New instrument on William Herschel Telescope spots previously unknown strip of ionised iron atoms at the heart of Ring Nebula

The SETI Institute announced that nominations are now open for the 2026 Tarter Award for Innovation in the Search for Life Beyond Earth. The Tarter Award recognizes individuals whose projects or ideas significantly advance humanity’s search for extraterrestrial life and intelligence. 

Named in honor of Dr. Jill Tarter, SETI Institute co-founder and leader in the field of SETI research, the award celebrates contributions across science, technology, education, art, philosophy, law and ethics that support the SETI Institute’s mission to search for life and intelligence beyond Earth. Tarter received the inaugural Tarter Award in 2024.

“The SETI Institute’s Tarter Award recognizes innovators whose creativity produces a concept that helps improve the search for intelligent life beyond Earth, even though its original purpose was something entirely different,” said Tarter. “Although the Keder Welt was invented so long ago that no official inventor has ever been identified, the person who came up with that exceedingly efficient way of attaching fabric sails to a ship’s mast has greatly improved the antennas of the Allen Telescope Array, allowing a radome cover to protect the sensitive electronics at the heart of the signal detection system. We are looking for other creative individuals and their creations that we can use in unexpected ways to do our mission better.”

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Koç University in Istanbul have created hydrogel-based artificial cilia that move almost exactly like real biological cilia – the closest imitation achieved so far. The researchers can program each micrometer-sized cilium to move freely in space – just like cilia in the human body. With their research, the scientists aim to investigate how natural cilia function, how they coordinate their movement, and what role they play in brain development, signal perception, and fluid movement, for example. Because the artificial cilia are soft and easy to control, they could one day be used in medical devices to help people whose natural cilia are damaged or not working properly. The fast, low-voltage motion demonstrated in their study could also inspire a new generation of tiny robots that were previously impossible at such small scales. This milestone work will be published in Nature on January 14, 2026.

A substance poisonous to humans — hydrogen cyanide — may have helped create the seeds of life on Earth. At cold temperatures, hydrogen cyanide forms crystals. And, according to computer models reported in ACS Central Science, some of the facets on these crystals are highly reactive, enabling chemical reactions that are otherwise not possible at low temperatures. The researchers say these reactions could have started a cascade that gave rise to several building blocks of life.

Researchers have created a self-healing composite that is tougher than materials currently used in aircraft wings, turbine blades and other applications – and can repair itself more than 1,000 times. The researchers estimate their self-healing strategy can extend the lifetime of conventional fiber-reinforced composite materials by centuries compared to the current decades-long design-life.