Shownotes Transcript
In this episode:
00:45 The biggest black hole jets ever seen
Astronomers have spotted a pair of enormous jets emanating from a supermassive black hole with a combined length of 23 million light years — the biggest ever discovered. Jets are formed when matter is ionized and flung out of a black hole, creating enormous and powerful structures in space. Thought to be unstable, physicists had theorized there was a limit to how large these jets could be, but the new discovery far exceeds this, suggesting there may be more of these monstrous jets yet to be discovered.
*Research Article: **Oei et al. *)
09:44 Research Highlights
The knitted fabrics designed to protect wearers from mosquito bites, and the role that islands play in fostering language diversity.
*Research Highlight: *Plagued by mosquitoes? Try some bite-blocking fabrics)
*Research Highlight: *Islands are rich with languages spoken nowhere else)
12:26 A sustainable, one-step method for alloy production
Making metal alloys is typically a multi-step process that creates huge amounts of emissions. Now, a team demonstrates a way to create these materials in a single step, which they hope could significantly reduce the environmental burdens associated with their production. In a lab demonstration, they use their technique to create an alloy of nickel and iron called invar — a widely-used material that has a high carbon-footprint. The team show evidence that their method can produce invar to a quality that rivals that of conventional manufacturing, and suggest their technique is scalable to create alloys at an industrial scale.
*Research article: *Wei et al.)
25:29 Briefing Chat
How AI-predicted protein structures have helped chart the evolution of a group of viruses, and the neurons that cause monkeys to ‘choke’ under pressure.
*Nature News: *Where did viruses come from? AlphaFold and other AIs are finding answers)
*Nature News: *Why do we crumble under pressure? Science has the answer)
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