Friday, January 3, 2025

Today in Science: Cosmic superstructures challenge the rules of the universe

Today In Science

January 2, 2025: Happy New Year! We may live in a more irregular universe than we thought. Plus, a sponge that sucks up gold and Jimmy Carter's health care legacy.
Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor
TODAY'S NEWS
Brochosomes. Science Photo Library/Alamy Stock Photo
• Nanotech scientists are building artificial versions of nanoscale soccer-ball-like structures called brochosomes that could be used to make new forms of military camouflage, self-cleaning surfaces or hydrogen fuel. | 5 min read
• Former president Jimmy Carter died on Sunday, December 29th. Carter's charity transformed Guinea worm from a disease that infected millions to one that infects fewer than a dozen worldwide. | 5 min read
• Southern right whales may live up to age 150--double the age previously thought, a new study finds. | 4 min read
• Bacteriophages, viruses resembling tiny rocket ships, may be the future of treating antibiotic-resistant diseases. | 7 min read
More News
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TOP STORIES
An illustration of the cosmic web. Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Alamy Stock Photo

Irregular Universe

Some structures in the universe are so big they defy human conception. A curving collection of galaxies called the Giant Arc spanning some 3.3 billion light-years confounded astronomers when discovered in 2021. And a supersized ring of galaxies called the Big Ring stretches about 1.3 billion light-years across and four billion around. 

Why this is interesting: The existence of superstructures like these bucks against the "cosmological principle," which is the notion that the universe is a relatively homogenous place, with matter distributed regularly. And scientists have observed strange anomalies in the light from the big bang, which glows in all space in the observable universe, and is supposed to be relatively uniform.

What the experts say: If the universe is stranger and contains more dramatic variation than previously thought, then "average" (or uniform) would no longer even be a useful concept at sufficiently large scales. "Different observers may see slightly different universes," at least at large scales, says Valerio Marra, a professor at the Federal University of Espírito Santo in Brazil.

Gold Sponge

Researchers developed a sponge that combines graphene oxide (a thin sheet of carbon and oxygen molecules) with chitosan, a sugar derived from shrimp shells, that can strain out gold from liquid solution. The sponge collected up to 99.5 percent of the gold by weight from liquids, making it possibly the most potent gold adsorber ever created.

Why this matters: Cell phones and other electronic devices are full of gold because of the material's natural conductivity and resistance to corrosion. But extracting gold out of e-waste is a costly and laborious process that relies on caustic materials (like cyanide) and burns electricity.

What the experts say: The components needed to make the sponge aren't cheap either, but adapting the technique for industrial-scale use "is indeed the next step in our research," say the University of Singapore scientists who developed the sponge.
EXPERT PERSPECTIVES
• This year is the centennial of the discovery of human brain waves. Few people know the story of that startling finding, because the true story was suppressed and lost to history, writes R. Douglas Fields, adjunct professor of neuroscience at the University of Maryland, College Park. In researching the history of their discovery, "what I learned overturned accepted history and exposed a chilling tale involving Nazis, brainwaves, war between Russia and Ukraine, and suicide," he says.  | 6 min read
More Opinion
Welcome to a new year of scientific discovery. As I wrote in a special collection of paradigm-shifting science several years ago, the beauty of scientific inquiry is that new findings can take our explorations in unexpected directions. Not only that, but we can uncover an entirely new way of thinking. Scientific American will be reporting on all the surprising twists and turns of science in 2025. Thanks for us joining on this journey.
Reach out any time: newsletters@sciam.com. See you tomorrow!
—Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor
Scientific American
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