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Credit: UCL/Western Eye Hospital A patient’s retina showing hyperfluorescent signals – each white spot is a single ‘sick’ retinal nerve cell.

A simple, inexpensive diagnostic tool DARC (Detection of Apoptosing Retinal Cells) has been developed. In clinical trials it allowed for the first time visualization of individual nerve cell death in patients with glaucoma. Early detection means doctors can start treatments before sight loss begins. Ongoing trials are investigating the potential of the test for other neurodegenerative conditions.

Glaucoma affects 60 million people in the world, with 1 in 10 suffering total sight loss in both eyes. Early detection means doctors can start treatments before sight loss begins...

JILA physicists used a strontium lattice atomic clock to simulate magnetic properties long sought in solid materials. The atoms are confined in an optical lattice, shown as an array of disk-shaped traps set at shallow depths. A laser (yellow wave) probes the atoms to couple the atoms’ spins and motions. The two atomic spin states are illustrated in red and blue. Credit: Steven Burrows and Ye Group/JILA

JILA physicists have caused atoms in a gas to behave as if they possess unusual magnetic properties long sought in harder-to-study solid materials. Representing a novel “off-label” use for atomic clocks, the research could lead to the creation of new materials for applications such as “spintronic” devices and quantum computers...

An artist’s impression shows a very distant quasar powered by a black hole with a mass two billion times that of the Sun. CREDIT: ESO/M. KORNMESSER

Astronomers have linked extremely reddened quasars to strong galactic outflowing winds that inhibit star formation in the early universe. Galaxies formed and grew billions of years ago by accumulating gas from their surroundings, or colliding and merging with other young galaxies. These early stages of galaxy assembly are believed to be accompanied by episodes of rapid star formation, known as starbursts, and rapid growth of a single super-massive black hole in the galactic centers.

A popular paradigm for this evolution has the black holes growing mostly in obscurity, buried deep within the dusty gas...

The GRAPES-3 muon telescope, the largest and most sensitive cosmic ray monitor recorded a burst of galactic cosmic rays that indicated a crack in the Earth’s magnetic shield. Credit: TIFR

The GRAPES-3 muon telescope located at TIFR’s Cosmic Ray Laboratory in Ooty recorded a burst of galactic cosmic rays of about 20 GeV, on 22 June 2015 lasting for 2 hours. The burst occurred when a giant cloud of plasma ejected from the solar corona, and moving with a speed of about 2.5 million km/h struck our planet, causing a severe compression of Earth’s magnetosphere from 11 to 4 times the radius of Earth. It triggered a severe geomagnetic storm that generated aurora borealis, and radio signal blackouts in many high latitude countries.

Earth’s magnetosphere extends over a radius of a million kilometers...