In a finding that may transform our understanding of how life’s chemical precursors are distributed across the universe, astronomers have detected organic molecules containing more than six atoms frozen in ice around a young star named ST6, located in a galaxy beyond the Milky Way.
Using the James Webb Space Telescopes (JWST) Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), the team identified five distinct carbon-based compounds in the Large Magellanic Cloud, our nearest neighboring galaxy. The research, led by University of Maryland and NASA scientist Marta Sewilo, was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters on October 20, 2025.
MIT engineers have developed a flexible drug-delivery patch that can be placed on the heart after a heart attack to help promote healing and regeneration of cardiac tissue.
The new patch is designed to carry several different drugs that can be released at different times, on a pre-programmed schedule. In a study of rats, the researchers showed that this treatment reduced the amount of damaged heart tissue by 50 percent and significantly improved cardiac function.
If approved for use in humans, this type of patch could help heart attack victims recover more of their cardiac function than is now possible, the researchers say.
Found in everything from protein bars to energy drinks, erythritol has long been considered a safe alternative to sugar.
But research suggests this widely used sweetener may be quietly undermining one of the body’s most crucial protective barriers – with potentially serious consequences for heart health and stroke risk.
A study from the University of Colorado suggests erythritol may damage cells in the blood-brain barrier, the brain’s security system that keeps out harmful substances while letting in nutrients.
D’Amico, A.M., Li, T.T., Wylie, D. et al. Aging alters genomic instability at endogenous mutation hotspots in mice. Sci Rep 15, 36,016 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-20084-9
“This is strong evidence that as stars evolve off their main sequence they can quickly cause planets to spiral into them and be destroyed,” said Dr. Edward Bryant.
What happens to planets as their stars age and come closer to death? This is what a recent study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated the interaction between stars near the end of their lifetimes and their exoplanets with short-period orbits. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the evolution of stars and what this could mean for our Sun near the end of its lifetime.
For the study, the researchers analyzed data obtained from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission for short-period exoplanets orbiting post-main-sequence stars, which are stars approximately the size of our Sun which have exhausted their hydrogen and have ballooned into red giants. Additionally, these short-period exoplanets have orbits that last mere days.
The goal of the study was to ascertain the influence of these red giants on their planetary populations, with the researchers settling on 130 exoplanets after careful data analysis. In the end, the researchers found that only 0.28 percent of older post-main sequence stars had giant exoplanets, with 0.35 percent of younger post-main-sequence stars having giant exoplanets. Finally, the researchers found only 0.11 percent of the oldest post-main-sequence stars had exoplanets.