Astronomers have spotted one of the oldest ‘dead’ galaxies yet identified, and found that a growing supermassive black hole can slowly starve a galaxy rather than tear it apart.

A new study published in Conservation Biology examines the behavior and distributions of queen conch (Aliger gigas) to guide conservation management for the threatened sea snail. The research, which tracked adult snail movements, suggests that establishing a 330-meter spatial buffer – about the height of the Eiffel Tower by comparison – around breeding areas could help protect conch populations and serve as a practical tool for local management.

The largest structures in the universe are galaxy clusters—groups of galaxies held together by gravity. Their developmental history is now being rewritten—thanks to a student’s bachelor project.

Topological photonics promises robust light transport immune to disorder, but existing linear systems are essentially static and cannot be reconfigured after fabrication. Now, a collaboration of researchers have shown that picosecond time-scale reconfigurable topological routing can be achieved using nonlinear physics in driven-dissipative exciton–polariton lattices, and proved its topology using a real-space framework. This advance will enable adaptive and disorder-immune photonic circuitry for next-generation communication, quantum, and ultrafast optical technologies.

New research into JWST images provides possible answers to three seemingly disparate, yet pressing, cosmic dawn puzzles. Specifically, the authors show how Dark Stars could help explain the unexpected discovery of Blue Monster galaxies, the numerous early overmassive black hole galaxies, and the little red dots” in images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).