Move over, graphene. Your blinged-up cousin, goldene, has entered the scene. Researchers have accidentally created a single-atom layer of gold. Simulation of 2D goldene layer structure. Credit: S Kashiwaya et al., Nature Synthesis. The new material has been dubbed “goldene” because it replicates the two-dimensionality of the carbon-based graphene. Graphene was discovered in 2004 after being theoretically suggested as far back as 1985. In the 20 years since its first production, graphene has taken the world by storm, showing its usefulness in applications from semiconductors in ultra-fast comp ..read more

Water on other planets and moons may be a crucial clue to finding extraterrestrial life. But finding water, even within our own solar system, is proving to be very difficult. It’s a problem which NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) is hoping to resolve with the JUICE [JUpiter ICy moons Explorer] mission launched a year ago on 14 April 2023. Europa captured by NASA’s Juno mission in 2022. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS, Kevin M. Gill (CC BY 3.0). Its objective is to study Jupiter and three of its Galilean satellites: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. These are all icy worlds which show p ..read more

Despite all appearances, the space between stars, known as the interstellar medium, is anything but empty. Atoms, ions, and molecules reside in this freezing, low-pressure environment. Scientists across disciplines are working to determine the types of chemical reactions that occur in this unique environment, and which produce more than 200 unique molecules known to form there… Most recently researchers have successfully emulated interstellar medium (ISM) reaction conditions on Earth and have been able to study a type of chemical reaction called ion-neutral reactions, using “Coulomb crystals ..read more

Beavers can chew on huge trees but their teeth don’t break, while humans eat lollies and have to head for the dentist. Now researchers say we can learn from that. Human teeth are coated in enamel – a complex crystalline substance  which acts as a protective barrier but can become susceptible to degradation from acids in food and drinks. Enamel is the hardest substance in the human body but is even harder in rodents, which also have an additional outer layer of acid-resistant iron-rich enamel. New high-resolution images of rodent incisors have revealed tiny pockets of iron-rich materials ..read more

The largest stellar black hole in the Milky Way galaxy has been found by the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission. And it is extraordinarily close to Earth. Named as Gaia BH3, it is 33 times the mass of our Sun, more than 50% bigger than the next biggest stellar black hole Cygnus X-1 which is 21 solar masses. Larger black holes exist in our galaxy, but none of these were formed by the collapse of a massive star’s core. For example, Sagittarius A* – the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way – is estimated to be about 4.2 million times that of the Sun. Astronomers have also fou ..read more

Astrophysicists have used data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to determine the source of the brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) of all time. But their results have opened a new mystery. Dubbed BOAT (“brightest of all time”), GRB 221009A was observed in October 2022. Now, it has been shown that the BOAT was generated by the death of a massive star. The star would have initially collapsed in on itself, before violently exploding in a supernova. The findings are detailed in a paper published in Nature Astronomy. But it’s not all so straightforward. “When we confirmed that the GRB was ..read more

A new theory has been proposed for the cause of Parkinson’s disease, which affects millions of people worldwide and its growth sees no signs of slowing down. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease estimated to effect more than 8.5 million individuals in 2019 though the exact causes remain uncertain. Symptoms of PD include motor symptoms – such as tremor, involuntary movement, imbalance, and rigidity – and non-motor symptoms such as cognitive impairment, mental health and sleep disorders, and dementia. Recent theories around the causes suggest the disease is the re ..read more

It is believed that 4.5 billion years ago a young Earth was smashed into by another proto-planet called Theia. The resulting debris formed our Moon. Scientists now think they have a better understanding of how this may have formed the Moon’s mantle. Understanding these mechanisms might help make sense of how other rocky planets like Mars or Earth formed. Mantle sits between the core and crust of rocky planets and plays the crucial role in many geological phenomena including volcanism and the movement of tectonic plates. The Theia hypothesis was first proposed nearly 80 years ago. It is suppor ..read more

To make it in a tough world, the first dinosaurs had to grow up fast according to a study published in the open-access PLOS ONE journal. Fossils analysed in this study came from the Ischigualasto Formation in northwestern Argentina. The rocks in the geological formation date between 231 million and 229 million years old. It is about this time that the first dinosaurs emerged. Over the course of millions of years, dinosaurs became the dominant life on land. Their size and adaptability saw them occupy every ecological niche and they ruled for more than 150 million years. Having rapid growth rat ..read more

A new predictive tool could help physicists tell which materials are worth researching further for the development of next-generation technologies such as lithium-ion batteries and superconductors. And it uses principles from first-year chemistry. Many modern technologies rely on a physical property known as ‘intercalation.’ Intercalation is the reversible insertion of a molecule or ion into a layered structure. For example, in many lithium-ion batteries, the lithium is incorporated in metal-based electrodes when the battery is charging through intercalation. One major drawback is that it is ..read more