Mathematicians put AI to work on Fermat's last theorem
Pierre de Fermat was a 17th-century mathematician Lebrecht Music& Arts, YAY Media AS/Alamy
In the lobby of a central London hotel, tourists are bracing themselves for a day of sightseeing in a heatwave. Meanwhile, staff are resetting the dining room after breakfast. And in a windowless meeting room, assembled academics are contemplating whether humans have a role to play in the future of mathematics, now that AI can prove theorems by itself.
Astronomers reveal how clouds shape the hidden interiors of the galaxy's most common planets
Sub-Neptunes are the most common type of planet in our galaxy. Bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, these worlds remain deeply mysterious because scientists still do not know what they are made of. What astronomers really want to figure out is their interior composition. They could be rocky planets wrapped in hydrogen-rich atmospheres, or they could be volatile-rich worlds loaded with water or carbon-bearing molecules.
The Matua people: Sounds and rituals strengthen cross-border sense of community
Professor Carola Lorea of the University of Tübingen's Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology has published a comprehensive academic study on the Matua, a community of 50 million people scattered across India, Bangladesh and 32 other nations in the wake of evictions and forced migration. Despite national borders and natural barriers such as the Bay of Bengal Delta, swamps and the sea, the community's cohesion has only grown over the decades. Lorea's work represents more than 10 years of field studies into Matua life, and she describes how religious songs, drum rhythms and shared stories play a vital role in Matua society and have even made a protest movement possible.
From The Godfather to Middlemarch: 8 of the most faithful adaptations ever
Adapting canonical literary classics into cinema is an inherently difficult task, as it requires walking a razor's edge between remaining faithful to the text and translating it into another medium.
Morning glories reveal 96% drop in adaptation as pollinator pressure reshapes evolution
Facing both climate change and a crashing pollinator population, plants may be evolving to attract pollinators rather than adapting to a warming climate, and the trade-off has resulted in a steep decline in plants' rate of adaptation, according to a University of Michigan study. The researchers, studying morning glories, observed a 96% decrease in the population's rate of adaptation over nine years. The declining rate of adaptation could affect farmers, who deal with morning glory as an agricultural nuisance. The research is published in the journal Evolution Letters.
New technique takes the heat out of 3D printing process
Researchers have developed a new 3D printing technique that allows the printing of whole objects while controlling the temperature of the chemical reaction to stabilize the process. Academics in the University of Nottingham's Faculty of Engineering, in collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley, have developed an enhancement for a type of 3D printing called Volumetric Additive Manufacturing (VAM), which can create whole objects in seconds to minutes. The research has been published in Nature Communications.
The ghost in Orion's shell: Hydrogen maps show repeated stellar feedback sculpted around Orion Nebula
An international team led by Juan Diego Soler at the University of Vienna used two of the world's most powerful radio telescopes to uncover previously hidden structures within the Orion Nebula. The project produced the sharpest maps ever made of neutral hydrogen in that region of massive star formation. The findings expose the complex relationship of star-forming regions with their environment and suggest that the Orion Nebula has been shaped by multiple episodes of stellar feedback rather than a single expanding bubble. The study has been published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Ancient fossil may reveal animal kingdom's earliest right-handedness at 550 million years old
Scientists have uncovered what may be the earliest evidence of "right-handedness" in the animal kingdom, dating back more than half a billion years. The discovery comes from the fossil record of Spriggina floundersi, an organism from the Ediacaran Period that lived about 550 million years ago.
Hidden deep-sea turbulence could alter climate and fisheries within one lifetime
Tiny, invisible swirls and twirls—not much bigger than a coin—deep below the ocean's surface are silently shaping some of the biggest forces shaping our climate: sea level rise, fisheries collapse, extreme flooding and how much carbon dioxide the ocean absorbs.
Artemis II astronauts reunite with their moonship 3 months after record-breaking flight
The Artemis II astronauts reunited with their capsule Wednesday three months after flying around the moon and traveling deeper into space than anyone in history.