Physicists from Trinity College Dublin believe new insights into the behavior of light may offer a new means of solving one of science's oldest challenges—how to turn heat into useful energy.

Their theoretical leap forwards, which will now be tested in the lab, could influence the development of specialized devices that would ultimately increase the amount of energy we can capture from sunlight (and lamps and LEDs) and then repurpose to perform useful tasks.

The work has just been published in the journal, Physical Review A.

When photons (particles of light) are trapped in microscopic optical devices, they can undergo a form of condensation, where they behave collectively rather than as independent particles. In practice, this concentrates light energy into a small, intense beam of a single very pure color, similar to the output of a laser.

This phenomenon has been seen in experiments, but only when the energy input is already in the concentrated form provided by a laser. Now though, thanks to the new theoretical analysis, the physicists think it can be achieved using input energy in a diffused form, like that readily provided by sunlight, lamps, or LEDs.

Paul Eastham, Naughton Associate Professor, School of Physics, Trinity, is the senior author of the study. He said, "We modeled the behavior of devices which trap light in a small region of space and found that this behavior is related to the general properties of heat engines: machines that convert disorganized energy, which we physicists call 'heat,' into a useful form, which we call 'work.'"

"In this way, the same laws that limit steam engines and power plants determine whether photons condense or not. Beyond the conceptual appeal of this work, we believe it could influence the development of optical devices which rely on channeling the flow of light energy at the quantum level, from solar cells to microscopic engines powered by radiation."

The world's oceans absorbed a record amount of heat in 2025, an international team of scientists said Friday, further priming conditions for sea level rise, violent storms, and coral death.

The heat that has accumulated in the oceans last year increased by approximately 23 zettajoules—an amount equivalent to nearly four decades of global primary energy consumption.

This finding—published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences—was the highest reading of any year since modern record keeping began in the early 1950s, researchers said.

To derive these calculations, more than 50 scientists from 31 research institutions used multiple sources including a thousands-strong fleet of floating robots that track ocean changes to depths of 2,000 meters.

Peering into the depths, rather than fluctuations at the surface, provides a better indicator of how oceans are responding to "sustained pressure" from humanity's emissions, said study co-author Karina von Schuckmann.

How to change your camera battery in weightlessness.

Tuberculosis has plagued humanity for thousands of years, and despite medical advances that can now help us prevent and cure it, the ancient bacterial disease still claims more human lives per year than any other infectious pathogen.

In a new study, researchers unveil a device meant to demystify the early stages of TB, including a peculiar delay that often precedes the onset of symptoms.

Their model could also reveal how genetic variations in patients lead to varying effects of TB, with potentially broad implications for personalized medicine.

About a quarter of our species is infected with TB bacteria, and while only a fraction of those people will become sick, that still amounts to more than 10 million new cases – and more than 1 million deaths – per year worldwide.

TB progresses slowly, with symptoms often taking months to appear. To learn more about this lag, the authors focused on tiny air sacs in the lungs, pulmonary alveoli, which host pivotal confrontations between immune cells and bacteria.

Whether you have a full seasonal rotation or just layer up, changing clothes for the cold is natural for us - but did you know that some animals do this too?

See how and why some species go white in the winter in this week’s Surprising Science! ❄️

Sponges are considered some of the oldest animals on Earth, yet researchers have struggled to pin down when they first appeared. Studies of DNA from modern sponges, together with chemical clues preserved in ancient rocks, point to an origin at least 650 million years ago. The research was recently published in Science Advances.

That early date has sparked debate because it comes at least 100 million years before the earliest known sponge fossils. An international research team led by Dr. M. Eleonora Rossi of the University of Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences set out to resolve this mismatch by focusing on how sponge skeletons evolved.

Your ability to notice what matters visually comes from an ancient brain system over 500 million years old. The brain can make sense of the visual world even without relying on its most advanced outer layer, the cortex. A new study published in PLOS Biology shows that a far older brain structure, known as the superior colliculus, has the neural machinery needed to carry out essential visual computations. These processes allow the brain to separate objects from their background and determine which visual signals matter most in a given space.

The research also shows that these ancient circuits, which exist in all vertebrate brains, can independently produce center surround interactions. This basic visual principle helps the brain detect contrast, edges, and visually important features in the environment.

On Jan. 8th, 2026, NASA announced its decision to return the SpaceX Crew-11 mission to Earth from the International Space Station earlier than originally planned. This unprecedented move came after one of the crew members reportedly experienced a health-related issue that required full medical services. While the crew member (who has not been identified for privacy reasons) was reported to be in stable condition, NASA will go ahead with the early return mission. According to the latest updates, the Crew-11 mission team will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on Thursday, Jan.15th. at approximately 3:40 a.m. EST (Jan. 14th, 12:40 pm PST).

The crew consists of NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, who will splash down off the coast of California at approximately 3:40 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 15th. NASA is also working with SpaceX and international partners to review launch options for the Crew-12 mission. This will leave the station in the hands of the remaining three flight engineers of Expedition 74, consisting of NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikayev.

🛰️Pandora’s near-infrared detector is a spare developed for NASAWebb, which is THE observatory most sensitive to exoplanet atmospheres.

Pandora will observe its targets for 24 hours, something flagship missions like Webb, which are in high demand, cannot regularly do.

The biomedical animator Drew Berry is known for his dazzling visualisations of biological processes that unfold on microscopic scales. As enlightening as it is arresting, his imagery straddles the line between science and art, as seen in his work as the in-house animator for the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) in Melbourne, Australia, and in his music video collaboration with Björk.

This animation illustrates a process called homologous recombination, in which specialised proteins repair damaged DNA by using an intact copy as a template – failures of which can increase one’s risk of cancer. Through this glimpse into the worlds within us, Berry highlights the intricate biology that plays out inside each of us unseen, shaped by millennia of evolution.

We’re used to thinking of the brain as an electric organ. The rest of the body? Not so much. But it would be a mistake to dismiss your other tissues as dumb hunks of electrically inert flesh. Even the protective layers of cells that compose your skin and line your organs use electrical signals to make decisions, according to recent research.

Results published in Nature show that cells use bioelectricity to coordinate a complex collective behavior called extrusion, a vital process that ejects sick or struggling individual cells from tissue to maintain health and keep growth in check. Merciless as it might seem, extrusion helps keep you alive. It’s vital for the health of protective epithelial tissues, and when it goes wrong, it can contribute to disease, including cancer and asthma. Until now, it’s been unclear how cells were singled out for this process.

According to the new results, as epithelial tissue grows, cells are packed more tightly together, which increases the electrical current flowing through each cell’s membrane. A weak, old, or energy-starved cell will struggle to compensate, triggering a response that sends water rushing out of the cell, shriveling it up and marking it for death. In this way, electricity acts like a health checkup for the tissue and guides the pruning process.

NASA is ramping up its efforts to search for signs of life throughout the universe, and has directed companies to begin developing technologies that will help it do so using the space agency's Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) space telescope concept.

Seven companies have been awarded three-year, fixed-price contracts to explore the engineering challenges that need tackling in order to create what will be one of NASA's most powerful telescopes ever. The companies include Astroscale, BAE Systems Space and Mission Systems, Busek, L3Harris, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Zecoat.

Each will study ways to fulfill the hardware requirements for HWO, which is being designed to search for signs of life by looking at the light passing through the atmospheres of planets as they orbit stars hundreds and thousands of light-years away. In a Jan. 5 statement announcing the contract selectees, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman called the project "exactly the kind of bold, forward-leaning science that only NASA can undertake.”

Plastic is everywhere in modern society. While it has paved the way for enormous progress, the pollution it leaves behind is now creating major challenges.

Plastic—or more specifically, synthetic materials made from the chemical treatment of petroleum—has been a feature of our lives since the 1950s, and the volume produced every year is growing at a dizzying pace. Production has more than doubled in the past two decades, from 200 million tons in 2000 to over 400 million in 2024.

Yet end-of-life plastic is a serious problem. Less than 10% of the plastic used globally is recycled. And while 19% is incinerated, only a fraction of that is used to generate heat for other purposes, such as for district heating or power production, or burned with filters in place to reduce air pollution.

The vast majority of plastic ends up in huge landfills in developing countries or dumped into the ocean (at the rate of 15 metric tons per minute), where it either disappears deep under water or aggregates into massive floating garbage patches in the mid-Pacific—which together exceed the size of France several times over.

What's more, the particles released as plastic breaks down pollute every corner of our planet. Microplastic has been found everywhere: in the air, on the ground, in the sea—where it threatens the lives of marine organisms—in permanent snow and even in the produce we eat.

Physicists from the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity at the University of Bremen and the Transylvanian University of Brașov have unveiled a new theoretical framework that could rewrite how we understand the accelerating expansion of the Universe — and potentially render the mysterious dark energy obsolete. They’ve proposed that the acceleration may be a fundamental feature of spacetime geometry itself, rather than the product of an unknown cosmic force.

#PPOD: Neptune 🔵

NASAVoyager 2 made its closest approach to #Neptune in 1989, flying by 4,950 km above its cloud tops. It is still the only spacecraft to have visited the planet! The mission revealed 6 new moons, rings, and geysers erupting from the moon Triton. This Voyager 2 image of Neptune, processed by Kevin Gill, was captured on Aug. 31, 1989.

Credit: NASA NASAJPL Caltech / Kevin M. Gill

In the United States, ultra-processed foods (UPFs) now account for more than half of the calories people eat each day. These products include fast food and packaged snacks that are typically high in salt, added sugars and unhealthy fats. Previous research has firmly connected heavy consumption of these foods to type 2 diabetes and other chronic illnesses in adults, but their impact on younger people has received far less attention.

To help fill that gap, scientists at the Keck School of Medicine of USC conducted one of the first long-term studies focused on how UPFs affect glucose processing, a key indicator of diabetes risk. By following participants over several years, the researchers were able to observe how changes in diet were linked to changes inside the body.

Four-Year Study Tracks Early Metabolic Changes
The research team followed 85 young adults for a four-year period. Their analysis showed that participants who increased their intake of ultra-processed foods were more likely to develop prediabetes, a condition marked by elevated blood sugar levels that often precedes type 2 diabetes. Higher UPF consumption was also associated with insulin resistance, meaning the body struggled to use insulin effectively to regulate blood sugar.

The study, which received partial funding from the National Institutes of Health, was recently published in the journal Nutrition and Metabolism.

“Our findings show that even modest increases in ultra-processed food intake can disrupt glucose regulation in young adults at risk for obesity. These results point to diet as a modifiable driver of early metabolic disease, and an urgent target for prevention strategies among young people,” said Vaia Lida Chatzi, MD, PhD, a professor of population and public health sciences and pediatrics and director of the Southern California Superfund Research and Training Program for PFAS Assessment, Remediation and Prevention (ShARP) Center at the Keck School of Medicine, who is the study’s senior author.