The Fermi bubbles may have started life as jets of high-energy charged particles MINNEAPOLIS — Bubbles of radiation billowing from the galactic center may have started as a stream of electrons and their antimatter counterparts, positrons, new observations suggest. An excess of positrons zipping past Earth suggests that the bubblesContinue Reading
Astronomers used gravitational lensing and supercomputers to identify the colossal black hole, which is among the largest ever found. Astronomers have discovered one of the largest black holes ever found — an ultramassive monster roughly 30 billion times the mass of the sun — using a space-time trick predicted byContinue Reading
There are big, open scientific questions about levels of exposure and toxicity Tiny particles of plastic have been found everywhere — from the deepest place on the planet, the Mariana Trench, to the top of Mount Everest. And now more and more studies are finding that microplastics, defined as plasticContinue Reading
Watch live online as the dwarf planet Ceres swoops in front of the ‘grand design’ spiral galaxy Messier 100 this weekend. This weekend, you can watch live as the first asteroid ever discovered passes across one of the night sky’s most beautiful spiral galaxies. The Rome-based Virtual Telescope Project(opens inContinue Reading
The finding hints at a possible treatment for alcohol poisoning The only cure to being drunk is to wait it out. But that might not always be the case: Injecting drunk mice with a naturally occurring hormone helped them sober up more quickly than they otherwise would have, a newContinue Reading
A small number of Candida auris infections are also resistant to antifungal drugs A fungus that recently evolved to infect humans is spreading rapidly in health care facilities in the United States and becoming harder to treat, a study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds. CandidaContinue Reading
Seismic waves suggest that the planet has a hidden heart Earth’s heart may have a secret chamber. The planet’s inner core isn’t just a solid ball of nickel and iron, researchers say, but contains two layers of its own: a distinct central region nestled within an outer shell. Scientists sayContinue Reading
The electric charge generated by a flying insect is strong enough to pull in a leaping nematode LAS VEGAS: Some species of parasitic roundworms can catapult themselves high into the air to latch onto fruit flies and other insects. Experiments now reveal that leaping Steinernema carpocapsae nematodes take advantage ofContinue Reading
Scientists detected a cloud of gas sculpted into a wonky tadpole shape near the Milky Way’s center, possibly pointing to a rare intermediate-mass black hole. An enormous, deformed dust cloud that astronomers nicknamed “the Tadpole” could point to the location of an extremely rare type of black hole never confirmedContinue Reading
In How Far the Light Reaches, Sabrina Imbler shows us that the ocean, in all its mystery and dazzling glory, is queer — that is, the life that takes shape there challenges how we landlubbers perceive ways of being. This collection of essays tells the stories of 10 sea creatures,Continue Reading