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A new study published in Nature Astronomy describes the most luminous object ever observed by astronomers. It is a black hole with a mass of 17 billion Suns, swallowing a greater amount of mass than the sun every single day.

It has been known about for several decades, but since it is so bright, astronomers assumed it must be a nearby star. Only recent observations revealed its extreme distance and luminosity.

The object has been dubbed J0529-4351. This name simply refers to its coordinates on the celestial sphere—a way of projecting the objects in the sky onto the inside of a sphere. It is a type of object called a quasar.

The physical nature of quasars was initiall...

Glucagon, a hormone best known for promoting blood sugar production in the liver, also appears to play a key role in maintaining kidney health. When UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers removed receptors for this hormone from mouse kidneys, the animals developed symptoms akin to chronic kidney disease (CKD).

Their findings, published in Cell Metabolism, shed new light on glucagon’s physiological functions and provide new insights into CKD, a disease that affects hundreds of millions of people around the globe, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

“Our study defines important protective effects of glucagon for kidney health and normal systemic metabolic well-being of the entire organism,” said study leader Philipp Scherer, Ph.D...

The rapid advancement of deep learning algorithms and generative models has enabled the automated production of increasingly striking AI-generated artistic content. Most of this AI-generated art, however, is created by algorithms and computational models, rather than by physical robots.

Researchers at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) recently developed a deep learning-based model that allows a humanoid robot to sketch pictures, similarly to how a human artist would. Their paper, published in Cognitive Systems Research, offers a remarkable demonstration of how robots could actively engage in creative processes.

“Our idea was to propose a ...

Dark matter comprises around 85% of all the matter in the universe. Although ordinary matter absorbs, reflects and emits light, dark matter cannot be seen directly, which makes its detection difficult. Its existence is inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter, the material that forms stars, planets, and other objects in the cosmos.

Galaxies are made up of these two types of material The dark matter is distributed in halos, which are huge structures surrounding galaxies, while the ordinary matter is mainly present in the central regions where most of the stars are found.

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