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The universe never fails to surprise us with its strange and beautiful creations. Among the most fascinating recent discoveries is PMR 1 , a planetary nebula that looks astonishingly like a human brain enclosed inside a skull. Because of its unusual appearance, astronomers have given it a dramatic nickname: the “Exposed Cranium” Nebula . This bizarre celestial object was recently observed in stunning detail by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Thanks to Webb’s powerful infrared vision, scientists can now see structures in PMR 1 that were never visible before. What looks like gray matter floating in space is actually the final breath of a dying star. Let’s explore what makes PMR 1 so unique—and what it tells us about the life and death of stars. A Nebula That Thinks? Not Quite—But It Looks Like It! PMR 1 is located about 5,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Vela. It was first imaged more than a decade ago by the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope. However, those ea...

Droplets—tiny drops of water or other liquids—play an important role in many technologies. They help move mass, energy, momentum, and even electric charges across surfaces. This makes them useful in hydrogen production, surface cleaning, condensation cooling, energy harvesting, and 3D printing . The problem is, droplet size affects how well they work. Small droplets are easy to make but carry only a little mass and energy. Large droplets can carry more, but gravity stops them from moving freely. For water droplets, there is a natural limit called the capillary length , about 2.7 mm . Above this size, droplets cannot jump on their own. This has been a major obstacle for using bigger droplets in technology. Nature, however, has already solved this problem in its own way. Dew on plant leaves often contains hollow droplets with tiny bubbles inside. When these bubbles burst , the released energy can make the droplet jump, helping the leaf clean itself. Inspired by this, scientists have de...

University of Southampton researchers have developed a groundbreaking robotic wing that can sense and adapt to changes in water flow—much like birds and fish do in nature. This innovation could dramatically improve the stability, efficiency, and maneuverability of underwater robots. The study, published in npj Robotics, introduces a soft robotic wing equipped with advanced sensing technology. In controlled tests, the wing reduced sudden underwater jolts—known as unwanted uplift impulse—by an impressive 87% compared to the rigid wings currently used on most Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs). Learning from Nature’s Design Animals have evolved extraordinary ways to deal with unstable environments. Birds glide smoothly through shifting air currents. Fish swim gracefully through turbulent waters. Their secret lies in flexibility and sensory awareness. Birds rely on a system called proprioception —their internal sense of body position and movement. Feathers can detect subtle airflow cha...

For the first time in history, scientists have directly measured pollution caused by a rocket burning up in Earth’s upper atmosphere. The breakthrough happened after part of a Falcon 9 rocket re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on February 19, 2025, creating a dramatic fireball visible across Europe. While many people admired the glowing streak across the sky, a team of German scientists quickly turned their attention to something far more serious: pollution left behind in one of the least understood parts of our atmosphere. Their findings, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, may change how the world thinks about the environmental impact of the rapidly growing space industry. A Spectacular Re-Entry Sparks Scientific Opportunity In the early hours of February 19, 2025, the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket re-entered Earth’s atmosphere in an uncontrolled descent. As it tumbled through the sky, it exploded into a brilliant fireball visible from the United Kingdom to...

In a breakthrough that could change the future of medicine, scientists have created never-before-seen 3D reconstructions of human liver tissue at a cellular level. This remarkable achievement gives researchers an entirely new view of how one of the body’s most important organs is built—and how it breaks down in disease. The study, published in Science Advances, was led by researchers from UW Medicine and the University of Washington. Their work opens the door to better treatments for liver diseases and may even help scientists engineer artificial replacement organs in the future. The Liver: A Multitasking Powerhouse The human liver is one of the most complex organs in the body. A healthy liver performs more than 500 essential functions that keep us alive and well. These include: Detoxifying harmful chemicals and drugs Processing nutrients from food Producing bile to aid digestion Storing vitamins and minerals Making proteins needed for blood clotting Regulating metabolism Fighting infe...

 Imagine a material that can change its shape all on its own, without motors, batteries, or any external force. Now imagine this happening on a scale so tiny it’s thinner than a human hair. This is no longer science fiction—physicists at Leiden University have made it a reality. Their groundbreaking research on microscopic metamaterials promises to revolutionize how we think about materials, robotics, and smart systems. From Ordinary Materials to Extraordinary Metamaterials Materials in our everyday lives—wood, metal, plastic—have fixed properties. A metal rod bends a certain way; a rubber band stretches in a predictable manner. Traditional materials behave according to their own composition. But metamaterials are different. "Metamaterials have completely changed the way we think about materials," says Professor Daniela Kraft , a leading experimental physicist at Leiden University. "In these systems, movements are no longer set by the material itself, but by the structu...

Imagine a world where someone who loses an ear in an accident—or is born with a congenital deformity—could have a new, fully functional ear grown in a lab. This futuristic vision is coming closer to reality, thanks to a groundbreaking study by researchers from ETH Zurich, the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, and the Cantonal Hospital of Lucerne. For more than 30 years, scientists have sought ways to grow human ears using a patient’s own cells. The challenge has always been to create tissue that is not only the right shape but also elastic, durable, and biologically compatible. In 2016, ETH Professor Marcy Zenobi-Wong and her team made headlines with a 3D-printed ear. Now, the same group, collaborating with other Swiss institutions, has moved another step forward, producing ear cartilage in the laboratory that maintains its structure and shows promising elasticity in animal models. The research, published in Advanced Functional Materials under the title “Tissue Engineered Human E...