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Researchers from Oxford University's Department of Physics have developed a method to integrate hurricane-like magnetic whirls with silicon, which could enable a new generation of green and super-fast computing platforms. Image credit: Anna Bliokh, Getty Images. Researchers from Oxford University's Department of Physics have made a breakthrough in creating and designing magnetic whirls in membranes that can be seamlessly integrated with silicon.

The first clear evidence of freshly baked star dust in a Type Ia supernova has been observed by an international team of astronomers. Monitored over the first three years after its explosion, the team claim the supernova - based in a spiral galaxy around 300 million lightyears away - is one of the most prolific dust-producing supernovae ever recorded.

The springtime emergence of vast swarms of cicadas can be explained by a mathematical model of collective decision-making with similarities to models describing stock market crashes. Pick almost any location in the eastern United States - say, Columbus Ohio. Every 13 or 17 years, as the soil warms in springtime, vast swarms of cicadas emerge from their underground burrows singing their deafening song, take flight and mate, producing offspring for the next cycle.

A new system that harnesses the power of AI to accurately model how sound waves travel underwater could help reduce the impact of noise pollution on marine life. A new system that harnesses the power of AI to accurately model how sound waves travel underwater could help reduce the impact of noise pollution on marine life.

An artist's impression of the system assuming that the massive companion star is a black hole. The brightest background star is its orbital companion, the radio pulsar PSR J0514-4002E. The two stars are separated by 8 million km and circle each other every 7 days. An international team of astronomers have found a new and unknown object in the Milky Way that is heavier than the heaviest neutron stars known and yet simultaneously lighter than the lightest black holes known.

Researchers have discovered the oldest black hole ever observed, dating from the dawn of the universe, and found that it is 'eating' its host galaxy to death. It's a new era: the giant leap in sensitivity, especially in the infrared, is like upgrading from Galileo's telescope to a modern telescope overnight Roberto Maiolino The international team, led by the University of Cambridge, used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to detect the black hole, which dates from 400 million years after the big bang, more than 13 billion years ago.

The global Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration involving UCL researcher Dr Ziri Younsi has released new images of M87*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy Messier 87. The new images are from observations taken in April 2018, one year after the first observations of M87* in April 2017 which resulted in the first ever image of a black hole.

An experiment outlined by a UCL-led team of scientists from the UK and India could test whether relatively large masses have a quantum nature, resolving the question of whether quantum mechanical description works at a much larger scale than that of particles and atoms. Quantum theory is typically seen as describing nature at the tiniest scales and quantum effects have not been observed in a laboratory for objects more massive than about a quintillionth of a gram, or more precisely 10^(-20)g.

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) collaboration involving UCL researchers has achieved one of the most robust measurements of the constraints on the universe's expansion to date. The international group of researchers, led by the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), analysed nearly 1,500 supernovae using machine learning techniques.

From creating new navigation systems to remixing old experiments, here are Imperial's top five quantum moments from 2023. Throughout 2023 Imperial has had many quantum breakthroughs. From wavefunction experiments to satellite-free navigation systems, this is 2023's round-up of quantum research at Imperial and how it's making its way out of the lab.

Ancient bricks inscribed with the names of Mesopotamian kings have yielded important insights into a mysterious anomaly in Earth's magnetic field 3,000 years ago, according to a new study involving UCL researchers. The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) , describes how changes in the Earth's magnetic field imprinted on iron oxide grains within ancient clay bricks, and how scientists were able to reconstruct these changes from the names of the kings inscribed on the bricks.

Scientists at the University of Manchester Unveil Inorganic Stamp Technology for Creating Atomically Clean Interfaces Key Highlights Atomically clean interfaces: The new stamp design has enabled the creation of atomically clean interfaces between stacked 2D materials over extended areas, a significant improvement over existing techniques.

Researchers have discovered magnetic monopoles - isolated magnetic charges - in a material closely related to rust, a result that could be used to power greener and faster computing technologies. If monopoles did exist, and we were able to isolate them, it would be like finding a missing puzzle piece that was assumed to be lost Mete Atatüre Researchers led by the University of Cambridge used a technique known as diamond quantum sensing to observe swirling textures and faint magnetic signals on the surface of hematite, a type of iron oxide.

A radical theory that consistently unifies gravity and quantum mechanics while preserving Einstein's classical concept of spacetime is announced today in two papers published simultaneously by UCL physicists. Modern physics is founded upon two pillars: quantum theory on the one hand, which governs the smallest particles in the universe, and Einstein's theory of general relativity on the other, which explains gravity through the bending of spacetime.

A radical theory that consistently unifies gravity and quantum mechanics while preserving Einstein's classical concept of spacetime is announced today in two papers published simultaneously by UCL physicists. Modern physics is founded upon two pillars: quantum theory on the one hand, which governs the smallest particles in the universe, and Einstein's theory of general relativity on the other, which explains gravity through the bending of spacetime.

An entirely new way to probe how active black holes behave when they eat has been discovered by an international team of astronomers. A sample of active black holes at the centre of 136 galaxies were found to shine in microwave and X-ray light in the same way, no matter their appetite for the surrounding galactic matter like clouds of gas and dust.

Luminous fast blue optical transients are characterized by their intense blue light and are amongst the brightest known optical phenomena in the universe. They evolve rapidly, reaching peak brightness and fading again in a matter of days, unlike supernovae which take weeks or months. Image credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M.

A form of brain-inspired computing that exploits the intrinsic physical properties of a material to dramatically reduce energy use is now a step closer to reality, thanks to a new study led by UCL and Imperial College London researchers. Such an approach, known as physical reservoir computing, has until now been limited due to its lack of reconfigurability.

The European Space Agency (ESA) mission Euclid, whose massive optical camera was built by an international team led by UCL researchers, has released its first full-colour images of the cosmos. This is the first time a telescope has been able to create such razor-sharp astronomical images across such a large patch of the sky, and looking so far into the distant Universe.

"Understanding the connection between electronic and ion transport properties in electrode-electrolyte interfaces at the molecular scale could enable new strategies to accelerate processes central to many renewable energy technologies, including hydrogen generation and utilisation." Researchers from the National Graphene Institute at the University of Manchester have discovered a way to use light to accelerate proton transport through graphene , which could revolutionise the way we generate hydrogen.