Meet the astronomer digging into the Milky Way's 'fossils'

Amina Helmi's passion for the Milky Way is clear as soon as one steps into her small office at the University of Groningen, in the north of the Netherlands.

Rain dampens France fire, as Spain reports 'almost no flames'

Firefighters in France on Thursday were hopeful a massive forest fire was no longer spreading, as Spain said there were "almost no flames" left after a similar blaze near Madrid.

Flat head syndrome discovered in Iron Age skeletons | New Scientist

Flat head syndrome, commonly associated with modern parenting practices, especially placing babies to sleep on their backs, may have been common at least 2800 years ago.

Ultrafast X-rays capture chemistry unfolding atom by atom

Scientists have observed how energy moves through a molecule immediately after it absorbs light, revealing that individual atoms can record very different parts of the transformation.

Using rapid X-ray flashes produced at the European XFEL, the researchers followed changes at specific atoms as the molecule released and redistributed the absorbed energy. Their results show that exposure to light can make an atom more responsive to the movement of neighboring atoms.

An ancient civilization of millions once flourished in the Amazon

New research conducted using airborne laser scanning reveals that a multicultural civilization that flourished in southwestern Amazonia between 600 BCE and 850 CE was home to millions of people. Spanning roughly 183,000 square kilometers (71,000 square miles), the Aquiry civilization built large centers for political and ritual purposes.

First electrically pumped perovskite polariton laser diode solves a decades-long challenge

Resolving a long-standing problem in semiconductor physics and optoelectronics, a team of researchers from Skoltech—a VEB.RF group institution—and their colleagues from ITMO University and HSE University have for the first time demonstrated direct electrical pumping of a polariton laser based on a solution-processed halide perovskite microcrystal. Published in Nature, this solution to a decades-long technological challenge ushers in inexpensive nonepitaxial laser diodes operating under continuous electric current. These could be used in optical sensing and spectroscopy, high-speed computing and energy-efficient neuromorphic computing.

Kitchen cling film helps build centimeter-scale ultrathin electronics and optics

As materials become thinner—now reaching the thickness of single atoms—it has become increasingly difficult to create sufficiently large sheets and transfer them without cracking them into tiny flakes. Recent work by a broad Amsterdam-based team of scientists, published in the journal ACS Nano, presents a new technique that solves this problem using an unexpected material found in any home kitchen.

What Godzilla can teach us about Donald Trump

He tramples things without intending to. He was created by us. He never permanently goes away. In recent years, metaphorical representations of Donald Trump as the Japanese kaiju Godzilla have become common. Now, a paper published in De Gruyter Brill's The Forum argues that the Showa period Godzilla films (1954–75) can be read as an allegory of Trump's political career from 2016–24.

Unique fossil reveals the internal organs of a 245-million-year-old marine reptile

Scientists from China, Europe and the U.S., including Dr. Stephan Spiekman, a paleontologist at the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart and the University of Hohenheim, have described a fossil of the long-necked marine reptile Austronaga minuta from China. Although this reptile descended from land-dwelling reptiles, it was already well adapted to life in the water around 245 million years ago.

Flexible DNA directs proteins into atomically ordered crystals, overturning crystallization assumptions

For decades, scientists have largely relied on painstaking trial and error to coax proteins into crystalline forms. Crystallization enables scientists to determine the molecular structures of proteins, which can provide a blueprint for designing drugs, engineering enzymes and understanding disease.