A Young Star Caught forming like a Planet


This is an artists impression of the disc of dust and gas surrounding the massive protostar MM 1a, with its companion MM 1b forming in the outer regions.
Credit: J. D. Ilee / University of Leeds

Astronomers have captured one of the most detailed views of a young star taken to date, and revealed an unexpected companion in orbit around it. While observing the young star, astronomers led by Dr John Ilee from the University of Leeds discovered it was not in fact one star, but two.

The main object, referred to as MM 1a, is a young massive star surrounded by a rotating disc of gas and dust that was the focus of the scientists’ original investigation. A faint object, MM 1b, was detected just beyond the disc in orbit around MM 1a...

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Biologists turn Eavesdropping Viruses into Bacterial Assassins


These E. coli bacteria harbor proteins from the eavesdropping virus. One of the viral proteins has been tagged with a red marker. When the virus is in the ‘stay’ mode (left), the bacteria grow and the red protein is spread throughout each cell. When the virus overhears that its hosts have achieved a quorum (right), the kill-stay decision protein is flipped to ‘kill’ mode. A second viral protein binds the red protein and sends it to the cell poles (yellow dots). All the cells in the right panel will soon die.
Credit: Images courtesy of Bonnie Bassler and Justin Silpe, Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University

How cross-kingdom communication led to a breakthrough phage therapy...

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Jiggly Jell-O to make Powerful new Hydrogen Fuel Catalyst

An illustration shows hydrogen gas bubbling off of a sheet of metal carbide

Two-dimensional metal carbides spark a reaction that splits water into oxygen and valuable hydrogen gas. Berkeley researchers have discovered an easy new recipe for cooking up these nanometer-thin sheets that is nearly as simple as making Jell-O from a box. (Xining Zang graphic, copyright Wiley)

The inexpensive new material can split water just as efficiently as costly platinum. A cheap and effective new catalyst developed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, can generate hydrogen fuel from water just as efficiently as platinum, currently the best – but also most expensive – water-splitting catalyst out there.

The catalyst, which is composed of nanometer-thin sheets of metal carbide, is manufactured using a self-assembly process that relies on a surprising ingredien...

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Tangled Magnetic fields power Cosmic Particle Accelerators

Cosmic particle accelerators

SLAC researchers have found a new mechanism that could explain how plasma jets emerging from the center of active galaxies, like the one shown in this illustration, accelerate particles to extreme energies. Computer simulations (circled area) showed that tangled magnetic field lines create strong electric fields in the direction of the jets, leading to dense electric currents of high-energy particles streaming away from the galaxy. (Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

New way to explain how a black hole’s plasma jets boost particles to the highest energies observed in the universe. Magnetic field lines tangled like spaghetti in a bowl might be behind the most powerful particle accelerators in the universe...

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