The cosmos has served up a gift for a group of scientists who have been searching for one of the most elusive phenomena in the night sky. Their study, presented in Science Advances, reports on the very first observations of a swirling vortex in spacetime caused by a rapidly rotating black hole.

The process, known as Lense-Thirring precession or frame-dragging, describes how black holes twist the spacetime that surrounds them, dragging nearby objects like stars and wobbling their orbits along the way.

Discovery of ...

Has a crucial component to the development of human medicine been hiding under our feet? Auburn University Assistant Professor of Entomology Clint Penick and a team of graduate students may have found that ants are far ahead of humans in antibiotic innovation. “In our study, we tested how ants use antibiotic compounds to fight off pathogens and asked why their chemical defenses remain effective over evolutionary time,” Penick said.

“Humans have relied on antibiotics for less than a century, yet many pathogens have already evolved resistance, giving rise to ‘superbugs...

A cross-institutional team led by researchers from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE), under the Faculty of Engineering at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), have achieved a major breakthrough in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) hardware by developing a new type of analog-to-digital converter (ADC) that uses innovative memristor technology. The work is published in Nature Communications.

Challenges with conventional AI hardware
Conventional AI accelerators face challenges because the essential components that convert analog signals into digital form are often bulky and power-consuming...

A hidden companion star may finally explain why deadly-hot dust survives where planets shouldn’t. A mysterious cloud of ultra-hot dust around Kappa Tucanae A may finally have an explanation: a hidden companion star. The star’s extreme orbit carries it straight through the dust zone, strongly suggesting it plays a key role in keeping the dust alive. This finding could help astronomers untangle one of the biggest challenges in imaging Earth-like exoplanets. It also opens the door to discovering similar hidden companions around other stars.

About 70 light-years from Earth, a star known as Kappa Tucanae A has long puzzled astronomers. It is surrounded by dust heated to more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, glowing intensely while orbiting extremely close to the star...