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Plasma lens can focus attosecond pulses across different ranges of XUV light

A team of researchers from the Max Born Institute (MBI) in Berlin and DESY in Hamburg has demonstrated a plasma lens capable of focusing attosecond pulses. This breakthrough substantially increases the attosecond power available for experiments, opening up new opportunities for studying ultrafast electron dynamics. The results have now been published in Nature Photonics.

Attosecond pulses—bursts of light lasting only billionths of a billionth of a second—are essential tools for observing and controlling electronic motion in atoms, molecules, and solids. However, focusing these pulses, which lie in the extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) or X-ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum, has proven highly challenging due to the lack of suitable optics.

Mirrors are commonly used, but they offer low reflectivity and degrade quickly. Lenses, though the most straightforward tool for focusing , are not suitable for focusing attosecond pulses, because they absorb the XUV light and stretch the attosecond pulses in time.

Paradox of rotating turbulence finally tamed with ‘hurricane-in-a-lab’

From stirring milk in your coffee to fearsome typhoon gales, rotating turbulent flows are everywhere. Yet, these spinning currents are as scientifically complex as they are banal. Describing, modeling, and predicting turbulent flows have important implications across many fields, from weather forecasting to studying the formation of planets in the accretion disk of nascent stars.

Two formulations are at the heart of the study of turbulence: Kolmogorov’s universal framework for small-scale turbulence, which describes how energy propagates and dissipates through increasingly small eddies; and Taylor-Couette (TC) flows, which are very simple to create yet exhibit extremely complex behaviors, thereby setting the benchmark for the study of the fundamental characteristics of complex flows.

For the past many decades, a central contradiction between these potent formulations has plagued the field. Despite extensive experimental research and despite being found universal to almost all turbulent flows, Kolmogorov’s framework has apparently failed to apply to turbulent TC flows.

Scientists reveal it is feasible to send quantum signals from Earth to a satellite

Quantum satellites currently beam entangled particles of light from space down to different ground stations for ultra-secure communications. New research shows it is also possible to send these signals upward, from Earth to a satellite; something once thought unfeasible.

This breakthrough overcomes significant barriers to current quantum communications. Ground station transmitters can access more power, are easier to maintain and could generate far stronger signals, enabling future quantum computer networks using satellite relays.

The study, “Quantum entanglement distribution via uplink satellite channels”, by Professor Simon Devitt, Professor Alexander Solntsev and a research team from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), is published in the journal Physical Review Research.

Asymmetric stress engineering advances current-carrying performance of iron-based superconducting wires

A collaborative research team led by Prof. Ma Yanwei from the Institute of Electrical Engineering (IEE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), has shattered records in the current-carrying performance of iron-based superconducting wires.

Their breakthrough, enabled by a novel strategy to engineer high-density flux pinning centers via an asymmetric stress field, is published in Advanced Materials.

The Steady High Magnetic Field Facility (CHMFL), the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of CAS, played a pivotal role in this achievement, with its water-cooled magnet WM5 providing critical experimental support for validating the wires.

“We Made the World’s Best Material” — How a Diamond Substitute Could Revolutionize Quantum Computing

Strontium titanate’s remarkable ability to perform at extremely low temperatures makes it a key material for next-generation cryogenic devices used in quantum computing and space exploration. Superconductivity and quantum computing have moved beyond theoretical research to capture the public’s im

Most Powerful Black-Hole Flare Ever Recorded Shone Like 10 Trillion Suns

In a flare of light that traveled for 10 billion years to reach us, astronomers have identified the most powerful and most distant blaze of energy ever recorded from a black hole, an eruption whose peak shone with the power of 10 trillion Suns.

The cause of this colossal event, says a team led by astrophysicist Matthew Graham of Caltech, was likely a supermassive black hole 500 million times the mass of the Sun devouring an unlucky star that flew a little too close to the powerful gravity well at the center of a distant galaxy. These black hole feasts are known as tidal disruption events (TDEs).

“The energetics show this object is very far away and very bright,” Graham says. “This is unlike any AGN [active galactic nucleus] we’ve ever seen.”

Alien Probes Could Already Lurk in Our Solar System, Study Says

In 1949, famed mathematician and physicist John von Neumann delivered a series of addresses at the University of Illinois, where he introduced the concept of “universal constructor.”

The theory was further detailed in the 1966 book, Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata, a collection of von Neumann’s writings compiled and completed by a colleague after his death.

In the years that followed, scientists engaged in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) considered how advanced civilizations could rely on self-replicating probes to explore the galaxy.

Oldest Known Maya Monument Could Be a Map of The Universe

A monumental complex built by the Maya around 3,000 years ago was modeled on a map of the cosmos, new fieldwork has revealed.

A detailed survey of the Aguada Fénix site reveals that not only was the monument significantly larger than initial surveys suggested – laid out in the shape of a cross with axes measuring 9 and 7.5 kilometers (5.6 and 4.7 miles) – but it was also designed as a cosmogram, an architecture symbolizing the cosmos.

What’s even more remarkable about the structure is that the site contains none of the trappings of social inequality, such as elite residences or sculptures of rulers.

No Clear Cometary Tail in Post-Perihelion Images of 3I/ATLAS

On November 5, 2025, two new images of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS were released. They show a compact source of light without a clear cometary tail. The coma is not very different in morphology than its appearance in the Hubble Space Telescope on July 21, 2025 (accessible here).

This is surprising in view of NASA’s JPL report here of a non-gravitational acceleration — normalized at a heliocentric value of 1 au:

1. A radial acceleration away from the Sun of 1.1x10^{-6} au per day squared.

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