Euclid offers best-ever 3D map of the universe to date

Best-ever 3D map of the universe to date
As part of its DR1 Foundation data release, Euclid observed Abell 3128, a cluster of hundreds of galaxies located about 800 million light-years away from us. Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre and E. Bertin

The Euclid Consortium and the European Space Agency (ESA) have released the first major batch of data from the Euclid space telescope. This release, which captures light from more than a billion objects and covers an area of sky equivalent to 9,500 full moons, lays the foundation for Europe’s dark universe detective’s largest-ever 3D map of the cosmos. Several German research facilities play crucial roles in the Euclid mission’s success.

The new data release, named DR1 Foundation, comprises some 13 months of observations and marks the ...

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Immune proteins offer new clues to how prostate cancer could be prevented

Prostatic adenocarcinoma, Gleason Pattern 4

A new study led by researchers at Oxford Population Health shows that higher levels of proteins involved in activating and coordinating the immune system were associated with a lower risk of developing prostate cancer. The findings suggest that the body’s ability to recognize and respond to abnormal cells may play an important role in the early development of prostate cancer and could point to new approaches for preventing the disease.

The study, published in Nature Communications, is the largest and most comprehensive prospective and genetic analysis of circulating immune and inflammation-related proteins in relation to prostate cancer risk. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in U.K...

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A quantum breakthrough makes light behave like both a solid and a liquid

Bizarre Quantum Matter at Room Temperature
A supersolid is an extraordinary state of matter that combines superfluidity with the spontaneous formation of a periodic, crystal-like structure. Credit: Marcin Muszyński, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw

Scientists have observed a bizarre quantum state of matter that combines the structure of a crystal with the frictionless flow of a liquid, all at room temperature. The breakthrough overturns a major practical limitation of exotic quantum experiments and could help bring powerful new light-based computing and sensing technologies closer to reality.

Scientists have demonstrated an extraordinary form of quantum matter that combines two properties that seem incompatible...

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Comets may have destroyed life’s ingredients instead of delivering them to Earth

Comets May Not Have Seeded Life on Earth
Illustration of cometary impact. Credit: Scarlett White

A century-old theory about the origins of life on Earth may be wrong. New research from the University of Cambridge suggests that comets traveled too fast and struck at unfavorable angles for the fragile molecules needed for life to survive, making successful delivery extraordinarily unlikely. Surprisingly, Mars may have had a better chance of receiving these cosmic ingredients, although even there the odds were slim. The findings point toward asteroids or chemical processes on Earth as more plausible sources of life’s building blocks.

For nearly a century, scientists have considered the possibility that comets helped make life on Earth possible by delivering essential organic molecules from space...

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