An international team of space scientists has found that observation of a gas cloud stream heading into a massive galaxy may offer evidence of gas material recycling. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their observance and analysis of a gas cloud surrounding a dense galaxy cluster 11 billion light years away, and what they learned from their work.

Space scientists have, for many years, predicted that enriched gases surrounding galaxies could be pulled into such galaxies and wind up as material for making new stars...

A new Nature Immunologystudy led by University of Pittsburgh and National Institutes of Health researchers sheds light on how a rare type of helper T cell, called Th9, can drive allergic disease, suggesting new precision medicine approaches to treating allergies in patients with high levels of Th9.

“Th9 cells are kind of like the black sheep of helper T cells,” said senior author Daniella Schwartz, M.D., assistant professor of rheumatology at Pitt’s School of Medicine. “They need a perfect storm of occurrences to pop up, and they aren’t long-lived, which makes them hard to study. The other weird thing about Th9 cells is that they remain functional without seeing their antigen.”

T cells switch on when they encounter viruses, bacteria or other pathogens, causing them to ramp up pr...

Photovoltaics, the conversion of light to electricity, is a key technology for sustainable energy. Since the days of Max Planck and Albert Einstein, we know that light as well as electricity are quantized, meaning they come in tiny packets called photons and electrons. In a solar cell, the energy of a single photon is transferred to a single electron of the material, but no more than one. Only a few molecular materials like pentacene are an exception, where one photon is converted to two electrons instead.

“When pentacene is excited by light, the electrons in the material rapidly react,” explains Prof. Ralph Ernstorfer, a senior author of the study...

A “beautiful effect” predicted by quantum electrodynamics (QED) can explain the puzzling first observations of polarized Xrays emitted by a magnetar – a neutron star featuring a powerful magnetic field, according to a Cornell astrophysicist.

The extremely dense and hot remnant of a massive star, boasting a magnetic field 100 trillion times str...