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A biohybrid hand which can move objects and do a scissor gesture has been created. The researchers used thin strings of lab-grown muscle tissue bundled into sushilike rolls to give the fingers enough strength to contract. These multiple muscle tissue actuators (MuMuTAs), created by the researchers, are a major development towards building larger biohybrid limbs. While currently limited to the lab environment, MuMuTAs have the potential to advance future biohybrid prosthetics, aid drug testing on muscle tissue and broaden the potential of biohybrid robotics to mimic real-life forms.

Researchers have achieved a breakthrough in wearable health technology by developing a novel self-healing electronic skin (E-Skin) that repairs itself in seconds after damage. This could potentially transform the landscape of personal health monitoring.

Researchers have achieved a breakthrough in wearable health technology by developing a novel self-healing electronic skin (E-Skin) that repairs itself in seconds after damage. This could potentially transform the landscape of personal health monitoring.

Children may have a higher risk of developing ADHD if their mothers used paracetamol – also known as acetaminophen – during pregnancy, adding weight to the contested link between the painkiller and fetal brain development

Sometimes, things across the vast Universe line up just right for us. The Einstein Ring above, like all Einstein Rings, has three parts. In the foreground is a distant massive object like a galaxy or galaxy cluster. In the background, at an even greater distance away, is a star or another galaxy.

We’re the observers, the third part, and all three must be perfectly aligned for an Einstein Ring to appear.

An Einstein Ring (ER) works by gravitational lensing. The massive foreground object has such powerful gravity that it bends space-time, which means the light from the distant object follows a curved path. The light is magnified and shaped into a circle.

Einstein Rings are intriguing visual oddities, but they’re also powerful, naturally occurring scientific tools.

“All strong lenses are special, because they’re so rare, and they’re incredibly useful scientifically.”

Conor O’Riordan, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Germany A close-up view of the centre of the NGC 6505 galaxy, with the bright Einstein ring around its nucleus, captured by ESA’s Euclid space telescope. Image Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, G. Anselmi, T. Li. LICENCE CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO or ESA Standard Licence

In this ER, the massive foreground object is the galaxy NGC 6505, which is warping spacetime around it. The galaxy is not unique—it just happens to be massive and about 600 million light-years away.

The background galaxy is also not particularly special. It’s 4.42 billion light years away, has never been seen before, and doesn’t even have a name. We’re only seeing it because of the alignment between both galaxies and us.

The ESA launched Euclid in July 2023, and its job is to measure the redshift of galaxies. In doing so, it can measure the expansion of the Universe so we can hopefully make progress in understanding dark energy and dark matter.

After launch, Euclid went through a testing phase and sent images back to us. For testing reasons, they were deliberately out of focus. Bruno Altieri, a scientist on the Euclid team, thought he saw something unusual in one of the images.

“I look at the data from Euclid as it comes in,” Bruno explained in a press release. “Even from that first observation, I could see it, but after Euclid made more observations of the area, we could see a perfect Einstein ring. For me, with a lifelong interest in gravitational lensing, that was amazing.”

Astronomers have observed NGC 6505, the foreground galaxy, many times, but they’ve never seen the ring before. After Altieri spotted the ring, Euclid’s high-resolution instruments captured follow-up images of it with the ring in focus. The instruments are VIS, the Visible light camera, and NISP, the Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer.

“This demonstrates how powerful Euclid is, finding new things even in places we thought we knew well.”

Valeria Pettorino, ESA Euclid Project Scientist.

“I find it very intriguing that this ring was observed within a well-known galaxy, which was first discovered in 1884,” says Valeria Pettorino, ESA Euclid Project Scientist. “The galaxy has been known to astronomers for a very long time. And yet, this ring was never observed before. This demonstrates how powerful Euclid is, finding new things even in places we thought we knew well. This discovery is very encouraging for the future of the Euclid mission and demonstrates its fantastic capabilities.”

Research based on Euclid’s findings was published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. It’s titled “Euclid: A complete Einstein ring in NGC 6505.” The lead author is Conor O’Riordan of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany.

“An Einstein ring is an example of strong gravitational lensing,” explained O’Riordan. “All strong lenses are special, because they’re so rare, and they’re incredibly useful scientifically. This one is particularly special, because it’s so close to Earth and the alignment makes it very beautiful.”

“The combination of the low redshift of the lens galaxy, the brightness of the source galaxy, and the completeness of the ring make this an exceptionally rare strong lens, unidentified until its observation by Euclid,” the authors write in their paper. The researchers used Euclid’s instruments and the Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI) to observe the ring. “The Euclid imaging, in particular, presents one of the highest signal-to-noise ratio optical/near-infrared observations of a strong gravitational lens to date.”

Strong lenses like this one allow astronomers to study the background galaxy, which would otherwise be impossible. These lenses also hold information about the expansion of the Universe, dark energy, and dark matter. “Strong lenses can be used as ‘cosmic telescopes’ to achieve higher spatial resolution when studying the lensed sources, and to test general relativity,” the authors explain in their research.

The authors also point out that studying the lens itself is also beneficial. “The most prevalent application of galaxy-scale strong lensing is in studying the lens itself, which is most often an early-type galaxy (ETG),” they write. All elliptical galaxies are considered early-type galaxies.

This image shows Euclid imaging data used in this work and in which Altieri’s lens was discovered. The main panel shows a composite false-colour image produced by combining the VIS and NISP data. The inset shows only the higher-resolution VIS data in the central 8? of the image, indicated by the square in the main panel. Image Credit: O’Riordan et al. 2025.

“Low redshift lenses are intrinsically rare because there is very little volume at low redshift,” the researchers explain in their paper. “That we observed one in the early days of Euclid is unremarkable, but for it to be an obvious strong lens is quite exceptional.”

Euclid’s mission is scheduled to last six years. The researchers say that while the spacecraft will find more Einstein rings during its mission, as many as 100,000, it will likely never find another one like this. “The exceptional nature of Altieri’s lens means it is unlikely that Euclid will find another lens below z?=?0.05 with a ring as bright as that observed here,” they explain.

The lens’ low redshift makes it exceptionally valuable scientifically. Only five others have similar low redshifts. “Strong lenses at low redshift have Einstein radii that are comparatively small in physical terms and allow for a detailed study of the composition and structure of the central region of the galaxy,” the authors write.

The researchers were able to determine the lens galaxy’s peculiar velocity, an important step in understanding Universal expansion, dark matter, and dark energy. They were also able to model its light profile in detail.

The paper is open access and interested readers can find more info there.

Press Release: Euclid discovers a stunning Einstein ring

Published Research: Euclid: A complete Einstein ring in NGC 6505

The post The Euclid Space Telescope Captures a Rare, Stunning Einstein Ring appeared first on Universe Today.

A new study has revealed the clearest-ever picture of the surface chemistry of worm species that provides groundbreaking insights into how animals interact with their environment and each other. These discoveries could pave the way for strategies to deepen our understanding of evolutionary adaptations, refine behavioural research, and ultimately overcome parasitic infections.

Scientists have demonstrated that negative refraction can be achieved using atomic arrays -- without the need for artificially manufactured metamaterials. Scientists have long sought to control light in ways that appear to defy the laws of Nature. Negative refraction -- a phenomenon where light bends in the opposite direction to its usual behavior -- has captivated researchers for its potential to revolutionize optics, enabling transformative technologies such as superlenses and cloaking devices. Now, carefully arranged arrays of atoms have brought these possibilities a step closer, achieving negative refraction without the need for artificially manufactured metamaterials.

Using genes borrowed from bacteria, researchers have demonstrated fish and flies can be engineered to break down methylmercury and remove it from their bodies as a less harmful gas, offering new ways to tackle one of the world's most dangerous pollutants.

Scientists have used holographic projections to bring unprecedented resolution to a light-based 3D printing technique. The method allows the fabrication of millimeter-scale objects within seconds using significantly less energy than previous approaches.

Scientists have used holographic projections to bring unprecedented resolution to a light-based 3D printing technique. The method allows the fabrication of millimeter-scale objects within seconds using significantly less energy than previous approaches.

Our Sun is a giant plasma windbag spewing a constant stream of charged particles called the solar wind. This stream leaves the Sun at speeds around 400 to 800 kilometers per second and extends to the outer edge of the Solar System to about 125 astronomical units. Astronomers have long wondered about what feeds this powerful outflow.

Recently the ESA Solar Orbiter spacecraft observed tiny plasma jets a few hundred kilometers wide, occurring across the Sun. Each one flashes for a brief instant above the solar surface. Just as a tiny stream expands to create a raging river here on Earth, these minuscule jets combine to provide “background” power that blossoms into the fast and slow parts of the solar wind.

Probing the Solar Wind

A research team led by Lakshmi Pradeep Chitta at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Germany used the probe’s onboard ‘cameras’ to spot more tiny jets within coronal holes close to the Sun’s equator. “We could only detect these tiny jets because of the unprecedented high-resolution, high-cadence images produced by EUI,” said Chitta at the time of their discovery in 2023. They used the extreme ultraviolet channel of EUI’s high-resolution imager, which observes million-degree solar plasma at a wavelength of 17.4 nanometers. At the time, scientists suspected these flares were at the heart of solar wind generation but didn’t understand how widespread they were.

The team continued to use the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI), Solar Wind Plasma Analyser (SWA) and Magnetometer (MAG) to study the jets over the past year and a half. By combining these high-resolution images with direct measurements of the stream of particles and the Sun’s magnetic field around the Solar Orbiter, the researchers spotted more tiny flares within coronal holes close to the solar equator. Based on those observations, they directly connected the solar wind measured at the spacecraft back to those same jets.

Picoflares that power the solar wind occur across the solar surface. Courtesy ESA. The Solar Wind and its Effects

For many years, the solar wind has remained something of a challenge to understand. We can certainly see its effects in the form of variable space weather. During years of solar maximum, the Sun is more active. That powers more outbursts in the form of X-class flares and coronal mass ejections that extend out for millions of kilometers. When the Sun quiets down, so does the activity, although it never completely stops.

On Earth, we see the effects of the solar wind in increased auroral displays, and—if coronal mass ejections are severe—in disruption of communication and power generation technologies. Out in space, the solar wind also affects other solar system bodies. For example, it shapes and disrupts comet plasma tails as they near their closest approach to the Sun. But, what powers it? And, how do scientists explain its variations?

The solar wind comes in two flavors: slow and dense at the solar equatorial regions and fast and not-so-dense at the higher latitudes and the poles. The Ulysses spacecraft, which was in a near-polar orbit for nearly 18 years starting in 1990, mapped these regions of the solar wind closest to the Sun and found that the fast wind is relatively steady, while the slow solar wind is more variable in speed.

The fast solar wind comes from the direction of dark patches in the Sun’s atmosphere called coronal holes. These are places where the solar magnetic field stretches out from the Sun through the solar system. Charged particles can flow along these “open” magnetic field lines, heading away from the Sun as the solar wind. It turns out that the slow solar wind also comes from equatorial coronal holes where nanoflares are also at work.

More about the Jets

So, what causes these tiny jets? Such nanoflare outbursts are called “picoflare jets”. They’re powered by a process called “magnetic reconnection.” This happens when magnetic field lines in a region of the Sun’s atmosphere get tangled and twisted together. Eventually, they break, similar to what happens when you twist a rubber band too much. That “break” releases heat and energy into the corona. New field lines reconnect to continue the process. This is the same mechanism that powers larger solar flares.

Interestingly, we see similar magnetic reconnection in comet plasma tails. Magnetic field lines are entrained in the solar wind. They “drape” around a comet and its plasma tail. Those field lines have a specific polarity. As the comet passes through different “regimes” of the solar wind, it experiences different polarities. When that happens, the old-polarity plasma tail “breaks off” in a disconnection event and that releases energy. The new field lines build a new plasma tail in a case of magnetic reconnection.

Comets are small-scale examples of this effect, while the Sun is a perfect example of the large-scale influence of magnetic reconnection. When you have countless numbers of these nanoflares releasing energy into the corona, it’s enough to power the entire solar wind. Spacecraft such as the Solar Orbiter and the Parker Solar Probe have front-row seats to the action and will provide long-term measurements of the Sun’s tremendous power-generation action.

For More Information

Scientists Spot Tiny Sun Jets Driving Fast and Slow Solar Wind
Coronal Hole Picflare Jets are Progenitors of Both Fast and Alfvénic Slow Solar Wind
Solar Wind

The post Tiny Solar Jets Drive the Sun’s Fast and Slow Solar Wind appeared first on Universe Today.

A team of researchers succeeded in adapting an AI system to reliably assist with making nanoparticle measurements which speeds up the research process significantly.

A team of researchers succeeded in adapting an AI system to reliably assist with making nanoparticle measurements which speeds up the research process significantly.

Researchers have developed a novel experimental platform to measure the electric fields of light trapped between two mirrors with a sub-cycle precision. These electro-optic Fabry-Perot resonators will allow for precise control and observation of light-matter interactions, particularly in the terahertz (THz) spectral range. By developing a tunable hybrid-cavity design, and measuring and modeling its complex sets of allowed modes, the physicists can switch between nodes and maxima of the light waves exactly at the location of interest. The study opens new avenues for exploring quantum electrodynamics and ultrafast control of material properties.

Scientists are studying Saturn's moon Titan to assess its tidal dissipation rate, the energy lost as it orbits the ringed planet with its massive gravitational force. Understanding tidal dissipation helps scientists infer many other things about Titan, such as the makeup of its inner core and its orbital history.

Scientists have just detected a neutrino that is thirty times more energetic than any previously detected anywhere in the world. This exceptional discovery opens up new perspectives for understanding extreme energy phenomena in the Universe and the origin of cosmic rays.

Scientists have just detected a neutrino that is thirty times more energetic than any previously detected anywhere in the world. This exceptional discovery opens up new perspectives for understanding extreme energy phenomena in the Universe and the origin of cosmic rays.

Researchers developed a method to recycle all parts of a solar cell repeatedly without environmentally hazardous solvents. The recycled solar cell has the same efficiency as the original one. The solar cell is made of perovskite and the main solvent is water.

New research could transform how broken bones are treated, with the development of a special zinc-based dissolvable material that could replace the metal plates and screws typically used to hold fractured bones together.

My once-favorite society continues to take ideological positions rather than scientific ones, and it continues its habit of wokeness with this latest announcement.

Even after getting some pushback from members about its misguided announcement about the “spectrum of sex”, the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) persists in taking political positions (in some cases having little or nothing to do with evolution per se), implicitly violating institutional neutrality and chilling the speech of SSE members.  The SSE Council sent out this memo two days ago. (It doesn’t seem to be on their website.)  While their concern for science funding does indeed fall within the ambit of the SSE, they are now changing the mission of the Society (as they did with the last announcement) from promoting the study of evolution to also enacting social justice.  And as time passes, and as I hear about the annual meetings and read their statements, they’re getting more “progressive” all the time. The letter below spends quite a bit of time advocating for “equity” (they don’t seem to know what the word means) and DEI. The bolding is theirs announcement.

February 10, 2025

Dear SSE members,

The Society for the Study of Evolution leadership has been following recent developments at the US federal level, as they affect teaching, the conduct of scientific research in evolution, and the people who do both. We are deeply concerned about misrepresentation of science, deletion of public data and reports from governmental websites, and illegal attacks on science funding and DEI mandates. We stand committed to supporting our community and our mission: to promote evolutionary biology research, education, application, outreach, and community building in an equitable and globally inclusive manner.

The daily attacks from the administration on science and its infrastructure are of great concern. Scientific research and education require funding. Halts or suspension of already awarded funding or non-negotiated changes to associated indirect costs are untenable. Such interruptions create unnecessary problems for investigators, post-docs, students and universities alike, and can derail ongoing experiments. The deletion of public data and reports from governmental websites amounts to book burning and cannot be tolerated. Likewise, the forced archiving of proposal calls that support development of a diverse pool of scientists has serious consequences.

Taken as a whole, this attack on the scientific enterprise threatens the production of knowledge by US scientists, with fall-out [sic] that will affect the health and well-being of our society. Basic research provides the foundational knowledge on which applied research is built, which in turn is translated into advances in human welfare. The US has historically been a leader in this area, benefiting from diversity in the workforce and from public funding. This leadership role is now significantly threatened.

What has the SSE done so far?

In response to the January 25, 2025 Executive Order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”, SSE and our sister societies, The American Society of Naturalists and the Society of Systematic Biologists, are sending a letter to the White House and all members of Congress clarifying the scientific consensus regarding the definition of sex. We will continue to watch events as they unfold and will respond accordingly. We welcome opinions and ideas from the membership on how we can best support you during this time.

What can you do?

Make your voice heard. If you are a US citizen, contact your congressional representatives, both in the House and Senate. Calling is more effective than writing an email or a letter, but anything is good. Personal stories of the impact on you and your science are most effective. Engage with groups that advocate for public policy. The American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) offers communications and advocacy training and opportunities to meet with lawmakers through the AIBS Congressional Visits Day event on April 28-30. Funding support is available from SSE for this, with an application deadline of February 17. Larger societies (e.g., AAAS, Ecological Society of America) also sponsor advocacy training.

Communicate with the public. Send an op-ed to your local newspaper, telling the story of the impact on you and your science. One resource for drafting a compelling op-ed is at https://www.theopedproject.org/askajournalist. Story-telling resources are also useful, and a multitude can be found through an online search (e.g., here and here). Continue posting on social media, vetting for accuracy.

Use your local resources and expand your network. Work with your institution to support spending of current grant funding. Think about your network. Who do you know who knows someone who could be helpful?

Tell us how this has affected you. We would like to know how you have personally been affected by the attacks on science and scientists and solutions that you or your academic unit have developed in response. Send your personal experiences and any ideas for further action by SSE to president@evolutionsociety.org or submit them to SSE Council through this form.

In sum, the SSE leadership reaffirms our commitment to the SSE mission: we will work tirelessly on behalf of the membership to promote and defend evolutionary biology, and to support all the diverse people that form the bedrock of this field. Although there are many moving parts, daily stressors, and huge unknowns that members of SSE are currently grappling with, we note that the attacks on historically excluded members of society are reprehensible. We encourage our membership to be unwavering in your support of the most vulnerable within the community. Attacks on science and science funding are likewise untenable. We emphasize that defending evolutionary biology and promoting inclusive science is the ethical and moral way forward.

Sincerely,

SSE Council

Scientific societies of course should advocate for positions that further the mission of the society, which, as I recall when I was President, was to further knowledge, research, teaching, and publishing in evolution. Now, however, they have clearly changed their mission in the direction of social justice:

In sum, the SSE leadership reaffirms our commitment to the SSE mission: we will work tirelessly on behalf of the membership to promote and defend evolutionary biology, and to support all the diverse people that form the bedrock of this field.

Now the membership of any society is diverse in the sense that it contains people with different backgrounds and views, but it’s also clear that by “diversity” the SSE means ethnic or racial diversity. Does anybody think it means anything else? And so the SSE is now promoting equity as well as evolution.  They imply, without proof, that a diverse group of people will produce better evolutionary biology. That is likely true for “diversity of interests” but is it true for diversity of ethnicity? Who knows?

Of course the SSE should not show any bias towards any group, and a statement to that effect would suffice on its website. Further, since evolutionary biology is not limited to the U.S., the SSE should sometimes hold meetings with the societies of other countries, which they have done, and offer meeting grants to students from outside the U.S.. But other countries have their own evolution societies, too.

As far as “equity” is concerned, it usually means ethnic representation in the society in proportions to the existing groups in society, not “equal opportunity”. But opportunity and representation are conflated in the sentence below:

We stand committed to supporting our community and our mission: to promote evolutionary biology research, education, application, outreach, and community building in an equitable and globally inclusive manner.

At the end, they urge the members to take political action, mostly to oppose executive orders of Trump that, the Council believes, hurt the SSE.  They don’t seem to realize that most members just want to concentrate on doing their research.

The point of all this, though, is just to give my view that my once-beloved SSE has, like many other societies, has become political, and has changed its mission to emphasize social justice as well as science. I highly doubt that this announcement will have any beneficial results for the SSE or society as a whole; it is an exercise in flaunting the society’s virtue. If there is a lesson here, it’s that while the SSE may make political statements that further its scientific mission, it should stay out of ideology and politics that are irrelevant or tangential to evolution.