Researchers working with data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have discovered the mission’s first circumbinary planet, a world orbiting two stars. The planet, called TOI 1338 b, is around 6.9 times larger than Earth, or between the sizes of Neptune and Saturn. It lies in a system 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Pictor. The stars in the system make an eclipsing binary, which occurs when the stellar companions circle each other in our plane of view. One is about 10% more massive than our Sun, while the other is cooler, dimmer and only one-third the Sun’s mass. TOI 1338 b’s transits are irregular, between every 93 and 95 days, and vary in depth and duration thanks to the orbital motion of its stars...

In many cases, black hole is in galaxy’s outskirts. Studies with the VLA indicate that roughly half of the massive black holes in dwarf galaxies are not in the centers of those galaxies. This gives astronomers new insights into the conditions in which similar black holes formed and grew in the early history of the universe.

Astronomers seeking to learn about the mechanisms that formed massive black holes in the early history of the Universe have gained important new clues with the discovery of 13 such black holes in dwarf galaxies less than a billion light-years from Earth.

These dwarf galaxies, more than 100 times less massive than our own Milky Way, are among the smallest galaxies known to host massive black holes...

Could bile acids—the fat-dissolving juices churned out by the liver and gallbladder—also play a role in immunity and inflammation? The answer appears to be yes, according to two separate Harvard Medical School studies published in Nature.

The findings of the two studies, both conducted in mice, show that bile acids promote the differentiation and activity of several types of T cells involved in regulating inflammation and linked to intestinal inflammatory conditions. They also reveal that gut microbes are critical for converting bile acids into immune-signaling molecules.

The work suggests possible therapeutic pathways for modulating ...

Google says it only records interactions with connected devices like the Google Home speaker when we use the “wake word,” of “Hey, Google,” or “OK, Google.” But when using many of the Google smartphone apps with a microphone for voice search, or even Google on the desktop with voice commands, it can actually record every word you say to it—whether you use the wake word or not.

The fine print is that you have to click on the microphone in the apps to communicate with Google. (For queries like “Hey, Google, find Italian restaurants near me.”) Once you do that, Google will start transcribing you, word for word, and storing your commands, in text and audio, as U.S. TODAY discovered in tests this week.

This is similar to Google’s monitoring of our keystro...