A unique new instrument, coupled with a powerful telescope and a little help from nature, has given researchers the ability to peer into galactic nurseries at the heart of the young universe.

After the big bang some 13.8 billion years ago, the early universe was filled with enormous clouds of neutral diffuse gas, known as Damped Lyman-α systems, or DLAs. These DLAs served as galactic nurseries, as the gasses within slowly condensed to fuel the formation of stars and galaxies. They can still be observed today, but it isn’t easy.

“DLAs are a key to understanding how galaxie...

Researchers from the Girona Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBGI) and Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) in Barcelona, Spain, have identified the role of an amino acid in humans, mice and flies suffering depression. It is proline, an amino acid that is present in a wide variety of foods. The results, published in the scientific journal Cell Metabolism, also associate the consumption of a proline-rich diet with a greater tendency to develop depression.

The study was led by Dr. José Manuel Fernández-Real and Dr. Jordi Mayneris-Perxachs, from the research group on Nutrition, Eumetabolism and Health at the IDIBGI and CIBEROBN, and Dr...

New approach paves the way for larger, more complex metalenses. Compact and lightweight metasurfaces — which use specifically designed and patterned nanostructures on a flat surface to focus, shape and control light — are a promising technology for wearable applications, especially virtual and augmented reality systems. Today, research teams painstakingly design the specific pattern of nanostructures on the surface to achieve the desired function of the lens, whether that be resolving nanoscale features, simultaneously producing several depth-perceiving images or focusing light regardless of polarization.

If the metalens is going to be used commercially in AR and VR systems, it’s going to need to be scaled ...

Traces of Long-Ago Climate Change Could Foretell Earth’s Own Climate Troubles. A seasonal imbalance in the amount of solar energy absorbed and released by the planet Mars is a likely cause of the dust storms that have long intrigued observers, a team of researchers reports.

Mars’ extreme imbalance in energy budget (a term referring to the measurement of solar energy a planet takes in from the sun then releases as heat)...