Recent Comments

    The Ultimate Fate of a Star Shredded by a Black Hole

    July 12, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    If a star (red trail) wanders too close to a black hole (left), it can be shredded, or spaghettified, by the intense gravity. Some of the star’s matter swirls around the black hole, like water down a drain, emitting copious X-rays (blue). Recent studies of these so-called tidal disruption events suggest that a significant fraction of the star’s gas is also blown outward by intense winds from the black hole, in some cases creating a cloud that obscures the accretion disk and the high-energy events happening within. (Image credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss)

    In 2019 tidal disruption, much of star’s mass ended up in symmetrical cloud that hid a black hole...

    Read More

    New Pathway for Accumulation of Age-promoting ‘Zombie Cells’

    July 12, 2022, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    X-shaped chromosomes are stained purple, and telomeres appear as green spots at chromosome tips. When researchers used a novel tool to induce oxidative damage specifically at telomeres, they can become fragile (green arrows), sending cells into senescence. The inset shows an enlarged chromosome with fragile telomeres, indicated by multiple green spots at chromosome tips.

    Senescent cells — those that have lost the ability to divide — accumulate with age and are key drivers of age-related diseases, such as cancer, dementia and cardiovascular disease. In a new study, a team led by University of Pittsburgh and UPMC Hillman Cancer Center researchers has uncovered a mechanism by which senescent, or “zombie,” cells develop.

    Published today in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, the stud...

    Read More

    Researchers build Long, highly Conductive Molecular Nanowire

    July 12, 2022, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    molecular series
    A brief abstract figure of this work. Top: the two-step oxidation of the bis(triarylamines) molecular series.

    The 2.6nm-long single molecule wire has quasi-metallic properties and shows an unusual increase of conductance as the wire length increases; its excellent conductivity holds great promise for the field of molecular electronics.

    As our devices get smaller and smaller, the use of molecules as the main components in electronic circuitry is becoming ever more critical. Over the past 10 years, researchers have been trying to use single molecules as conducting wires because of their small scale, distinct electronic characteristics, and high tunability...

    Read More

    Citizen scientist leads discovery of 34 Ultracool Dwarf Binaries

    July 12, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    How often do stars live alone? For brown dwarfs — objects that straddle the boundary between the most massive planets and the smallest stars — astronomers need to uncover more examples of their companions to find out. Ace citizen scientist Frank Kiwy has done just that by using the Astro Data Lab science platform at NSF’s NOIRLab to discover 34 new ultracool dwarf binary systems in the Sun's neighborhood, nearly doubling the number of such systems known.
    llustration of an ultracool dwarf with a companion white dwarf

    How often do stars live alone? For brown dwarfs — objects that straddle the boundary between the most massive planets and the smallest stars — astronomers need to uncover more examples of their companions to find out. Ace citizen scientist Frank Kiwy has done just that by using the Astro Data Lab science platform at NSF’s NOIRLab to discover 34 new ultracool dwarf binary systems in the Sun’s neighborhood, nearly doubling the number of such systems known.

    A citizen scientist has searched NSF’s NOIRLab’s catalog of 4 billion celestial objects, known as NOIRLab Source Catalog DR2, to reveal brown dwarfs with companions...

    Read More