Research led by Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University in China has performed a metadata investigation into the presence of microplastics in humans. They report a concerning relationship between micro and nanoplastic (MNP) concentrations in damaged tissues and links with multiple health conditions.

Plastic usage soared from 1.5 million metric tons in the 1950s to nearly 390.7 million in 2021. With the increased use in consumer products came elevated microscopic plastic pollution circulating in soil and waterways, eventually accumulating in the environment, food webs and human tissues.

Consistent methods to pinpoint and quantify MNPs in human tissues are lacking...

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), with collaborators at University College London, have developed machine learning-based methods to predict material properties even with limited data. This can aid in the discovery of materials with desired properties, such as semiconductors.

In recent years, materials engineers have turned to machine learning models to predict which types of materials can possess specific properties such as electronic band gaps, formation energies, and mechanical properties, in order to design new materials. However, data on material properties—which is needed to train these models—is limited because testing materials is expensive and time consuming.

This prompted researchers led by Sai Gautam Gopalakrishnan, Assistant Professor at the D...

Using the Very Large Array (VLA), an international team of astronomers have observed a nearby galaxy merger known as CIZA J0107.7+5408. Results of the observational campaign, presented December 20 on the preprint server arXiv, could help us better understand the merging processes that take place between galaxy clusters.

Galaxy clusters contain up to thousands of galaxies bound together by gravity. They generally form as a result of mergers and grow by accreting subclusters...

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team of astronomers has detected a new grand-design spiral galaxy as part of the PANORAMIC survey. The newfound galaxy, named Zhúlóng, is extremely massive and appears to be the most distant spiral galaxy identified so far. The finding was detailed in a paper published December 17 on the pre-print server arXiv.

Grand-design spiral galaxies are characterized by their prominent, well-defined arms, which circle outwards from a clear core. It is assumed that the arms in such galaxies are actually overdense regions of the disk which trigger star formation as incoming material is compressed in that region.

It is still not well understood when ...