Researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of East Anglia have shown that carefully shaped light can reveal important chiral effects in free space, without the complex materials or extreme focusing conditions that scientists once thought were necessary. The finding could help improve optical sensing, imaging, communication and future quantum technologies. 

An international collaboration has discovered two of the lowest-density giant planets ever detected: rare ‘super-puff’ planets with densities lower than candy floss. The study -led by the University of Oxford, in collaboration with Université Côte d’Azur/Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur and the University of Birmingham - has been published today (26 June) in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

A physics team led by the University of Iowa has described a “super expanded” magnetic cloud created by a coronal mass ejection on the sun. The team tracked the cloud as it approached Earth. The new information could lead to better predictions of future, super expanded magnetic clouds that could lead to satellite and telecommunications disruptions on Earth. 

Using the loudest gravitational wave ever heard, scientists have witnessed, for the first time, the previously elusive “event horizon” - at the actual moment of collision, right before all light and sound are swallowed by the newly formed black hole for eternity. The way they "heard" it is described in Nature.

Trees shape climate, biodiversity, rural livelihoods, and the global bioeconomy, yet many remain invisible to today's large-scale monitoring systems.

Leaf functional traits—chlorophyll (CHL), carotenoid (CAR), equivalent water thickness (EWT), nitrogen (N), and leaf mass per area (LMA)—are essential for monitoring crop health and ecosystem productivity.