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Interest in gallium lagged in the past, partly because of the unfair association with toxic mercury, and partly because its tendency to form an oxide layer was seen as a negative. But with increased interest in flexible and, especially wearable electronics, many researchers are paying fresh attention.

To make bendable circuits with gallium, scientists form it into thin wires embedded between rubber or plastic sheets. These wires can connect tiny electronic devices such as computer chips, capacitors and antennas. The process creates a device that could wrap around an arm and be used to track an athlete’s motion, speed or vital signs, for instance, says Carmel Majidi, a mechanical engineer at Carnegie Mellon University.

Neutron stars and black holes may be stellar corpses, but they are among the most active celestial objects. They produce some of the highest-energy radiation ever observed, and scientists have long puzzled over the physics that underlies the process powering their energetic emissions.

Now, in a recent paper published in Physical Review Letters, a Dartmouth physics major and an assistant professor have proposed a new theory that explains how can be very quickly released with explosive energy into charged particles in these .

Similar magnetic explosions also occur closer to home, setting off and the Northern Lights. They can be observed wherever charged gases, called plasma, are found—even in a lab, says Matthew Goodbred ‘23, the paper’s lead author.

Using NASA’s Fermi spacecraft, Chinese astronomers have investigated the variability and spectral behavior of gamma-ray flares in a distant blazar known as 3C 279. Results of the study, presented in a paper published in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, could help researchers better understand the flaring activity of blazars.

Blazars are very compact quasars associated with at the centers of active, giant elliptical galaxies. Based on their optical emission properties, astronomers divide blazars into two classes: (FSRQs) that feature prominent and broad optical emission lines, and BL Lacertae objects (BL Lacs), which do not.

At a distance of about 5 billion , 3C 279 is an FSRQ with an estimated black hole mass of 300–800 million solar masses. It is a bright and powerful source in the high– sky and is known as the first blazar showing strong and rapid variability at GeV energies.

Prochlorococcus is the smallest and numerically most abundant cyanobacterium in the oceans. It has a large pangenome and hypervariable genomic islands linked to niche differentiation and phage defense. The smallest and most numerous cyanobacterium in the oceans is Prochlorococcus.

According to recent research by MIT, these microscopic bacteria communicate with one another by a previously unidentified mechanism, even when they are far apart. Because of this, they can pass along entire gene sets, such as those enabling them to assimilate a certain type of nutrition or protect themselves against viruses, even in areas where their population in the water is quite low.

According to the findings, a new class of genetic agents involved in horizontal gene transfer —in which genetic material is directly transferred across animals, whether they are of the same species or not—has been discovered by methods other than lineal descent. Tycheposons are DNA sequences that can spontaneously detach from surrounding DNA and can include multiple complete genes, according to scientists.