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Astronomers catch hot birth of galaxy cluster more than 11 billion light-years away

Astronomers have detected an enormous cloud of gas tens of millions of degrees hot surrounding one of the most extreme structures known in the early universe. The study offers one of the clearest views yet of a galaxy cluster in the making. Using more than 600,000 seconds of observations with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the team found diffuse, extended X-ray emission around a quasar embedded in a dense concentration of galaxies more than 11 billion light-years away. The paper describing the results was published in Astronomy & Astrophysics on July 24.

Thousands of galaxies gravitationally bound together in a crowded region are collectively called a galaxy cluster. They can form through gravitational collapse and mergers with smaller structures. When gas is accreted into a reservoir of hot gas—the intracluster medium (ICM)—that fills the gaps between galaxies in a cluster, the infalling gas undergoes shock heating, reaching temperatures of tens to hundreds of millions of Kelvin. The hot gas is primarily detected through X-ray emission.

Astronomers understand this hot gas well in mature, nearby clusters. But they want to know when and how this hot gas envelope first started forming, when the universe was young.

Laser de-icing system helps nuclear power plants improve maintenance of a critical safety system

University of South Florida engineers have developed an innovative laser-based technology that is helping nuclear power plants solve a complex maintenance challenge affecting a critical reactor safety system. After four years of research, design, and testing, the custom system has been successfully tested at two Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear plants.

The technology, created by Ahmad Vaselbehagh, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and postdoctoral research associate Ty Hagan, addresses a longstanding maintenance issue involving specialized ice condensers used in certain nuclear power plants in the United States, Japan, and Finland. During routine inspections, plant operators must individually lift and weigh thousands of baskets filled with borated ice that help cool and depressurize the containment building in the unlikely event of severe accidents.

Over time, the process used to replenish the ice can cause neighboring baskets to freeze together, preventing workers from lifting and inspecting them individually. TVA challenged researchers to develop a safer, more efficient way to separate the baskets without damaging equipment or requiring labor-intensive manual work.

Search in strange quark sector reveals new particle possibilities

Despite science’s best efforts to classify the vast menagerie of subatomic particles discovered over the past few decades, some exotic varieties defy explanation. Now, nuclear physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility have found evidence of two unexpected structures that could help better sort the zoo of exotic particles.

These structures may provide new insights into a perplexing family of objects known as XYZ states don’t fit cleanly into the prevailing model of particles made of quarks, the elementary building blocks of nature, and, for the first time, researchers at Jefferson Lab observed two such signals produced by a beam of high-energy photons interacting with a proton target.

The results, reported by the Gluonic Excitations (GlueX) Collaboration in Experimental Hall D at Jefferson Lab, were recently published in the journal Physical Review Letters and could go a long way in unraveling how one of the universe’s fundamental forces plays a role in the formation of matter.

Neutron capture experiment sheds light on ancient stardust

Niobium-94, an isotope of niobium with 41 protons and 53 neutrons, is a critical crossroads in the complex nuclear processes that forge heavy elements under the intense pressures and temperatures of dying stars. In an article published in Physical Review Letters, the n_TOF Collaboration reports the first-ever measurement of the probability of niobium-94 taking one of the paths at this crossroads—that is, undergoing neutron capture.

This new result provides insight into a persistent puzzle over the composition of ancient stardust. This type of stardust, known as presolar grains, survived the formation of the sun and did not get incorporated into our solar system. Some of these grains can now be found on Earth, having been brought down by primitive meteorites. Through analyzing these presolar grains, researchers can get a snapshot of the nuclear makeup of our galaxy as the heavy elements were being formed. The puzzle for researchers is that the presolar grains contain more molybdenum-94 than can be explained by theoretical models.

To investigate this problem, researchers looked at niobium-94, which is very similar to molybdenum-94 but with one less proton and one extra neutron. Within a dying star, where the extreme environment allows heavy elements to form, niobium-94 is at a crossroads. It may undergo beta decay to become molybdenum-94 or neutron capture to become niobium-95. Understanding how these two processes compete in this environment is crucial for gaining insight into why there are such mysteriously large amounts of molybdenum-94 in presolar grains.

Quantum simulators gain quantitative error bars in 51-ion test

In the coming years, increasingly larger and more powerful quantum systems are expected to tackle problems that are difficult or impossible to solve using conventional computers. However, the more powerful quantum simulations become, the more difficult it is to independently verify their results. Where classical simulation is still feasible, results can be cross-checked directly; beyond that regime, other methods are needed.

Researchers led by Tristan Kraft of the Technical University of Munich and Peter Zoller of the University of Innsbruck and the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, together with Barbara Kraus of the Technical University of Munich, have now demonstrated how a quantum simulator can be experimentally characterized and how the uncertainties that arise in the process can be translated into quantitative error limits for its results.

The approach was demonstrated by a team led by Manoj Joshi and Christian Roos using an ion-trap quantum simulator containing up to 51 ions.

Soft vibrations reveal warning signs before granular crystals yield

Sand, powders, and other collections of visible-sized grains are found throughout daily life, from food and pharmaceuticals to soils and industrial materials. When grains of similar size are arranged regularly, they can form a strong crystal-like solid. Yet what happens inside such an ordered structure immediately before it begins to break has remained unclear.

Researchers at the University of Osaka, Shimane University, and Kyoto Sangyo University have now theoretically identified an unusual pattern of vibrations that emerges just before a crystal made of regularly arranged grains yields. Many vibrational modes soften simultaneously along particular directions, while long-wavelength waves travel more slowly than shorter ones. The findings, published in Physical Review E, reveal a possible physical precursor to failure in highly ordered particulate materials.

Scientists Discover a Surprising Link Between Human Genes and Language

Human migration and isolation appear to shape genetic and language diversity in opposite ways.

The finding may seem counterintuitive at first. Regions shaped by migration and population mixing often have higher genetic diversity, so it might seem logical that their languages would be more varied too. Instead, the study finds the reverse pattern.

“We were struck by how robust this inverse relationship is across the globe,” says Anna Graff, lead author of the study and linguist at the University of Zurich. “Places where people have mixed more tend to be genetically diverse, but their languages are structurally more similar. In contrast, places with long-term isolation show less genetic diversity, yet much greater diversity in how languages are structured. Crucially, this relationship holds after adjusting for a wide range of confounding factors, including deep population history such as the timing of continental settlement.”

Neuroscientist Challenges the Idea That Your Brain “Makes” Decisions

A professor proposes that behavior emerges through continuous interactions among sensory, sensorimotor, and motor processes rather than a dedicated decision-making mechanism.

There may be a gap between how people believe decisions are made and what actually happens inside the brain, according to Indiana University professor Tom James.

For decades, both scientific theories and everyday thinking have treated decision-making as a separate step between perception and action. Under this traditional view, information moves through a linear sequence from sensing to thinking to acting, with each stage linked to a distinct brain function.

Have We Found Alien Life? Here’s What Scientists Really Think

Claims about possible extraterrestrial life on K2-18b and Mars generated worldwide excitement, but a survey of hundreds of astrobiologists found that most experts remained cautious rather than convinced.

It may seem like we are on the verge of discovering alien life. In 2025, a press release stated that we have the “strongest hints yet” of extraterrestrial life on the exoplanet K2-18b. And when talking about a collected sample from a rock named “Cheyava Falls” on Mars, NASA Administrator Sean Duffy said this was the “closest we have ever come” to discovering life on the red planet.

Such moments capture the imagination. But they also raise an important question: what do the majority of scientists actually think?

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