MIT astronomers have analyzed the scintillation – or glistening - produced by a fast radio burst (FRB) to help identify the location of the pulses, reports Ashley Strickland for CNN. “We discovered that this FRB exhibits ‘twinkling,’ similar to how stars appear to twinkle in the night sky,” explains postdoc Kenzie Nimmo. “Observing this scintillation indicates that the region where the FRB originated must be incredibly small.”
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have developed a new vaccine that “could be potentially used against a broad array of coronaviruses like the one that causes Covid-19 and potentially forestall future pandemics,” reports Alex Knapp for Forbes. “The vaccine involves attaching tiny pieces of virus that remain unchanged across related strains to a nanoparticle,” explains Knapp.
USA Today reporter Eric Lagatta writes that a new study by MIT researchers finds that X-ray flashes emanating from a supermassive black hole located 270 million light-years from the Milky Way could be caused by a dead stellar remnant, or white dwarf. The researchers believe that the white dwarf could be “spinning precariously on the edge of the black hole, causing the explosions of high-energy light.”
MIT astronomers have detected X-ray flashes erupting from a supermassive black hole that seem to be caused by a nearby white dwarf, reports Will Dunham for Reuters. “It is probably the closest object we've ever observed orbiting around a supermassive black hole,” says graduate student Megan Masterson. “This is extremely close to the black hole's event horizon.”
MIT astronomers have witnessed flashes of X-rays shooting out of a black hole and believe that a dead star, or white dwarf, passing close by the black hole could be causing the eruptions, reports Mark Kaufman for Mashable. “The astronomers ran simulations of what could drive these unusual bursts of energy,” writes Kaufman. “The most plausible outcome is this brazen white dwarf (the spent core of a sun-like star), which is about one-tenth the mass of our sun. It's shedding its dense, outer layer and triggering these pulses of X-rays.”
Space.com reporter Robert Lea writes that using the XMM-Newton X-ray telescope, MIT astronomers have observed bursts of X-rays erupting with increasing frequency from a supermassive black hole, a behavior they think could be caused by a “dead stellar core, or white dwarf, daringly teetering on the edge of the black hole.” Lea explains that “if the source of these strange episodes is a finely balanced white dwarf, the researchers theorize that it could be detected using ripples in space and time called gravitational waves emitted from the system.”
Quanta Magazine reporter Charlie Wood spotlights how MIT researchers have contributed to the recent discoveries of new superconductive materials. Prof. Long Ju and his research team “placed a five-layer graphene flake on an insulator at a twisted angle and observed a rare electron behavior that normally requires a strong magnetic field to induce,” explains Wood.
Prof. Anna Frebel spotlights the work of Cecilia Payne, whose research “laid the foundation of stellar astrophysics,” reports Liz Kruesi for National Geographic. “It is such a fundamental piece of understanding for humanity,” says Frebel of the importance of Payne’s work discovering that stars are mainly made up of hydrogen and helium
Prof. Tracy Slatyer speaks with Salon reporter Elizabeth Hlavinka about the mysteries of dark matter. “It could be that this idea that we’re going to test this experimentally is just a false hope,” Slatyer explains. “But at the same time, given what we know, dark matter could be a new particle that is lighter than any of the particles we know about, something that is being produced all the time around us, particles that are continually flying through the room — and you just need to put up a sensitive detector and you will find them.”
Prof. Rob Simcoe speaks with Knowable Magazine reporter Elizabeth Quill about the role of the James Webb Telescope in advancing scientific discoveries. “The tools that we can bring to bear now on studying this epoch of cosmic history are unlike anything we’ve had before,” says Simcoe.
In an interview with CNBC, Prof. Max Tegmark highlights the importance of increased AI regulation, specifically as a method to mitigate potential harm from large language models. “All other technologies in the United States, all other industries, have some kind of safety standards,” says Tegmark. “The only industry that is completely unregulated right now, which has no safety standards, is AI.”
Physics World has selected two research advances by MIT physicists for its Top 10 Breakthroughs of the Year for 2024, reports Hamish Johnston for Physics World. Graduate student Andrew Denniston and his colleagues were honored for their work “being the first to unify two distinct descriptions of atomic nuclei,” which Johnston describes as a “major step forward in our understanding of nuclear structure and strong interactions.” MIT researchers were also featured for their work demonstrating quantum error correction on an atomic processor with 48 logical qubits, making it “far more likely that quantum computers will become practical problem-solving machines.”
Three mathematicians, including graduate student Aleksandr Zimin, have disproved the “bunkbed conjecture,” offering “fresh guidance on how to approach related problems in physics about properties of solid materials,” reports Joseph Howlett for Quanta Magazine.
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have discovered a “black-hole triple, the first known instance of a three-body system that includes a black hole, which is not supposed to be part of the mix,” reports Dennis Overbye for The New York Times. The researchers propose that the black hole “could have resulted from a sort of immaculate conception whereby the progenitor star disappeared from the universe without any fireworks.”
Astronomers from MIT and elsewhere have “identified a black hole that appears to have come into being through the collapse of the core of a large star in its death throes, but without the usual blast,” explains Will Dunham for Reuters. “Black holes have previously been spotted orbiting with one other star or one other black hole in what are called binary systems,” explains Dunham. “But this is the first known instance of a triple system with a black hole and two stars.”