The platform sciencenews.org has a list of scientific discoveries made in 2023. These include the discovery of shock waves, a planetary map made of neutrinos and an infinite surface whose pattern never repeats itself.
After 50 years, mathematicians have found a “one stone”. This is a shape that forms an infinite pattern with its mirror image that never repeats itself. The 13-sided shape is referred to as “the hat.”
One-Stone Tiles: There can be no repeating pattern here. (Graphic: D. Smith, JS Myers, CS Kaplan and C. Goodman-Strauss (CC BY 4.0))
The name Ein-Stein actually comes from the German words “Ein” and “Stein” and has nothing to do with the world-famous physicist. What’s special: Although the tiles fit together neatly, they cannot create a pattern that repeats itself. This is called aperiodic.
Are there intergalactic shock waves wafting through the universe? Astrophysicists found the answer in February. They were able to make phenomena that were otherwise only observed in simulations visible using weak, polarizing radio radiation that was released through interaction with cosmic magnetic fields.
Editorial recommendations
The theory states that shock waves are always released when matter fuses. The electrons, accelerated to almost the speed of light, release synchrotron radiation when they interact with galactic magnetic fields. This “glow”, the echo of the early formation of matter, has now been proven.
Physicists have created the superheavy form oxygen-28 in a particle accelerator for the first time. However, the isotope immediately decayed again. This surprised the scientists because oxygen-28 had full outer rings of protons and neutrons – and was therefore considered stable.
The particle immediately gave off four neutrons, thereby becoming oxygen-24. In doing so, it challenges the conventional understanding of the power of nuclei that bind protons and electrodes.
For the first time, scientists have extracted RNA from an extinct creature. They took samples from a Tasmanian tiger (Thylacine) in the Stockholm Museum of Natural History and managed to obtain not only RNA, but also Thylacine-specific micro-RNA.
The amazing thing: The animal was stored at room temperature and RNA is much more unstable than DNA. One participant said: “This has changed the way we look at museum and archive specimens.” He hopes to reintroduce the tigers in the future.
Shock-frozen corals can be thawed and brought back to life. So-called cryopreservation could help protect and secure coral species. To prevent damage from crystallization, the scientists bathed the corals in a metal container with a dehydration solution.
A bath of liquid nitrogen then waited for the creatures. This method solidified the water so quickly that it could neither crystallize nor expand.
Cartographers created the first galaxy map without light. They used data about nearly massless particles, called neutrinos, and located them in the Milky Way. The map gives an idea of where exactly the Milky Way’s first high-energy neutrinos originated.
The pangenome is an attempt to catalog every building block in the human genome. To do this, researchers collected and compared all of the DNA from 47 people to create the most comprehensive snapshot of human genetic diversity to date.
They hope to use the pangenome to understand molecular principles such as fertility. They also want to get to the bottom of heart disease, Alzheimer’s and other disorders.
The suspicion has existed for a long time: stars eat planets. Now astronomers 10,000 light-years away have observed a sun swallowing a planet that had ten times the mass of Jupiter.
The star received more light from the snack and subsequently belched out some gases. Scientists have calculated that our sun will eat the earth in about five billion years.
