NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications technology has successfully shown that data encoded in lasers can be reliably transmitted, received, and decoded after traveling millions of miles from Earth at distances comparable to Mars. Nearly two years after launching aboard the agency’s Psyche mission in 2023, the technology demonstration recently completed its 65th and final pass, sending a laser signal to Psyche and receiving the return signal from 218 million miles away.

“NASA is setting Ame...

Three-quarters of all people may host newly identified genetic material called Inocles, which could impact research on oral health, immunity, and even cancer risk. Researchers including those at the University of Tokyo have made a surprising discovery hiding in people’s mouths: Inocles, giant DNA elements that had previously escaped detection. These appear to play a central role in helping bacteria adapt to the constantly changing environment of the mouth...

Researchers at UBC have found a way to mimic the elusive Schwinger effect using superfluid helium, where vortex pairs appear out of thin films instead of electron-positron pairs in a vacuum. Their work not only offers a cosmic laboratory for otherwise unreachable phenomena, but also changes the way scientists understand vortices, superfluids, and even quantum tunneling.

In 1951, physicist Julian Schwinger theorized that by applying a uniform electrical field to a vacuum, electron-positron pairs would be spontaneously created out of nothing, through a phenomenon called quantum tunneling.

The problem with turning the matter-out-of-nowhere theory into Star Trek replicators or transporters? Enormously high electric fields would be re...

For around half a century, scientists have been puzzled by the odd spectral lines produced by solar flares. Now we may have some answers.
Anew study looking at solar flares may have solved a 50-year-old mystery about our host star, finding that solar flares may be far hotter than we realized.

Solar flares are a common event on the Sun’s surface. They can be seen regularly throughout the year, and particularly during the solar maximum phase of the Sun’s cycle.

“A solar flare is an intense burst of radiation coming from the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots. Flares are our solar system’s largest explosive events. They are seen as bright areas on the Sun and they can last from minutes to hours,” NASA explains...