A team of researchers led by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Chemistry has uncovered a faster way large carbon-based molecules may form in space, helping solve a long-standing mystery about how some of the building blocks of the universe grow.

The study, published in Nature Communications in August 2026 and first-authored by chemistry graduate student Shane Goettl, identifies a new chemical process that could explain the rapid formation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)—large molecules made of carbon and hydrogen that are found throughout the universe, from dying stars to clouds of gas between stars.

Scientists have known these molecules are abundant ...

Persistent pain often has no clear cause. However, studies show measurable differences in the structure and activity of the brains of those affected. This might explain why they experience chronic pain...

In dark skies at night, distant starlight twinkles and speaks to vast cosmic histories almost as old as time itself. New data from instruments such as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope are helping astrophysicists probe deep cosmic mysteries, including the evolution of black holes and galaxies.

Using supercomputers to help make sense of the data, researchers from multiple institutions worked together to complete the largest cosmological hydrodynamic simulation, called ASTRID—a mind-boggling computational run that traces the evolution of the universe from its earliest times to the present.

“The most important information about our recent study is that we’ve evolved the ASTRID simulation to z = 0, and that these data are available,” said Yihao Zhou, a Ph.D...

Before you prompt AI to answer another question or perform another task, a Wake Forest computer scientist wants you to know it could expose your sensitive data.

Ying Zhang, an assistant professor in Wake Forest University’s Department of Computer Science, studies security in software engineering. Her latest research, “How Your Credentials Are Leaked by LLM Agent Skills,” explores how large language model (LLM) agents make data vulnerable to attacks.

LLM agents are autonomous AI systems that analyze circum...