Hubble Captures Largest Near-Infrared Image to find Universe’s Rarest Galaxies

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Galaxies from the last 10 billion years witnessed in the 3D-DASH program, created using 3D-DASH/F160W and ACS-COSMOS/F814W imaging (image by Lamiya Mowla)

An international team of scientists today released the largest near-infrared image ever taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, enabling astronomers to map the star-forming regions of the universe and learn how the earliest, most distant galaxies originated. Named 3D-DASH, this high-resolution survey will allow researchers to find rare objects and targets for follow-up observations with the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) during its decades-long mission.

A preprint of the paper to be published in The Astrophysical Journal is available on arXiv.

“Since its launch more than 30 years ago, the Hubble Space Teles...

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Body Versus Brain: New evidence for an Autoimmune cause of Schizophrenia

Cell-based assay to detect the anti-NCAM1 autoantibody
NCAM1 is induced only in green cells (HeLa cells). Serum from patients with anti-NCAM1 autoantibody react only to green cells (framed in red).

Researchers have found that some people with schizophrenia have autoantibodies — which are made by the immune system and recognize the body’s own proteins, rather than outside threats such as viruses or bacteria — against NCAM1, a protein that’s importa.nt for communication between brain cells. The patients’ autoantibodies also caused schizophrenia-related behaviors in mice. These findings may improve the diagnosis and treatment of a subset of patients with schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a disorder that affects how people act, think, and perceive reality...

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Power up: New Polymer Property could Boost Accessible Solar Power

Organic solar cells like the one pictured are emerging as a viable solution to meet the nation’s growing energy demand. Credit: Azzaya Khasbaatar, a graduate student in the Diao Group.

Lightweight as a window cling and replicable as a newspaper, organic solar cells are emerging as a viable solution for the nation’s growing energy demand.

Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are the first to observe a biological property called chirality emerging in achiral conjugated polymers, which are used to design flexible solar cells. Their discovery could help enhance the cells’ charge capacity and increase access to affordable renewable energy.

DNA’s coiled architecture is recognizable to many as a helix...

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Researchers create ‘Time Machine’ Simulations studying the Lifecycle of Ancestor Galaxy ‘Cities’

Screenshots from the simulation show (top) the distribution of matter corresponding to the observed galaxy distribution at a light travel time of 11 billion years (when the Universe was only 2.76 billion years old or 20% its current age), and (bottom) the distribution of matter in the same region after 11 billion lights years or corresponding to our present time. (Credit: Ata et al.)

For the first time, researchers have created simulations that directly recreate the full life cycle of some of the largest collections of galaxies observed in the distant universe 11 billion years ago, reports a new study in Nature Astronomy.

Cosmological simulations are crucial to studying how the universe became the shape it is today, but many do not typically match what astronomers observe through te...

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