The black hole at the centre of our galaxy, Sagittarius A*, has been visualised in virtual reality for the first time. The details are described in an article published in the open access journal Computational Astrophysics and Cosmology. Scientists at Radboud University, The Netherlands and Goethe University, Germany used recent astrophysical models of Sagittarius A* …
The basic human need to get along with others results in the formation of extreme political groupings, according to a study from Dartmouth College. The findings, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, add to the widening body of research on the behavior of social and political networks. The Dartmouth research demonstrates that individuals …
Sign languages can help reveal hidden aspects of the logical structure of spoken language, but they also highlight its limitations because speech lacks the rich iconic resources that sign language uses on top of its sophisticated grammar. The study, published in Theoretical Linguistics with nine peer-commentaries, is the culmination of more than eight years of …
Industry uses platinum alloys as catalysts for oxygen reduction, essential in fuel cells and metal-air batteries, among other applications. Expensive and rare, that metal imposes tight restrictions on manufacture. Researchers at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) and Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung have discovered a five-element alloy that is noble metal-free and as active as platinum. Their findings are …
The Big Bang has captured our imagination like no other theory in science: the magnificent, explosive birth of our Universe. But do you know what came next? Around 100 million years of darkness. When the cosmos eventually lit up its very first stars, they were bigger and brighter than any that have followed. They shone …
Catalytic research led by University of Oklahoma researcher Steven Crossley has developed a new and more definitive way to determine the active site in a complex catalyst. His team’s research was recently published in Nature Communications. Catalysts consisting of metal particles supported on reducible oxides show promising performance for a variety of current and emerging …
A bacterium named Moorella thermoacetica won’t work for free. But UC Berkeley researchers have figured out it has an appetite for gold. And in exchange for this special treat, the bacterium has revealed a more efficient path to producing solar fuels through artificial photosynthesis. M. thermoacetica first made its debut as the first non-photosensitive bacterium …
The San Joaquin Valley in central California, like many other regions in the western United States, faces drought and ongoing groundwater extraction, happening faster than it can be replenished. And the land is sinking as a result—by up to a half-meter annually according to a new Cornell University study in Science Advances. Despite much higher-than-normal …
Scientists have discovered that beluga whales and narwhals go through the menopause—taking the total number of species known to experience this to five. Aside from humans, the species now known to experience menopause are all toothed whales—belugas, narwhals, killer whales and short-finned pilot whales. Almost all animals continue reproducing throughout their lives, and scientists have …
Dear readers, as you certainly have noticed, our website was offline for a few days – in today’s fast-moving world of science news, this must have felt to you like an eternity (it sure did to us!). Without getting into boring details, the reasons were an unfortunate combination of technical issues and bad service with …
