Colossal 'jets' shooting from a black hole defy physicists' theories
09/18/24 • 34 min
2 Listeners
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
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Previous Episode
Ancient DNA debunks Rapa Nui ‘ecological suicide’ theory
In this episode:
00:45 What ancient DNA has revealed about Rapa Nui’s past
Ancient DNA analysis has further demonstrated that the people of Rapa Nui did not cause their own population collapse, further refuting a controversial but popular claim. Rapa Nui, also known as Easter island, is famous for its giant Moai statues and the contested idea that the people mismanaged their natural resources leading to ‘ecological suicide’. Genomes sequenced from the remains of 15 ancient islanders showed no evidence of a sudden population crash, substantiating other research challenging the collapse idea.
Research Article: Moreno-Mayar et al.
News and Views: Rapa Nui’s population history rewritten using ancient DNA
News article: Famed Pacific island’s population 'crash' debunked by ancient DNA
17:03 Research Highlights
The extinct bat-eating fish that bit off more than they could chew, and how manatee dung shapes an Amazonian ecosystem.
Research Highlight: Ancient fish dined on bats — or died trying
Research Highlight: The Amazon’s gargantuan gardeners: manatees
19:29 A macabre parasite of adult fruit flies
Despite being a hugely-studied model organism, it seems that there’s still more to find out about the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, as researchers have discovered a new species of parasitoid wasp that infects the species. Unlike other parasitic wasps, this one lays its eggs in adult flies, with the developing larva devouring its host from the inside. The miniscule wasp was discovered by chance in an infected fruit fly collected in a Mississippi backyard and analysis suggests that despite having never been previously identified, it is widespread across parts of North America.
Research article: Moore et al.
32:04 Briefing Chat
How a dye that helps to give Doritos their orange hue can turn mouse tissues transparent, and an effective way to engage with climate-science sceptics.
Nature News: Transparent mice made with light-absorbing dye reveal organs at work
Nature News: How to change people’s minds about climate change: what the science says
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Next Episode
Children with Down's syndrome are more likely to get leukaemia: stem-cells hint at why
In this episode:
00:46 Unravelling why children with Down’s syndrome are at a higher risk of leukaemia
Children with Down’s syndrome have a 150-fold increased risk of developing leukaemia than those without the condition. Now, an in-depth investigation has revealed that changes to genome structures in fetal liver stem-cells appear to be playing a key role in this increase.
Down’s syndrome is characterised by cells having an extra copy of chromosome 21. The team behind this work saw that in liver stem-cells — one of the main places blood is produced in a growing fetus — this extra copy results in changes in how DNA is packaged in a nucleus, opening up areas that are prone to mutation, including those known to be important in leukaemia development.
The researchers hope their work will be an important step in understanding and reducing this risk in children with Down’s syndrome.
Research Article: Marderstein et al.
News and Views: Childhood leukaemia in Down’s syndrome primed by blood-cell bias
11:47 Research Highlights
How taking pints of beer off the table lowers alcohol consumption, and a small lizard’s ‘scuba gear’ helps it stay submerged.
Research Highlight: A small fix to cut beer intake: downsize the pint
Research Highlight: This ‘scuba diving’ lizard has a self-made air supply
14:12 Briefing Chat
How tiny crustaceans use ‘smell’ to find their home cave, and how atomic bomb X-rays could deflect an asteroid away from a deadly Earth impact.
Science: In the dark ocean, these tiny creatures can smell their way home
Nature: Scientists successfully ‘nuke asteroid’ — in a lab mock-up
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Featured in these lists
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/nature-podcast-38265/colossal-jets-shooting-from-a-black-hole-defy-physicists-theories-74097232"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to colossal 'jets' shooting from a black hole defy physicists' theories on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy