Supermassive black holes sit in ‘eye of their own storms,’ studies find

Illustration of gigantic black hole surrounded by a disc of gas and a jet of particles coming from both ends.
An artist’s rendition of the immediate vicinity around the supermassive black hole known as M87*. However, the roiling, superhot gases around these black holes extend much further than seen in this visualization. Two new studies give us new insight into the regions around these black holes and how they influence their surrounding galaxies.Illustration by S. Dagnello (NRAO/AUI/NSF)

Gigantic black holes lurk at the center of virtually every galaxy, including ours, but we’ve lacked a precise picture of what impact they have on their surroundings...

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Night owl or early bird? Study finds sleep categories aren’t that simple

Woman sleeping in bed
Image by Getty Images.

The familiar labels “night owl” and “early bird,” long used in sleep research, don’t fully capture the diversity of human internal clocks, a new study has found. The McGill University-led study published in Nature Communications found the two sleep-wake patterns, called chronotypes, contain a total of five distinct biological subtypes, each associated with different patterns of behavior and health.

A chronotype is based on the parts of a 24-hour period when a person naturally feels most alert or ready to sleep. Previous research has linked late chronotypes to worse health outcomes, but results have often been inconsistent. The new findings help explain why, the authors said.

“Rather than asking whether night owls are more at risk, the better question may be...

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New AI system fixes 3D printing defects in real time

AI saves 3D prints in real time
LLMs in continuous improvement cycle. LLM-based supervisor agents can be employed at each step of the continuous improvement cycle. The cycle involves evaluating print quality, identifying failure modes, gathering relevant information, and planning and solving the issues by adjusting the print parameters, ensuring high-quality defect-free parts. Credit: Additive Manufacturing (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.addma.2025.105027

Additive manufacturing has revolutionized manufacturing by enabling customized, cost-effective products with minimal waste. However, with the majority of 3D printers operating on open-loop systems, they are notoriously prone to failure...

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A student made cosmic dust in her lab—what she found could help us understand how life started on Earth

This student made cosmic dust in her lab—what she found could help us understand how life started on Earth
Cosmic dust swirling around the Helix nebula, ejected from an ageing star similar to the sun. Credit: NASA

A Sydney Ph.D. student has recreated a tiny piece of the universe inside a bottle in her laboratory, producing cosmic dust from scratch. The results shed new light on how the chemical building blocks of life may have formed long before Earth existed. Linda Losurdo, a Ph.D. candidate in materials and plasma physics in the School of Physics, used a simple mix of gases—nitrogen, carbon dioxide and acetylene—to mimic the harsh and dynamic environments around stars and supernova remnants.

By subjecting these gases to intense electrical energy, she generated carbon-rich “cosmic dust” similar to the material found drifting between stars and embedded in comets, asteroids and meteor...

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