Researchers found that in mice how much they ate and when altered the nature of their gut microbiome: too much food too frequently resulted in poorer microbial and metabolic health.

An estimated 500 to 1,000 bacterial species reside in each person’s gut, perhaps numbering 100,000 trillion microorganisms...

Physicists observed a strange new type of behaviour in a magnetic material when it’s heated up. The magnetic spins ‘freeze’ into a static pattern when the temperature rises, a phenomenon that normally occurs when the temperature decreases. They publish their findings in Nature Physics on July 4th.

The researchers discovered the phenomenon in the material neodymium, an element that they described several years ago as a ‘self-induced spin glass’...

Researchers at the University of Cologne and Masaryk University in Brno (Czech Republic) have discovered the fastest known star, which travels around a black hole in record time. The star, S4716, orbits SagittariusA*, the black hole in the centre of our Milky Way, in four years and reaches a speed of around 8000 kilometres per second. S4716 comes as close as 100 AU (astronomical unit) to the black hole — a small distance by astronomical standards. One AU corresponds to 149,597,870 kilometres. The study has been published in The Astrophysical Journal.

In the vicinity of the black hole at the centre of our galaxy is a densely packed cluster of stars. This cluster, called S cluster, is home to well over a hundred stars that differ in their brightness and mass...

Researchers have for the first time identified an unexpected richness of complex organic molecules on a comet. This was achieved thanks to the analysis of data collected during ESA’s Rosetta mission at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, also known as Chury. Delivered to the early Earth by impacting comets, these organics may have helped to kick-start carbon-based life as we know it.

Comets are fossils from the ancient times and from the dept...