published in Science, the study was led by Yongjie Hu, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. The team reported that metallic theta-phase tantalum nitride conducts heat nearly three times more efficiently than copper or silver, the best conventional heat-conducting metals.

Cleaner ship fuel linked to reduced lightning in key shipping lanes

Cuts in sulfur emissions from oceangoing vessels have been tied to a reduction in lightning stroke density along heavily trafficked shipping routes in the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea, according to new research from the University of Kansas.

The work is published in the journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science.

Previous studies had found frequent lightning along shipping routes over the Bay of Bengal before a 2020 International Maritime Organization rule capped sulfur in fuel used by oceangoing ships, leading to a roughly 70% drop in sulfate emissions in the Bay of Bengal.

A century’s worth of data could help predict future solar cycle activity

Research conducted by an international team of astronomers from Southwest Research Institute, Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences in India and the Max Planck Institute in Germany could help predict upcoming solar cycle activity.

To enable these predictions, the team has devised a new way to look at historical data from the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory (KoSO), a field station of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) Bangalore, to reconstruct the sun’s polar magnetic behavior over more than 100 years.

“We needed to find the polar magnetic information hidden in the historical data,” said SwRI scientist Dr. Bibhuti Kumar Jha, second author of a paper about these findings. “To start, we cleaned up and calibrated early data to today’s standards and then correlated patterns with modern observations. I addressed anomalies like time zone slips and rotation errors to enable this kind of study.”

ChatGPT found to reflect and intensify existing global social disparities

New research from the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, and the University of Kentucky, finds that ChatGPT systematically favors wealthier, Western regions in response to questions ranging from “Where are people more beautiful?” to “Which country is safer?”—mirroring long-standing biases in the data they ingest.

The study, “The Silicon Gaze: A typology of biases and inequality in LLMs through the lens of place,” by Francisco W. Kerche, Professor Matthew Zook and Professor Mark Graham, published in Platforms and Society, analyzed over 20 million ChatGPT queries.

Physicists bridge worlds of quantum matter

A new unified theory connects two fundamental domains of modern quantum physics: It joins two opposite views of how a single exotic particle behaves in a many-body system, namely as a mobile or static impurity among a large number of fermions, a so-called Fermi sea.

This new theoretical framework was developed at the Institute for Theoretical Physics of Heidelberg University. It describes the emergence of what is known as quasiparticles and furnishes a connection between two different quantum states that, according to the Heidelberg researchers, will have far-reaching implications for current quantum matter experiments.

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