Neutron star merger results in magnetar with brightest kilonova ever observed. Researchers spotted a short gamma ray burst, GRB, 10 times brighter than predicted. The mysterious brightness might signal the birth of a rare magnetar, formed from two neutron stars merging, which has never before been observed.

Long ago and far across the universe, an enormous burst of gamma rays unleashed more energy in a half-second than the sun will produce over its entire 10-billion-year lifetime.

After examining the incredibly bright burst with optical, X-ray, near-infrared and radio wavelengths, a Northwestern University-led astrophysics team believes it potentially spotted the birth of a magnetar.

Researchers believe the magnetar was formed by two neutron stars merging, which has never bef...

Researchers have identified a genetic signature in localized prostate cancer that can predict whether the cancer is likely to metastasize, early in the course of the disease and whether it will respond to anti-androgen therapy, a common treatment for advanced disease. The new gene signature may also be useful for evaluating responses to treatment and for developing new therapies to prevent or treat advanced prostate cancer.

“If we could know in advance which patients will develop metastases, we could start treatments earlier and treat the cancer more aggressively,” says the study’s senior author, Cory Abate-Shen, PhD, chair of the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Therapeutic...

A platform for making 3D superconducting nano-architectures with a prescribed organization could find application in quantum computing and sensing.

3-D nanostructured materials — those with complex shapes at a size scale of billionths of a meter — that can conduct electricity without resistance could be used in a range of quantum devices...

Temperature has increased about 10X over the last 10 billion years. The study probed the thermal history of the universe over the last 10 billion years. It found that the mean temperature of gas across the universe has increased more than 10 times over that time period and reached about 2 million degrees Kelvin today — approximately 4 million degrees Fahrenheit.

“Our new measurement provides a direct confirmation of the seminal work by Jim Peebles — the 2019 Nobel Laureate in Physics — who laid out the theory of how the large-scale structure forms in the universe,” said Yi-Kuan Chiang, lead author of the study and a research fellow at The Ohio State University Center for Cosmology and AstroPart...