For the first time, researchers have documented the long-predicted occurrence of ‘walls bound by strings’ in superfluid helium-3. The existence of such an object, originally foreseen by cosmology theorists, may help explaining how the universe cooled down after the Big Bang. With the newfound ability to recreate these structures in the lab, earth-based scientists finally have a way to study some of the possible scenarios that might have taken place in the early universe more closely. The findings, to be published 16th January in Nature Communications, came after two successive symmetry-breaking phase transitions at Aalto University’s Low Temperature Laboratory.

Helium stays a liquid at atmospheric pressure even wh...

Findings set stage for first clinical trial of stem cell-based therapeutic approach for AMD. Using a novel patient-specific stem cell-based therapy, researchers at the National Eye Institute (NEI) prevented blindness in animal models of geographic atrophy, the advanced “dry” form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is a leading cause of vision loss among people age 65 and older. The protocols established by the animal study, published Jan...

Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have discovered a simple new tweak that could double the efficiency of organic electronics. OLED-displays, plastic-based solar cells and bioelectronics are just some of the technologies that could benefit from their new discovery, which deals with “double-doped” polymers.

The majority of our everyday ele...

An international team of scientists, including astronomers from the Universities of Leicester, Bath and Warwick, have found evidence for the existence of a ‘hot cocoon’ of material enveloping a relativistic jet escaping a dying star. This research is been published online today (Wednesday 16 January) and in print in Nature tomorrow (Thursday 17 January).

A relativistic jet is a very powerful phenomena which involves plasma jets shooting out of black holes at close to the speed of light, and can extend across millions of light years. Observations of supernova SN2017iuk taken shortly after its onset showed it expanding rapidly, at one third of the speed of light...