A combination of organic materials and electronics could open up new possibilities for unconventional future computing systems. The processor is the brain of a computer — an often-quoted phrase. But processors work fundamentally differently than the human brain. Transistors perform logic operations by means of electronic signals. In contrast, the brain works with neurons, which are connected via biological conductive paths, synapses. At a higher level, this signaling is used by the brain to control the body and perceive the surrounding environment. The reaction of the body/brain system when certain stimuli are perceived — for example, via the eyes, ears or sense of touch — is triggered through a learning process...

The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO’s VLTI) has obtained the deepest and sharpest images to date of the region around the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. The new images zoom in 20 times more than what was possible before the VLTI and have helped astronomers find a never-before-seen star close to the black hole. By tracking the orbits of stars at the centre of our Milky Way, the team has made the most precise measurement yet of the black hole’s mass.

“We want to learn more about the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A: How massive is it exactly? Does it rotate? Do stars around it behave exactly as we expect from Einstein’s general theory of relativity? The best way to answer these questions is to foll...

A chemical isolated from grape seed extract prolongs the lifespans of old mice by 9 per cent by clearing out their old, worn-out cells. The treatment also seems to make the mice physically fitter and reduces the size of tumours when used alongside chemotherapy to treat cancer.

The finding strengthens the case for future anti-ageing therapies that target senescent cells – aged cells that lose their ability to replicate and instead churn out substances that cause inflammation.

Senescent cells increase in number as we get older, and have been linked to various age-related conditions, including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis.

To find a substance that might destroy these cells, Qixia Xu at the...

Nearly a century after Italian physicist Ettore Majorana laid the groundwork for the discovery that electrons could be divided into halves, researchers predict that split photons may also exist, according to a study from Dartmouth and SUNY Polytechnic Institute researchers.

The finding that the building blocks of light can exist in a previously-unimaginable split form advances the fundamental understanding of light and how it behaves.

The theoretical discovery of the split photon — known as a “Majorana boson” — was published in Physical Review Letters.

“This is a major paradigm change of how we understand light in a way that was not believed to be possib...