Exceptional points (EPs) are non-Hermitian singularities where two or more eigenstates coalesce, resulting in the eigenspace collapsing in dimensionality. Over the past decade, researchers have uncovered a wealth of exotic phenomena near EPs.
In laser physics, for example, EPs have been linked to pump-induced laser termination, loss-induced lasing, and the design of quasi-parity-time-symmetric laser systems that boost the output power of large-area lasers while preserving single-mode operation.
Scientists have discovered living microbes producing methane in the fractured rocks deep inside Sweden’s Siljan impact crater, offering insights into Earth’s earliest life and the search for life beyond our planet.
This breakthrough not only sheds light on one of Earth’s most ancient metabolic processes —methanogenesis—but also strengthens the link between meteorite impact structures and microbial survival in extreme environments. The findings are published in the journal mBio.
Methanogenesis is considered one of the earliest metabolisms on Earth, and its presence in deep subsurface environments has long intrigued scientists. Now, for the first time, active microbial methane production has been confirmed in a terrestrial impact crater. Using cultures enriched from fluids 400 meters below the surface, the team demonstrated methane generation from several carbon sources, including indigenous oil.
We are producing more textiles than ever before: worldwide, well over one hundred million tons of textiles are manufactured every year—more than twice as much as in the year 2000. This makes it increasingly important not to simply throw away old textiles, but to recover them in an environmentally friendly way.
That is often not easy—especially when it comes to blended fabrics, such as mixtures of cotton and polyester. At TU Wien, a new method has now been developed to separate and recycle such mixed textiles efficiently—in a remarkably simple way, using menthol and benzoic acid, two nontoxic substances.
The research is published in the journal Waste Management.
Scientists have developed a new platform for the generation and detection of ultrashort UV-C laser pulses on femtosecond timescales. This breakthrough could unlock new opportunities for transforming optical wireless communication systems, material processing applications and medical imaging.
Scientists from the University of Nottingham’s School of Physics and Astronomy and Imperial College London developed the new platform. The source produces pulses of femtosecond duration, less than 1 trillionth of a second. These pulses are detected at room temperature by sensors based on ultrathin (two-dimensional, 2D) materials. The paper is published in the journal Light: Science & Applications.
Professor Amalia Patané, from the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nottingham, led the development of the sensors. “This work combines for the first time the generation of femtosecond UV-C laser pulses with their fast detection by a new class of 2D semiconductors. These can operate over a wide range of pulse energies and repetition rates, as required for many applications,” says Patané
A strange, never-before-seen glow in the halo of our galaxy may be the strongest dark-matter breadcrumb yet.
A new analysis of 15 years’ worth of data from the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope reveals a glow of unusually high-energy gamma rays that cannot easily be attributed to any known source.
According to astronomer Tomonori Totani of the University of Tokyo in Japan, it may be the radiation produced when hypothetical dark matter particles collide and wipe out one another.
The human brain is not a hard-wired machine but a malleable organ that is regularly re-shaping itself.
Neuroscientists at the University of Cambridge in the UK and the University of Pittsburgh in the US have now identified four major turning points in brain wiring between birth and death.
Like chapters of our lives, each of these neurological ‘epochs’ marks a new era of development or decline.
A tiny sample of the Moon locked away for more than 50 years turns out to have been hiding an astronomical secret.
In specks of troilite dust collected by Apollo 17 in 1972, scientists have found material that may be as old – or even older – than the Moon itself, a 4.5-billion-year-old relic of the early Solar System.
“My first thought was, ‘Holy shmolies, that can’t be right,’” says planetary scientist James Dottin of Brown University in the US.