Space-based nuclear detonation detection mission endures

Visual safety observers Debra Yzquierdo, left, and Naomi Baros watch the skies for aircraft atop an observation platform.
Photo Credit: Craig Fritz

Roughly 12,550 miles above Earth, a constellation of U.S. global positioning satellites orbits the planet. GPS satellites also carry a sophisticated system designed to detect above ground nuclear detonations anytime, anywhere.

The Global Burst Detection system, developed by Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories, carries a suite of sensors and instruments capable of identifying signals from nuclear detonations and providing real-time information to the U.S. military and government.

The final system in the current block of eight systems launched into space in May 2025. Meanwhile, the next series, scheduled for initial deployment in 2027, already has several units completed and ready to be integrated with host satellites.

This mission has endured for more than 60 years at the Labs. Teams of engineers, scientists and technologists work a decade ahead to develop new complex technologies that can withstand the harsh space environment while countering evolving threats.

Hostile hoots make robins eat less at night

At night, the little robin is extra vigilant
Photo Credit: Johan Nilsson

The sound of tawny owls makes young European robins eat less during their southward migration. A new study from Lund University in Sweden shows how the threat from nocturnal predators affects the birds’ behaviour – and by extension their survival.

When young robins embark on their first southward migration in the autumn, they make regular stops along the way to rest and replenish their energy reserves. However, each stop entails a risk – predators may be lurking nearby. 

In an article in the Journal of Animal Ecology, a research team has established that migrating birds are not only aware of threats around them, but also adapt their behaviour based on which predator calls they hear.

Boreal plants spread into the arctic tundra

The Grövelsjö mountains in the northern corner of Dalarna are home to the largest colonisation of boreal species on the bare mountains.
Photo Credit: Tage Vowles

A new international study involving researchers from the University of Gothenburg shows that vegetation in the Arctic is changing rapidly as species from nearby forests spread into the tundra. This change is occurring in half of the 1,100 areas studied and is mainly driven by species that already exist in the transition zone between forest and tundra.

In an increasingly warmer world, the Arctic tundra is becoming more forestlike. This process, known as borealisation, is particularly widespread in Eurasia and in Arctic mountain regions, where the distance to the boreal (northern) forest is shorter. Many species of grasses and shrubs that can live in both the tundra and the forest are gaining ground in the tundra. This is shown by a new large-scale study of 1,100 sampling sites across the entire Arctic biome.

New type of time crystals discovered

Time crystal 
Correlations between quantum particles result in a rhythmic signal – without the need for an external beat to set the tempo.
Image Credit: © TU Wien

Nature has many rhythms: the seasons result from the Earth's movement around the sun; the ticking of a pendulum clock results from the oscillation of its pendulum. These phenomena can be understood with very simple equations.

However, regular rhythms can also arise in a completely different way – by themselves, without an external clock, through the complex interaction of many particles. Instead of uniform disorder, a fixed rhythm emerges – this is referred to as a ‘time crystal’. Calculations by TU Wien (Vienna) now show that such time crystals can also be generated in a completely different way than previously thought. The quantum physical correlations between the particles, which were previously thought to be harmful for the emergence of such phenomena, can actually stabilize time crystals. This is a surprising new insight into the quantum physics of many-particle systems.

Ice dissolves iron faster than liquid water

When ice freezes and thaws repeatedly, chemical reactions are fuelled that can have significant impact on ecosystems. The photo was taken in Stordalen, Abisko.
Photo Credit: Jean-François Boily

Ice can dissolve iron minerals more effectively than liquid water, according to a new study from Umeå University. The discovery could help explain why many Arctic rivers are now turning rusty orange as permafrost thaws in a warming climate.

The study, recently published in the scientific journal PNAS, shows that ice at minus ten degrees Celsius releases more iron from common minerals than liquid water at four degrees Celsius. This challenges the long-held belief that frozen environments slow down chemical reactions.

“It may sound counterintuitive, but ice is not a passive frozen block,” says Jean-François Boily, Professor at Umeå University and co-author of the study. “Freezing creates microscopic pockets of liquid water between ice crystals. These act like chemical reactors, where compounds become concentrated and extremely acidic. This means they can react with iron minerals even at temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius.”

New tool makes generative AI models more likely to create breakthrough materials

The researchers applied their technique to generate millions of candidate materials consisting of geometric lattice structures associated with quantum properties. The kagome lattice, represented here, can support the creation of materials that could be useful for quantum computing.
Image Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT; iStock
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

The artificial intelligence models that turn text into images are also useful for generating new materials. Over the last few years, generative materials models from companies like Google, Microsoft, and Meta have drawn on their training data to help researchers design tens of millions of new materials.

But when it comes to designing materials with exotic quantum properties like superconductivity or unique magnetic states, those models struggle. That’s too bad, because humans could use the help. For example, after a decade of research into a class of materials that could revolutionize quantum computing, called quantum spin liquids, only a dozen material candidates have been identified. The bottleneck means there are fewer materials to serve as the basis for technological breakthroughs.

Now, MIT researchers have developed a technique that lets popular generative materials models create promising quantum materials by following specific design rules. The rules, or constraints, steer models to create materials with unique structures that give rise to quantum properties.

“The models from these large companies generate materials optimized for stability,” says Mingda Li, MIT’s Class of 1947 Career Development Professor. “Our perspective is that’s not usually how materials science advances. We don’t need 10 million new materials to change the world. We just need one really good material.”

Mixing neutrinos of colliding neutron stars changes how merger unfolds

New simulations of neutron star mergers reveal that the mixing and changing of tiny particles called neutrinos impacts how the merger unfolds, including the composition and structure of the merger remnant as well as the resulting emissions. This image depicts the density of neutrinos within the remnant as varying textures, and the colors represent energy densities of different neutrino flavors.
 Image Credit: Provided by the Radice research group / Pennsylvania State University
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

The collision and merger of two neutron stars — the incredibly dense remnants of collapsed stars — are some of the most energetic events in the universe, producing a variety of signals that can be observed on Earth. New simulations of neutron star mergers by a team from Penn State and the University of Tennessee Knoxville reveal that the mixing and changing of tiny particles called neutrinos that can travel astronomical distances undisturbed impacts how the merger unfolds, as well as the resulting emissions. The findings have implications for longstanding questions about the origins of metals and rare earth elements as well as understanding physics in extreme environments, the researchers said.

The paper, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, is the first to simulate the transformation of neutrino “flavors” in neutron star mergers. Neutrinos are fundamental particles that interact weakly with other matter, and come in three flavors, named for the other particles they associate with: electron, muon and tau. Under specific conditions, including the inside of a neutron star, neutrinos can theoretically change flavors, which can change the types of particles with which they interact.

Greener rocket fuels on the horizon

SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch
Photo Credit: SpaceX

Studying safer, cheaper rocket and missile fuels that could reduce health and environmental risks is the focus of a new $800,000 grant awarded to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Chemistry by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The project will be led by principal investigator Professor Rui Sun with co-principal investigator Professor Ralf I. Kaiser.

The grant falls under a broader push toward green chemistry—designing chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate hazardous substances. Current propellants can be expensive and toxic, creating risks during manufacture, storage and transport. The research seeks to help lower costs for space exploration while reducing risks to workers and communities.

Lockheed Martin Vectis™: Best in CCA Class Survivability

Lockheed Martin Vectis
Artist rendering of Lockheed Martin Skunk Works® Vectis, a Group 5 survivable and lethal collaborative combat aircraft
Image Credit: Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works® introduces Vectis, a Group 5 survivable and lethal collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) to advance unparalleled air dominance for American and allied militaries.

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works' Vectis: highly capable, customizable and affordable agile drone framework.

This system embodies the company's pedigree in fighter aircraft, autonomous systems and open mission architectures. As the future of air power takes shape, Skunk Works is charting a critical path with Vectis to unlock new, integrated capabilities at an ultra-competitive speed and price point. 

"Vectis is the culmination of our expertise in complex systems integration, advanced fighter development and autonomy," said OJ Sanchez, vice president and general manager, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. "We're not simply building a new platform – we're creating a new paradigm for air power based on a highly capable, customizable and affordable agile drone framework."

Fossilized feces help bring prehistoric worlds to life — in molecular detail

Image Credit: Courtesy of Curtin University

An international research team led by Curtin University has used prehistoric feces to better understand how molecular fossilization works, offering a new window into what ancient animals ate, the world they lived in and what happened after they died.

Published in the journal Geobiology and funded by the ARC Laureate Fellowship program, the study examined 300-million-year-old fossilized droppings, or ‘coprolites’, mostly from the Mazon Creek fossil site in the United States.

The coprolites were already known to contain cholesterol derivatives, which is strong evidence of a meat-based diet, but the new research explored how those delicate molecular traces were preserved and survived the ravages of time.

Usually, soft tissues are fossilized due to phosphate minerals, but the study found molecules were preserved thanks to tiny grains of iron carbonate scattered throughout the fossil, acting like microscopic time capsules.