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    Optical device uses humidity to unlock hidden information and offers new option for data storage

    May 28, 2026, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    Optical device uses humidity to unlock hidden information, offers new option for data storage
    Illustration of the optical device with the bottom layer of antimony trisulfide and top layer of azido-grafted carboxymethyl cellulose. The UCSD Tritons logo appears at low humidity levels, while the UCSD library logo appears at high humidity levels. Credit: University of California – San Diego

    Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed an optical device that reveals hidden images and changes colors in response to different levels of humidity. The technology, published in Light: Science & Applications, could lead to the development of new anti-counterfeiting labels, secure data storage, interactive displays, and environmental sensors.

    The device works by displaying different images depending on moisture levels in the air...

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    NASA’s Fermi telescope reveals the power source behind monster supernovae

    May 28, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Composite showing optical and gamma-ray observations of SN 2017egm
    This composite image shows two views of SN 2017egm, in visible light (inset) and gamma rays (background). The optical image shows the supernova — the brightest object in the scene — and its host galaxy on July 1, 2017. The background map shows a wide area of the sky surrounding the supernova’s position. Brighter colors indicate greater statistical likelihood that gamma rays are associated with the explosion. The map includes gamma rays detected by Fermi’s Large Area Telescope from July 5, 2017, to Oct. 25, 2017, or from 43 to 155 days after the supernova was discovered.
    Background, NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration and Acero et. al. 2026; inset, NOT+ALFSOC/Bose et al. 2020

    NASA’s Fermi telescope has detected what may be the first confirmed gamma-ray signal from a superluminous su...

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    The nocebo effect: How prior experience and verbal suggestion rewire the brain to make pain worse

    May 28, 2026, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    The nocebo effect and the neuroscience behind it

    Researchers have a better understanding of the nocebo effect and the neuroscience behind it all. Opposite of the better-known placebo effect, where positive expectations trigger genuine pain relief, the nocebo effect is the experience from negative expectations, created by prior experience, verbal suggestion, or social observation, which can drive anxiety and make pain worse.

    A new study published in Nature Communications, by researchers at the University of Toronto Mississauga and McGill University, identified a brain pathway through which negative expectations can amplify pain. The findings, generated independently by the two labs without prior coordination, converged on the neurochemical cholecystokinin (CCK), which has previously been linked to nocebo pain responses in humans.

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    Triply-eclipsing triple star system discovered with TESS

    May 28, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), astronomers have discovered a triply-eclipsing star system. The newfound system, designated TIC295741342, consists of two sun-like stars in an eclipsing binary and a giant tertiary companion, which orbits the binary. The finding was reported in a paper published May 19 on the arXiv pre-print server.

    TESS is conducting a survey of about 200,000 bright stars near the sun with the aim of searching for transiting exoplanets. Besides identifying alien worlds, TESS is also a very useful tool in analyzing binary systems, tracking how mutual stellar eclipses twist and distort gravitational fields.

    Triply and triple
    Now, a team of astronomers led by Brian P...

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