Study in fruit flies sheds light on quirk of insect fertility

SAN FRANCISCO – GHGSat and ExxonMobil Corp. announced a partnership Sept. 5 to monitor and mitigate methane emissions for onshore operations in North America and Asia. Collaboration between GHGSat, a Canadian firm focused on greenhouse-gas monitoring, and the multinational oil and gas company began in 2020 with field trials to demonstrate space-based technology for methane […]

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Learn how to add Discover Magazine to your preferred sources on Google so you can stay up-to-date on the latest scientific advancements.

The first-ever detection of gravitational waves was made by LIGO in 2015 and since then researchers have been trying to understand the physics of the black-hole and neutron-star mergers that create the waves. However, the physics is very complicated and is defined by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

Now Jiaxi Wu, Siddharth Boyeneni and Elias Most at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have addressed this challenge by developing a new formulation of general relativity that is inspired by the equations that describe electromagnetic interactions. They show that general relativity behaves in the same way as the gravitational inverse square law described by Isaac Newton more than 300 years ago. “This is a very non-trivial insight,” says Most.

One of the fascinations of black holes is the extreme physics they invoke. These astronomical objects  pack so much mass into so little space that not even light can escape their gravitational pull. Black holes (and neutron stars) can exist in binary systems in which the objects orbit each other. These pairs eventually merge to create single black holes in events that create detectable gravitational waves. The study of these waves provides an important testbed for gravitational physics. However, the mathematics of general relativity that describe these mergers is very complicated.

Inverse square law

According to Newtonian physics, the gravitational attraction between two masses is proportional to the inverse of the square of the distance between them – the inverse square law. However, as Most points out, “Unless in special cases, general relativity was not thought to act in the same way.”

Over the past decade, gravitational-wave researchers have taken various approaches including post-Newtonian theory and effective one-body approaches to better understand the physics of black-hole mergers. One important challenge is how to model parameters such as orbital eccentricity and precession in black hole systems and how best to understand “ringdown”. The latter is the process whereby a black hole formed by a merger emits gravitational waves as it relaxes into a stable state.

The trio’s recasting of the equations of general relativity was inspired by the Maxwell equations that describe how electric and magnetic fields leapfrog each other through space. According to these equations, the forces between electric charges diminish according to the same inverse square law as Newton’s gravitational attraction.

Early reformulations

The original reformulations of “gravitoelectromagnetism” date back to the 90s. Most explains how among those who did this early work was his Caltech colleague and LIGO Nobel laureate Kip Thorne, who exploited a special mathematical structure of the curvature of space–time.

“This structure mathematically looks like the equations governing light and the attraction of electric charges, but the physics is quite different,” Most tells Physics World. The gravito-electric field thus derived describes how an object might squish under the forces of gravity. “Mathematically this means that the previous gravito-electric field falls off with inverse distance cubed, which is unlike the inverse distance square law of Newtonian gravity or electrostatic attraction,” adds Most.

Most’s own work follows on from previous studies of the potential radio emission from the interaction of magnetic fields during the collision of neutron stars and black holes from which it seemed reasonable to then “think about whether some of these insights naturally carry over to Einstein’s theory of gravity”. The trio began with different formulations of general relativity and electromagnetism with the aim of deriving gravitational analogues for the electric and magnetic fields that behave more closely to classical theories of electromagnetism. They then demonstrated how their formulation might describe the behaviour of a non-rotating Schwarzschild black hole, as well as a black hole binary.

Not so different

“Our work says that actually general relativity is not so different from Newtonian gravity (or better, electric forces) when expressed in the right way,” explains Most. The actual behaviour predicted is the same in both formulations but the trio’s reformulation reveals how general relativity and Newtonian physics are more similar than they are generally considered to be. “The main new thing is then what does it mean to ‘observe’ gravity, and what does it mean to measure distances relative to how you ‘observe’.”

Alexander Phillipov is a black-hole expert at the University of Maryland in the US and was not directly involved with Most’s research. He describes the research as “very nice”, adding that while the analogy between gravity and electromagnetism has been extensively explored in the past, there is novelty in the interpretation of results from fully nonlinear general relativistic simulations in terms of effective electromagnetic fields. “It promises to provide valuable intuition for a broad class of problems involving compact object mergers.”

The research is described in Physical Review Letters.

The post Reformulation of general relativity brings it closer to Newtonian physics appeared first on Physics World.

A new space race is heating up across the pond — not to be the first to reach the moon, but to provide a credible and flexible legal framework capable of turbocharging the space sectors in the United Kingdom and Europe.  The intensity of this drive has increased over the summer of 2025. On June […]

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NASA’s acting administrator said he was “angry” after a predecessor told Congress the agency was behind China in sending astronauts to the moon.

The post Duffy pushes back against testimony that NASA is falling behind China in lunar exploration appeared first on SpaceNews.

During the 39th annual Small Satellite Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, in August, SpaceNews hosted a group of industry leaders on our Space Minds podcast to discuss the latest in smallsats and where this part of the industry is headed. These excerpts from our conversations, which have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity, […]

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For years, satellite sensors have transmitted vast quantities of imagery to the ground, where analysts then discarded views obscured by clouds, identified natural features or objects and shared pictures with customers. The entire process took days. Recently, companies have cut the timeline to hours — or even less — through frequent contact with ground stations, […]

The post Earth observation firms are trying to solve a latency problem with ‘Dynamic Targeting’ appeared first on SpaceNews.

“Picture the world of Avatar, where glowing plants light up an entire ecosystem,” describes Shuting Liu of South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou.

Well, that vision is now a step closer thanks to researchers in China who have created glow-in-the-dark succulents that recharge in sunlight.

Instead of coaxing cells to glow through genetic modification, the team instead used afterglow phosphor particles — materials similar to those found in glow-in-the-dark toys — that can absorb light and release it slowly over time.

The researchers then injected the particles into succulents finding that they produced a strong glow, thanks to the narrow, uniform, and evenly distributed channels within the leaf that helped to disperse the particles.

After a couple of minutes of exposure to sunlight or indoor LED light, the modified plants glowed for up to two hours. By using different types of phosphors, the researchers created plants that shine in various colours, including green, red, and blue.

The team even built a glowing plant wall with 56 succulents, which was bright enough to illuminate nearby objects.

“I just find it incredible that an entirely human-made, micro-scale material can come together so seamlessly with the natural structure of a plant,” notes Liu. “The way they integrate is almost magical. It creates a special kind of functionality.”

The post Researchers create glow-in-the-dark succulents that recharge with sunlight appeared first on Physics World.

An astrophysics PhD student from County Armagh in Northern Ireland has combined his passion for science with Gaelic football to help his club achieve a historic promotion.

Eamon McGleenan plays for his local team – O’Connell’s GAC Tullysaran – and is a PhD student at Queen’s University Belfast, where he is a member of the Predictive Sports Analytics (PSA) research team, which was established in 2023.

McGleenan and his PhD supervisor David Jess teamed up with GAC Tullysaran to investigate whether data analysis and statistical techniques could improve their training and results.

Over five months, the Queen’s University researchers took over 550 million individual measurements from the squad, which included information such as player running speed, accelerations and heart rates.

“We applied mathematical models to the big data we obtained from the athletes,” notes McGleenan. “This allowed us to examine how the athletes evolved over time and we then provided key insights for the coaching staff, who then generated bespoke training routines and match tactics.”

The efforts immediately paid off as in July GAC Tullysaran won their league by two points and were promoted for the first time in 135 years to the top-flight Senior Football League, which they will start in March.

“The statistical insight provided by PSA is of great use and I like how it lets me get the balance of training right, especially in the run-up to match day,” noted Tullysaran manager Pauric McGlone, who adds that it also provided a bit of competition in the squad that ensured the players were “conditioned in a way that allows them to perform at their best”.

For more about the PSA’s activities, see here.

The post Big data helps Gaelic football club achieve promotion following 135-year wait appeared first on Physics World.

Physicists in Germany say they have measured the correlated behaviour of atoms in molecules prepared in their lowest quantum energy state for the first time. Using a technique known as Coulomb explosion imaging, they showed that the atoms do not simply vibrate individually. Instead, they move in a coupled fashion that displays fixed patterns.

According to classical physics, molecules with no thermal energy – for example, those held at absolute zero – should not move. However, according to quantum theory, the atoms making up these molecules are never completely “frozen”, so they should exhibit some motion even at this chilly temperature. This motion comes from the atoms’ zero-point energy, which is the minimum energy allowed by quantum mechanics for atoms in their ground state at absolute zero. It is therefore known as zero-point motion.

Reconstructing the molecule’s original structure

To study this motion, a team led by Till Jahnke from the Institute for Nuclear Physics at Goethe University Frankfurt and the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg used the European XFEL in Hamburg to bombard their sample – an iodopyridine molecule consisting of 11 atoms – with ultrashort, high-intensity X-ray pulses. These high-intensity pulses violently eject electrons out of the iodopyridine, causing its constituent atoms to become positively charged (and thus to repel each other) so rapidly that the molecule essentially explodes.

To image the molecular fragments generated by the explosion, the researchers used a customized version of a COLTRIMS reaction microscope. This approach allowed them to reconstruct the molecule’s original structure.

From this reconstruction, the researchers were able to show that the atoms do not simply vibrate individually, but that they do so in correlated, coordinated patterns. “This is known, of course, from quantum chemistry, but it had so far not been measured in a molecule consisting of so many atoms,” Jahnke explains.

Data challenges

One of the biggest challenges Jahnke and colleagues faced was interpreting what the microscope data was telling them. “The dataset we obtained is super-rich in information and we had already recorded it in 2019 when we began our project,” he says. “It took us more than two years to understand that we were seeing something as subtle (and fundamental) as ground-state fluctuations.”

Since the technique provides detailed information that is hidden to other imaging approaches, such as crystallography, the researchers are now using it to perform further time-resolved studies – for example, of photochemical reactions. Indeed, they performed and published the first measurements of this type at the beginning of 2025, while the current study (which is published in Science) was undergoing peer review.

“We have pushed the boundaries of the current state-of-the-art of this measurement approach,” Jahnke tells Physics World, “and it is nice to have seen a fundamental process directly at work.”

For theoretical condensed matter physicist Asaad Sakhel at Balqa Applied University, Jordan, who was not involved in this study, the new work is “an outstanding achievement”. “Being able to actually ‘see’ zero-point motion allows us to delve deeper into the mysteries of quantum mechanics in our quest to a further understanding of its foundations,” he says.

The post Zero-point motion of atoms measured directly for the first time appeared first on Physics World.

Networks of pipes and heat exchangers can transfer excess heat from buildings into nearby bodies of water—but as the world warms, the cooling potential of some water courses is now diminishing.

Trump administration vows to appeal ruling that it illegally cut $2.2 billion in research funding

A Spanish startup is entering the emerging reentry vehicle market with plans to develop a reusable capsule offering frequent flights.

The post Orbital Paradigm readies first reentry mission appeared first on SpaceNews.

Learn how kissing bugs in the U.S. have been spreading a parasitic disease that can cause major heart problems years after infection.

What seems like a harmless toilet habit might lead to hemorrhoids, causing discomfort in the future.

The new year-long program seeks to prepare military leaders for a “contested” space domain

The post Space Force graduates first class of officers trained for ‘great power competition’ appeared first on SpaceNews.

Amazon’s Project Kuiper has clinched its first airline deal, partnering with JetBlue to bring LEO connectivity to about 75 aircraft from 2027 in another blow to legacy geostationary players.

The post Project Kuiper scores first airline win as JetBlue picks LEO over GEO appeared first on SpaceNews.

Pioneering project uses “rapid autopsies” to find virus hideouts in infected people

In Mumbai, new tools provided up to 3 days notice of dangerous downpours

Can a black hole die? The Hawking radiation process says yes, although it could take up to googol years to disappear.

The brain implant company cofounded by Elon Musk filed to trademark the product names Telepathy and Telekinesis. But it turns out that another person had already filed to trademark those names.

In this week’s episode of Space Minds, host David Ariosto speaks with Riley Duren, CEO of Carbon Mapper and veteran of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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After a Chicago-sized ice sheet broke away from Antarctica, a thriving ecosystem was exposed. Learn more about the species researchers found there.