A new mid-infrared image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope features the Sombrero galaxy, also known as Messier 104 (M104). The signature, glowing core seen in visible-light images does not shine, and instead a smooth inner disk is revealed.

A team led by the University of Oxford has solved a mystery that has intrigued scientists for centuries: how does the squirting cucumber squirt?

Researchers Samuel Poincloux (currently at Aoyama Gakuin University) and Kazumasa A. Takeuchi of the University of Tokyo have clarified the conditions under which large numbers of "squishy" grains, which can change their shape in response to external forces, transition from acting like a solid to acting like a liquid.

Diamond rain? Super-ionic water? These are just two proposals that planetary scientists have come up with for what lies beneath the thick, bluish, hydrogen-and-helium atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune, our solar system's unique, but superficially bland, ice giants.

Researchers from Durham University, Jagiellonian University (Poland) and the John Innes Center have achieved a breakthrough in understanding DNA gyrase, a vital bacterial enzyme and key antibiotic target. This enzyme, present in bacteria but absent in humans, plays a crucial role in supercoiling DNA, a necessary process for bacterial survival.

In the 21st century, the Earth's oceans are growing warmer and more acidic. This change is happening slowly over the long-term, but it can also cause short-term, local spikes.

Water splitting—breaking water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen—is a promising pathway to sustainable energy. However, this process has long been challenged by the slow chemical kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction that make hydrogen production inefficient and costly.

When laser energy is deposited in a target material, numerous complex processes take place at length and time scales that are too small to visually observe. To study and ultimately fine-tune such processes, researchers look to computer modeling. However, these simulations rely on accurate equation of state (EOS) models to describe the thermodynamic properties—such as pressure, density and temperature—of a target material under the extreme conditions generated by the intense heat of a laser pulse.

Five telescopes of the H.E.S.S.-collaboration in Namibia are used to study cosmic radiation, especially gamma radiation. With data from 10 years of observations, researchers have now been able to detect cosmic electrons and positrons with an unprecedented energy of more than 10 tera-electronvolts.

Many of us will soak in the merriment and drama that family gatherings bring during Thanksgiving. But beyond the Thanksgiving dinner table, new research suggests that living and being around family more often affects our psychology in some surprising ways.