For the first time, scientists have observed the iconic Shapiro steps, a staircase-like quantum effect, in ultracold atoms.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team of astronomers has observed an elliptical galaxy known as NGC 4486B. Results of the observational campaign, published Dec. 16 on the arXiv preprint server, deliver important insights into the properties of the double nucleus of this galaxy.

Leading X-ray space telescopes XMM-Newton and XRISM have spotted a never-seen-before blast from a supermassive black hole. In a matter of hours, the gravitational monster whipped up powerful winds, flinging material out into space at eye-watering speeds of 60,000 km per second.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are among the most powerful explosions in the universe, second only to the Big Bang. The majority of these bursts are observed to flash and fade within a few seconds to minutes. But on 2 July 2025, astronomers were alerted to a GRB source that was exhibiting repeating bursts and would end up lasting over seven hours. This event, dubbed GRB 250702B, is the longest gamma-ray burst humans have ever witnessed.

In the Middle Ages, a plague killed a third of Europe's population. Fleas carried the plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, transmitting the Black Death from infected rats to millions of people.

In a recent study published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Dr. Bernardo Arriaza argues that the practice of artificial mummification among the Chinchorro people may have evolved as a response to high infant mortality rates, with the artistic mummification of the dead helping minimize the social pain of the parents and their families.

Legend once had it that the huge, three-toed footprints scattered across the central highlands of Bolivia came from supernaturally strong monsters—capable of sinking their claws even into solid stone.

An elusive wild cat long feared extinct in Thailand has been rediscovered three decades after the last recorded sighting, conservation authorities and an NGO said Friday.

Altermagnets are a newly recognized class of antiferromagnets whose magnetic structure behaves very differently from what is found in conventional systems. In conventional antiferromagnets, the sublattices are linked by simple inversion or translation, resulting in spin-degenerate electronic bands. In altermagnets, however, they are connected by unconventional symmetries such as rotations or screw axes. This shift in symmetry breaks the spin degeneracy, allowing for spin-polarized electron currents even in the absence of net magnetization.

Quantum spin liquids are exotic states of matter in which spins (i.e., the intrinsic angular momentum of electrons) do not settle into an ordered pattern and continue to fluctuate, even at extremely low temperatures. This state is characterized by high entanglement, a quantum effect that causes particles to become linked so that the state of one affects the others' states, even over long distances.