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Water scarcity and extreme heat are becoming two of the biggest threats to modern agriculture. As temperatures rise and rainfall becomes less predictable, farmers around the world are facing increasing difficulty in keeping crops properly hydrated while protecting them from heat stress. Now, researchers led by Liu and colleagues have developed an unusual biological material that could offer a new solution. Instead of relying entirely on irrigation or conventional soil coverings, the team created a living material made from fungal fibres and cellulose that can collect moisture from the atmosphere, move that water toward the soil and help reduce heat around crops. The technology uses a type of mushroom-forming fungus called Pleurotus ostreatus , commonly known as the oyster mushroom. Researchers carefully guided the growth of its microscopic fibres, called mycelium , to create a specially organized structure. A Living Material With a Special Architecture The material begins with a cellu...

Neutron stars are among the most extreme objects in the universe. They are incredibly compact, enormously dense, and contain matter unlike anything that can be naturally produced on Earth. Now, a new study by researchers Kantor, Gusakov and Kraav has revealed an important clue about what happens deep inside these mysterious stars during their final moments before collision. The researchers investigated a process known as hyperon bulk viscosity and its possible influence on gravitational waves produced by pairs of neutron stars spiraling toward each other. Their conclusion is surprising: hyperon bulk viscosity appears to have almost no measurable effect on the gravitational-wave signal, but it can dramatically heat the inner core of a neutron star to around 500 million kelvin. What makes neutron stars so extreme? A neutron star is the incredibly dense leftover core of a massive star that has undergone a supernova explosion. Although a neutron star can have a diameter of only around 20...

What happens when a black hole crashes directly into a massive star? You might expect the black hole to simply destroy the star and continue moving through space. But new research suggests something far more surprising can happen. Under the right conditions, a stellar-mass black hole can become trapped inside a star , surrounded by a huge amount of hot gas. The result is a strange object called a “black hole star,” or BH* . Scientists led by Shi and colleagues studied this unusual process using computer simulations, mathematical models and stellar-evolution calculations. Their work could help scientists understand how massive black holes grew in the early Universe and may even provide clues about mysterious objects discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope. What Happens When a Black Hole Hits a Star? Stars are enormous balls of extremely hot gas. A stellar-mass black hole is much smaller, but its gravity is incredibly strong. When a black hole moves through a star, it has to push th...

Imagine finding a piece of ice inside a giant furnace. It sounds impossible, but something surprisingly similar may be happening in the space around our Solar System. The Sun is located inside a huge region of space called the Local Bubble . This bubble stretches roughly 100–200 parsecs around the Sun, covering hundreds of light-years of space. Much of its interior contains extremely hot plasma, with temperatures reaching around 1 million degrees Kelvin . Yet, inside this incredibly hot region, astronomers have found clouds of gas that are almost unbelievably cold. One of them is the Local Leo Cold Cloud (LLCC) . It is located only about 11–24 parsecs from the Sun , or roughly 36–78 light-years away. While the surrounding Local Bubble can contain million-degree plasma, the LLCC has a temperature of only about 20 Kelvin , which is around −253°C . How can such a cold cloud exist inside such a hot environment? A new study by researchers Rathjen and Linsky provides an important possible ...

What if an inflatable structure could do much more than simply inflate and deflate? Researchers at Harvard have developed a new technology that allows inflatable materials to transform into different shapes and remain stable in each one. The breakthrough could lead to a new generation of lightweight, portable and shape-changing structures. Inflatable objects are already part of everyday life. From pool toys and giant inflatable arches to vehicle airbags and emergency medical equipment, these structures are valued because they are lightweight, flexible and easy to transport. However, most inflatable structures have a major limitation: they generally have only two stable conditions. They are either inflated or deflated. Now, researchers at Harvard have found a way to give inflatable structures several stable shapes. A team of engineers and architectural designers has developed a mechanics-based framework that can control exactly where crumples form in inflatable membranes. Instead of tre...

What if empty space were not really empty—and its invisible quantum activity could actually be used to improve a superconductor? In an important new experiment, an international team of researchers has demonstrated a surprising way to strengthen superconductivity by controlling quantum vacuum fluctuations . Using a specially engineered electromagnetic cavity, the researchers increased the superconducting transition temperature of niobium diselenide (NbSe₂) by as much as 5.4% . Even more remarkably, the material also became more resistant to electrical current and magnetic fields near its superconducting transition. The discovery provides the first experimental evidence that quantum vacuum fluctuations can be deliberately engineered to enhance superconductivity. It also suggests that what we normally think of as “empty space” could become a new control mechanism for manipulating quantum materials. Why Is Empty Space Not Really Empty? In everyday life, we think of a vacuum as completely...

Imagine a material that can be soft along one edge, extremely stiff along another, and capable of changing between these states simply by applying a small deformation. Even more surprising, this transformation can happen without requiring large forces or significant energy. This is the remarkable idea behind transformable topological mechanical metamaterials (TTMMs) —engineered structures whose geometry, rather than their chemical composition, determines how they respond to forces, vibrations and motion. Researchers including Rocklin and his team have shown that carefully designed mechanical lattices can be reversibly transformed between states with dramatically different mechanical and acoustic properties. During this transformation, properties such as edge stiffness and the speed at which sound travels through the material can change by orders of magnitude. The work brings together three fascinating areas of physics: mechanical metamaterials, soft deformation and topology . What Are...