Good fortune and cutting-edge scientific equipment have allowed scientists to observe a Gamma Ray Burst jet with a radio telescope and detect the polarisation of radio waves within it for the first time – moving us closer to an understanding of what causes the universe’s most powerful explosions.

Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) are the most energetic explosions in the universe, beaming out mighty jets which travel through space at over 99.9% the speed of light, as a star much more massive than our sun collapses at the end of its life to produce a black hole.

Studying the light from Gamma Ray Burst jets as we detect it travelling across space is our best hope of understanding how these powerful jets are formed, but...

It has been a mystery why REM sleep, or dream sleep, increases when the room temperature is ‘just right’. Neuroscientists show that melanin-concentrating hormone neurons within the hypothalamus increase REM sleep when the need for body temperature defense is minimized, such as when sleeping in a warm and comfortable room temperature. These data have important implications for the function of REM sleep.

Every night while sleeping, we cycle between two very different states of sleep...

Using holography, researchers have found when gravity is combined with quantum mechanics, symmetry is not possible. A new study by a pair of researchers in the US and Japan has found that, when gravity is combined with quantum mechanics, symmetry is not possible.

“Many physicists believe that there must a beautiful set of laws in Nature and that one way to quantify ...

Researchers developing methods to hunt for the darkest dwarf galaxies. The newly-discovered dark dwarf galaxy Antlia 2’s collision with the Milky Way may be responsible for our galaxy’s characteristic ripples in its outer disc, according to a study led by Rochester Institute of Technology Assistant Professor Sukanya Chakrabarti.

The Antlia 2 dwarf galaxy was discovered from the second data release of the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, which aims to chart a three-dimensional map of our galaxy. Antlia 2’s current location closely matches the location of a dark-matter dominated dwarf galaxy that Chakrabarti predicted in 2009 through a dynamical analysis...