Science

A new technique to trap clusters of platinum atoms in nanoscale islands could lead to more efficient catalysts for the chemical industry.

Turning environmental waste into useful chemical resources could solve many of the inevitable challenges of our growing amounts of discarded plastics, paper and food waste, according to new research.

New research has combined cosmological data from two major surveys of the universe's evolutionary history and found hints that it may be less clumpy at certain points than previously thought. Their findings suggest that the universe may have become more complex with advancing age.

A new collaboration has unlocked new potential for the field by creating a novel high-performance organic electrochemical neuron that responds within the frequency range of human neurons.

Researchers have developed a new optical sensor that provides a simple way to achieve real-time detection of extremely low levels of arsenic in water.

The asteroid is unlikely to be cause for concern, but its detection has triggered planetary defence response procedures for the first time

When astronomers detected the first long-predicted gravitational waves in 2015, it opened a whole new window into the Universe. Before that, astronomy depended on observations of light in all its wavelengths.

We also use light to communicate, mostly radio waves. Could we use gravitational waves to communicate?

The idea is intriguing, though beyond our capabilities right now. Still, there’s value in exploring the hypothetical, as the future has a way of arriving sooner than we sometimes think.

New research examines the idea and how it could be applied in the future. It’s titled “Gravitational Communication: Fundamentals, State-of-the-Art and Future Vision,” and it’s available on the pre-press site arxiv.org. The authors are Houtianfu Wang and Ozgur B. Akan. Wang and Akan are both with the Internet of Everything Group, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK.

“Gravitational waves can maintain consistent signal quality over immense distances, making them suitable for missions beyond the solar system.”

Houtianfu Wang and Ozgur B. Akan.

“The discovery of gravitational waves has opened a new observational window for astronomy and physics, offering a unique approach to exploring the depths of the universe and extreme astrophysical phenomena. Beyond its impact on astronomical research, gravitational waves have also garnered widespread attention as a new communication paradigm,” the authors explain.

Traditional electromagnetic communications have definite drawbacks and limitations. Signals get weaker with distance, which restricts range. Atmospheric effects can interfere with radio communications and diffuse and distort them. There are also line-of-sight restrictions, and solar weather and space activity can also interfere.

What’s promising about gravitational wave communication (GWC) is that it could overcome these challenges. GWC is robust in extreme environments and loses minimal energy over extremely long distances. It also overcomes problems that plague electromagnetic communication (EMC), like diffusion, distortion, and reflection. There’s also the intriguing possibility of harnessing naturally created GWs, which means reducing the energy needed to create them.

“Gravitational communication, also known as gravitational wave communication, holds the promise of overcoming the limitations of traditional electromagnetic communication, enabling robust transmission across extreme environments and vast distances,” the authors point out.

Artist’s impression of gravitational waves. Image credit: NASA

To advance the technology, researchers need to create artificial gravitational waves (GWs) in the lab. That’s one of the primary goals of GW research. GWs are extremely weak, and only enormous masses moving rapidly can generate them. Even the GWs we’ve detected coming from merging supermassive black holes (SMBHs), which can have billions of solar masses, produce only miniscule effects that require incredibly sensitive instruments like LIGO to detect.

Generating GWs that are strong enough to detect is a necessary first step.

“The generation of gravitational waves is pivotal for advancing gravitational communication, yet it remains one of the foremost challenges in contemporary technological development,” the authors write. “Researchers have explored various innovative methods to achieve this, including mechanical resonance and rotational devices, superconducting materials, and particle beam collisions, as well as techniques involving high-power lasers and electromagnetic fields.”

There is plenty of theoretical work behind GWC but less practical work. The paper points out what direction research should take to bridge the gap between the two.

Obviously, there’s no way to recreate an event as awesome as a black hole merger in a laboratory. But surprisingly, researchers have been considering the problem as far back as 1960, long before we’d ever detected GWs.

An artistic image inspired by a black hole-neutron star merger event. Credit: Carl Knox, OzGrav/Swinburne

One of the first attempts involved rotating masses. However, the rotational speed required to create GWs was impossible to achieve, partly because the materials weren’t strong enough. Other attempts and proposals involved piezoelectric crystals, superfluids, particle beams, and even high-power lasers. The issue with these attempts is that while physicists understand the theory behind them, they don’t have the right materials yet. Some attempts generated GWs, scientists think, but they aren’t strong enough to be detectable.

“High-frequency gravitational waves, often generated by smaller masses or scales, are feasible for artificial production under laboratory conditions. But they remain undetectable due to their low amplitudes and the mismatch with current detector sensitivities,” the authors explain.

More advanced detection technologies or some method to align generated GWs with existing detection capabilities are needed. Existing technologies are aimed at detecting GWs from astrophysical events. The authors explain that “Research should focus on designing detectors capable of operating across broader frequency and amplitude ranges.”

While GWs avoid some of the problems that EM communications face, they aren’t without problems. Since they can travel vast distances, GWC faces problems with attenuation, phase distortion, and polarization shifts from interacting with things like dense matter, cosmic structures, magnetic fields, and interstellar matter. These can not only degrade the signal’s quality but can also complicate decoding.

This conceptual illustration shows what effects GWs are subjected to as they propagate. “The signal first experiences large-scale influences such as gravitational and cosmological frequency shifts, followed by broad-scale amplitude attenuation due to cosmic expansion and weak scattering. Next, more region-specific factors induce polarization changes, and finally, localized distortions arise in the form of phase variations and fading effects caused by gravitational lensing and other fine-scale phenomena. Additive noise is introduced near the receiver end,” the authors write. Image Credit: Wang and Akan, 2025.

There are also unique noise sources to consider, including thermal gravitational noise, background radiation and overlapping GW signals. “Developing comprehensive channel models is essential to ensure reliable and efficient detection in these environments,” the authors write.

In order to ever make use of GWs, we also need to figure out how to modulate them. Signal modulation is critical to communications. Look at any car radio and you see “AM” and “FM.” AM stands for “Amplitude Modulation” and FM stands for “Frequency Modulation.” How could we modulate GWs and turn them into meaningful information?

“Recent studies have explored diverse methods, including astrophysical phenomena-based amplitude modulation (AM), dark matter-induced frequency modulation (FM), superconducting material manipulation, and nonmetricity-based theoretical approaches,” the authors write. Each one of these holds promise as well as being choked with obstacles.

For example, we can theorize about using dark matter to modulate GW signals, but we don’t even know what dark matter is. “Frequency modulation involving ultralight scalar dark matter (ULDM) depends on uncertain assumptions about dark matter’s properties and distribution,” the authors write, addressing an elephant in the room.

It might seem as if GWC is out of reach, but it holds so much promise that scientists are unwilling to abandon it. In deep space communications, EM communication is hamstrung by the vast distances and interference from cosmic phenomena. GWC offers solutions to these obstacles.

This image shows how GWC can be used in our own Solar System and in interstellar communications. Where conventional communications would simply fade away on the long journey between stars, GWC will not. Image Credit: Wang and Akan, 2025.

A better method to communicate over long distances is critical to exploring deep space, and GWC is exactly what we need. “Gravitational waves can maintain consistent signal quality over immense distances, making them suitable for missions beyond the solar system,” the authors write.

Practical gravitational wave communication is a long way off. However, what was once only theoretical is gradually shifting into the practical.

“Gravitational communication, as a frontier research direction with significant potential, is gradually moving from theoretical exploration to practical application,” Wang and Akan write in their conclusion. It will depend on hard work and future breakthroughs.

The pair of researchers know that much hard work is needed to advance the idea. Their paper is deeply detailed and comprehensive, and they hope it will be a catalyst for that work.

“Although a fully practical gravitational wave communication system remains unfeasible, we aim to use this survey to highlight its potential and stimulate further research and innovation, especially for space communication scenarios,” they conclude.

The post Communicating with Gravitational Waves appeared first on Universe Today.

A search for particles’ most paradoxical quantum states led researchers to construct a 37-dimensional experiment

An algorithm inspired by quantum computers but used on classical machines can make weather forecasts and other turbulence simulations a thousand times easier to run

Indigenous peoples of the Arctic traditionally use polar bear fur for its ice-resistant properties, but the science behind the bears’ natural antifreeze hasn't been studied until now

To the casual observer, the Sun seems to be the one constant and never changing. The reality is that the Sun is a seething mass of plasma, electrically charged gas which is constantly being effected by the Sun’s magnetic field. The unpredictability of the activity on the Sun is one of the challenges that faces modern solar physicists. The impact of coronal mass ejections are one particular aspect that comes with levels of uncertainty of their impact. But machine learning algorithms could perhaps have given us more warning! A new paper suggests algorithms trained on decades of solar activity saw all the signs of increased activity from the region called AR13664 and perhaps can help with future outbursts.

Coronal Mass Ejections or CMEs, are massive bursts of plasma ejected from the Sun’s corona into space due to disruptions in the Sun’s magnetic field. These explosive events are often linked to flares and occur when magnetic field lines suddenly realign, releasing vast amounts of energy. CMEs can travel at speeds ranging from a few hundred to several thousand kilometres per second, sometimes reaching Earth within days, if their trajectory is in our direction. When they arrive, they can interact with our magnetosphere and trigger geomagnetic storms, potentially disrupting satellite communications, GPS systems, and power grids. Additionally, they can lead to auroral activity, creating breathtaking displays of the northern and southern lights.

A colossal CME departs the Sun in February 2000. erupting filament lifted off the active solar surface and blasted this enormous bubble of magnetic plasma into space. Credit NASA/ESA/SOHO

Accurately forecasting these types of events and how they impact our magnetosphere has been one of the challenges facing astronomers. In a study authored by a team of astronomers led by Sabrina Guastavino from the University of Genoa, they applied artificial intelligence to the challenge. They used the new technology to predict the events that were associated with the May 2024 storm, the corresponding flares from the region designated 13644 and CMEs. The storm unleashed intense solar events including a flare classed as an X8.7!

Earth’s magnetosphere

Using AI the team were able to point machine learning technology to the vast amounts of previously collected data to uncover complex patterns that were not easy to spot using conventional techniques. The 2024 event was a great, and unusual opportunity to test the AI capability to predict solar activity. The chief objective was to predict the occurrence of solar flares, at how they changed over time, CME production and ultimately, to predict geomagnetic storms here on Earth. 

They ran the process against the May 2024 event with impressive results.  According to their paper, the prediction revealed ‘unprecedented accuracy in the forecast with significant reduction in uncertainties with respect to traditional methods.’ The results of the CME travel times to Earth and the onset of geomagnetic storms was also impressively accurate. 

The impact of the study is profound. Power grid outages, communication and satellite issues can be a major disadvantage when CMEs hit Earth so the application of the machine learning AI toolset to predicting solar activity looks like an exciting advance. For those of us keen sky watchers, we may also get a far better forecast of auroral activity too. 

Source : Artificial Intelligence Could Have Predicted All Space Weather Events Associated with the May 2024 Superstorm

The post Machine Learning Could Have Predicted the Powerful Solar Storms in 2024 appeared first on Universe Today.

New images from NASA’s Juno spacecraft make Io’s nature clear. It’s the most volcanically active world in the Solar System, with more than 400 active volcanoes. Juno has performed multiple flybys of Io, and images from its latest one show an enormous hotspot near the moon’s south pole.

Juno was sent to Jupiter to study the giant planet, but that primary mission ended, and NASA extended the mission. Currently, it is performing flybys of three of the Galilean moons: Ganymede, Europa, and Io. We’ve reported on Juno’s Io flybys previously.

In its latest flyby, the orbiter imaged a volcanic hotspot on the moon’s south pole larger than Lake Superior. The images are from Juno’s JIRAM (Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper) instrument. According to NASA, the hot spot’s eruptions are six times more energetic than all of Earth’s power plants and its radiance measured well above 80 trillion watts.

“The data supports that this is the most intense volcanic eruption ever recorded on Io.”

Alessandro Mura, Juno co-investigator, National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome

“Juno had two really close flybys of Io during Juno’s extended mission,” said the mission’s principal investigator, Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “And while each flyby provided data on the tormented moon that exceeded our expectations, the data from this latest — and more distant — flyby really blew our minds. This is the most powerful volcanic event ever recorded on the most volcanic world in our solar system — so that’s really saying something,” Bolton said in a NASA press release.

A map of Io with prominent features labelled. The new hot spot is roughly in the vicinity of Lerna Regio. Image Credit: By NASA/JPL/USGS/Jason Perry – https://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Projects/JupiterSatellites/io.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9096280

Io is volcanic because of tidal heating. Io is the innermost of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons and is roughly the same size as Earth’s Moon. However, it’s very close to the much larger Jupiter, follows an elliptical orbit, and completes one every 42.5 hours. Jupiter is roughly 300 times more massive than Earth. That means that Jupiter dwarfs Io, and as the moon orbits the gas giant, the gas giant has its way with it. Jupiter stretches and pulls on the little moon, causing it to flex and change shape, creating internal heat. The other Galilean moons also contribute.

This simple graphic explains tidal heating on Io. (A) Of the four major moons of Jupiter, Io is the innermost one. Gravity from these bodies pulls Io in varying directions. (B) Io’s eccentric orbit. Io’s shape changes as it completes its orbit. (C) Earth’s moon’s orbit is actually more eccentric than Io’s, but Earth’s gravity is much weaker than Jupiter’s, so Earth’s moon does not experience as much deformation. Image Credit: By Lsuanli – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31959004

The heat is enough to melt the moon’s interior into molten rock. The tidal flexing creates an endless series of plumes and ash that make the moon the most volcanically active body in the Solar System. The ash also paints the small moon’s surface.

During its extended mission, Juno flies past Io on every other orbit, meaning the images can track any changes on the surface. During a previous flyby on February 3rd, 2024, Juno came within 1,500 km (930 mi) of the moon’s surface.

This image shows Juno’s path over Io on February 3rd, 2024, the spacecraft’s closest flyby of the volcanic moon. The path is colour-coded by altitude. Image Credit:

During this latest flyby, it was much further away. It only got to within about 74,400 kilometres (46,200 mi) of the moon, and its JIRAM instrument was pointed at the south pole.

“JIRAM detected an event of extreme infrared radiance — a massive hot spot — in Io’s southern hemisphere so strong that it saturated our detector,” said Alessandro Mura, a Juno co-investigator from the National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome. “However, we have evidence what we detected is actually a few closely spaced hot spots that emitted at the same time, suggestive of a subsurface vast magma chamber system. The data supports that this is the most intense volcanic eruption ever recorded on Io.”

This feature, which has yet to be named, dwarfs Loki Patera, the lake of lava detected in 2015 during a rare orbital alignment between Io and Europa. Loki Patera is 202 kilometres (126 mi) in diameter, covers 20,000 sq km (7,700 sq mi), and was the largest volcanic feature found on Io until these new observations revealed the hot spot in the south polar region. The new hot spot covers 100,000 sq km (40,000 sq mi).

Juno also captured images of the hot spot region with its JunoCam imager. Though the images were captured from different distances and are somewhat grainy, they still reveal surface colour changes near the south pole. Scientists know that these colour changes are associated with hot spots and volcanic activity.

Juno’s JunoCam imager captured these images of Io in 2024. They show significant and visible surface changes (indicated by the arrows) near the Jovian moon’s south pole. These changes occurred between the 66th and 68th perijove, or the point during Juno’s orbit when it is closest to Jupiter. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS. Image processing by Jason Perry

Juno will fly by Io again on March 3rd. It will examine the hotspot again and try to discern any more surface changes. Massive eruptions like this one leave their mark on the surface, and these marks can be long-lived. The eruptions can leave behind pyroclastic deposits, lava flows, and sulphur-rich deposits from plumes that colour the moon’s surface. It’s also possible that Earth-based observations can probe the same region.

Scientists have unanswered questions about Io’s extreme volcanic activity. They know tidal heating is the root cause, but they don’t have a clear understanding of how the heat moves through Io’s interior. They also don’t know if the moon has a global, subsurface lava ocean, though some studies suggest it does. They also wonder about the relationship between the volcanoes and Jupiter’s magnetosphere, where much of the material from the volcanoes goes. The long-term evolution of Io’s volcanic activity is also shrouded in mystery. How has it changed over time?

This is a map of the predicted heat flow at the surface of Io from different tidal heating models. Red areas are where more heat is expected at the surface, while blue areas are where less heat is expected. Figure A shows the expected distribution of heat on Io’s surface if tidal heating occurred primarily within the deep mantle, and Figure B is the surface heat flow pattern expected if heating occurs primarily within the asthenosphere. In the deep mantle scenario, surface heat flow concentrates primarily at the poles, whereas in the asthenospheric heating scenario, surface heat flow concentrates near the equator. Credit: NASA/Christopher Hamilton.

Answers to these questions will also tell scientists about volcanism on other worlds.

“While it is always great to witness events that rewrite the record books, this new hot spot can potentially do much more,” said Bolton. “The intriguing feature could improve our understanding of volcanism not only on Io but on other worlds as well.”

The post Juno Sees a Massive Hotspot of Volcanic Activity on Io appeared first on Universe Today.

I think people can use the links below to access the Oxford English Dictionary, which is also on our University of Chicago Library site.  I looked up definitions of “woman” and “female” to see what the OED says, as I regard it as the authoritative source of definitions used in everyday parlance.  So here we go, and I’ve put the links so you can check for yourselves.

“woman”

https://www.oed.com/dictionary/woman_n?tab=meaning_and_use#14234972

 

“female” which gives a bit of a tautological definition for the noun usage:

But in the adjectival form, the OED gives a pretty accurate biological definition of “female”, though it adds “the gender identity associated with this sex”.

 

If you don’t like these (and feel free to browse around for definitions that you like better; I’ve given the first ones), complain to the OED, not me!

And, of course, things may change next year.

A numerical error in a scientific paper created alarm around the chemicals in black plastic utensils, but the extent to which they cause harm is up for debate

The success of Chinese firm DeepSeek suggests tech companies can train and run powerful AIs without consuming vast amounts of power

We will never get an image of the Milky Way from above, but M81 or Bode's galaxy is a good stand-in – and now is a great time to see it, says Leah Crane

A provocative new book delves into the way humans – and elephants – evolved to manage risk. We might do better to think more like elephants

The neck is less than 1 per cent of the human body's surface area, but it plays an oversized role in our lives, reveals Kent Dunlap's engaging natural and cultural history

Various projects aim to reestablish lynx as a wild species in the UK after being absent for centuries, but those involved face formidable hurdles, finds Graham Lawton

Feedback is intrigued (and terrified) by a new paper that suggests you could set off a ridiculously gigantic nuclear bomb deep under the seabed to mop up carbon dioxide