Astronomers have for the first time used distant galaxies as ‘scintillating pins’ to locate and identify a piece of the Milky Way’s missing matter.

For decades, scientists have been puzzled as to why they couldn’t account for all the matter in the universe as predicted by theory. While most of the universe’s mass is thought to be mysterious dark matter and dark energy, 5 percent is ‘normal matter’ that makes up stars, planets, asteroids, peanut butter and butterflies. This is known as baryonic matter.

However, direct measurement has only accounted for abo...

In a new report on Science Advances, Mark Elowitz, and a team of scientists in physical sciences, optical physics, planetary science and radiation research in the U.S., U.K., India, and Taiwan, presented the first analysis of far-ultraviolet reflectance spectra of regions on Rhea’s leading and trailing hemispheres—as collected by the Cassini ultraviolet imaging spectrograph during targeted flybys. In this work, they specifically aimed to explain the unidentified broad absorption feature centered near 184 nanometers of the resulting spectra. Using laboratory measurements of the UV spectroscopy of a set of molecules, Elowitz et al...

The patch, which can be folded around surgical tools, may someday be used in robotic surgery to repair tissues and organs. Many surgeries today are performed via minimally invasive procedures, in which a small incision is made and miniature cameras and surgical tools are threaded through the body to remove tumors and repair damaged tissues and organs. The process results in less pain and shorter recovery times compared to open surgery.

While many procedures can be performed in this way, surgeons can face challenges at an important step in the process: the sealing of internal wounds an...

Digital to analog converter bridges the gap between internet and electronic hardware. Researchers at the George Washington University and University of California, Los Angeles, have developed and demonstrated for the first time a photonic digital to analog converter without leaving the optical domain. Such novel converters can advance next-generation data processing hardware with high relevance for datacenters, 6G networks, artificial intelligence and more.

Current optical networks, through which most of the world’s data is transmitted, as well as many sensors, require a digital-to-analog conversion, which links digital systems synergistically to analog components...