...Historically, scientists have viewed the cosmos as akin to a rock—complex, perhaps even beautiful, but formed through arbitrary events. Evolutionary cosmologists instead argue that universes, like living organisms, grow and reproduce, spinning off new universes with small variations from their progenitors. In doing so, these cosmic offspring are refined across generations into forms that maximize the number of universes yet to be born. Since the Big Bang, our universe, like any developing child, has been unfurling into an optimal shape.

Under this view, the universe is not a rock. It is an egg...

Smolin’s work was, in turn, inspired by physicists Bryce DeWitt and John Wheeler, who proposed that singularities inside black holes, the places where matter is crushed into a point of infinite density, might expand to produce new universes that follow different physics from the universes that produced them. Every universe—including our own—would, under this logic, have emerged from a Big Bang within a black hole.

Smolin realized that this hypothetical process would allow universes to reproduce, in a way, by making more black holes. And if those new universes could inherit the physics of their parents with small differences—just as new organisms inherit the genes of their parents with small differences—then universes could also evolve with each generation. Specifically, a form of cosmic natural selection would favor universes that make as many black holes as possible. Less fertile universes could persist, but they would produce far fewer offspring. So over time, an increasingly high proportion of universes would be optimized for black hole production—which would imply that our universe, given the odds, is one of those...

Moderna's personalized mRNA cancer therapy, developed with Merck, reduced the risk of melanoma recurrence and spread when used in combination with the U.S. drugmaker's blockbuster treatment Keytruda in a late-stage ​trial.

The interim results showed statistically significant improvement versus Keytruda alone...

"It is a big deal for the field in general. If this trial was negative, the field of mRNA-based ​cancer therapies and cancer vaccination may never have recovered. With this positive study, there is hope (and likely ​investment to follow) that these approaches may change the way we treat cancer more broadly."...

"Expect the vaccine for melanoma to enter the market in 2027...

...manufacturing personalized vaccines at scale could be expensive and complex. Investors should therefore watch for next important steps, which will be detailed clinical results, ⁠regulatory progress ​and evidence that the technology works across other cancers."...

New results from the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) suggest that gluons, the gluelike particles that hold quarks together inside protons, play a central role in the conservation of baryon number, an essential part of a particle’s quantum identity. The findings, published in the journal Science, suggest that baryon number is carried by a Y-shaped “junction” of gluons connecting the proton’s three main quarks, challenging a long-held view that baryon number is solely carried by those three quarks...

“Since the big bang, the number of protons and neutrons all together never changes as a function of time,” Lewis said. “The reasons for this conservation are not well understood. It’s one of the mysteries of the universe, related to why we have more matter than antimatter.” ...

According to the STAR team’s study, when the protons that make up nuclei collide at RHIC, the quark-connecting “gluon junction” or “baryon junction” can be stopped much more easily than the three quarks; all its energy is transformed into new baryons that spray out in perpendicular directions while the quarks it usually connects continue to fly down the beampipe...

...The setup starts with an idea from last year. Certain exotic forms of dark matter, arranged in a halo with a particular relationship between pressure and density, can produce black holes with no singularity at the center. These are so-called "regular black holes," where the equations stay sensible all the way to the center. Tan and Wang asked what happens if you drop an ordinary neutron star into the middle of one of these halos...

...The crucial point in this model is that nothing collapsed. The gravity making the horizon comes from the star and the halo combined, with the dark matter contributing roughly as much mass as the star itself...

...The dark matter densities this requires are far greater than anything astronomers actually expect dark matter to reach. This is not a claim about objects out there in the sky, but more of a thought experiment with the mathematics filled in. It says the inside of a black hole need not be the end of physics. There is at least one solution in which it's a place, with something in it...

...1. The Qatari Jet:...

...2. Corner-Cutting on Presidential Security...

...3. A Desperate Cover-up and Attack on Freedom of the Press...

...4. The Secret Flight — A Decoy and a Cover-up...

...5. The Still-Real Nuclear Risk and Failure of the War with Iran:... "he has left a standing order that if he’s killed Iran is to be obliterated by US nuclear missiles."

UK-based engineer Tom Stanton has successfully built a trebuchet that can send projectiles flying at supersonic speeds...

In the video, the projectile reached 776 mph (1,248 kph) or nine miles per hour faster than the speed of sound. The proof may be in the numbers but the loud crack and echo of the sonic boom did confirm that history was made that day.

...Their challenge was to understand the muon’s chains of emission and reabsorption in extreme detail. In particular, how much do the particles associated with each of nature’s four fundamental forces participate in these chains?

The calculation is straightforward for three of nature’s four forces. Gravity is so weak that physicists can ignore it outright. And both the electromagnetic force and the weak nuclear force can be deduced using a standard technique.

The strong force, however, is not so easy to deal with...

In his doctoral thesis in 2018, Keshavarzi helped hone an alternative way of understanding the strong force, called the data-driven method. In this method, physicists don’t try to predict how often muons will emit and absorb groups of quarks. They go out and measure it...

The approach resembles what happens in weather forecasting. While it is possible, in principle, to understand the weather by keeping track of the precise contour of every breeze in the atmosphere, in practice that task is absurd...

Likewise, it’s too hard for physicists to keep track of every strong-force interaction between every pair of quarks. So physicists use a technique called lattice QCD (short for quantum chromodynamics, the theory of the strong force), to use a big grid to simulate the overall behavior of quarks.

In 2014, a collaboration among researchers in Budapest, Hungary; Marseille, France; and Wuppertal, Germany — the BMW group — started on a project to use lattice QCD to calculate the muon g-factor...

In 2021, on the same day that Fermilab released its updated muon g–2 measurement, the BMW group’s result appeared in the journal Nature.

According to the BMW group’s lattice calculation, Fermilab’s muons were wobbling exactly as they should...

So why does the data-driven method indicate otherwise?

...The discrepancies point either to signs of unknown particles meddling with the quarks, or to overlooked details generating the mistaken impression that quarks are misbehaving...

“There are four decades of measurements that preceded that, that were all done in different ways, that were all done by different people, that were all done by different experiments, that all paint a completely different picture,” Keshavarzi said. “There is so much still left to do.”

...Primordial black holes (PBHs) are only hypothetical, but they generate a lot of interest. If they're real, they formed immediately after the Big Bang from direct collapse of dense clumps of subatomic matter, without the need for any stellar progenitor. Researchers have long thought that they could be the prime component, or even the only component, of dark matter...

This schematic shows a PBH passing through a white dwarf. As it passes through, its gravitational force creates tidal heating in the middle of the white dwarf. Once the material reaches the threshold temperature of <~0.5 billion Kelvin, it triggers uncontrolled nuclear burning. If the region burning is big enough, then thermonuclear runaway will trigger a Type Ia supernova. Image Credit: Kavli IPMU/Gemini AI (Banana Pro)...

...In April 2018, a team led by Oxford planetary physicist Patrick Irwin reported the first clear detection of hydrogen sulfide gas sitting above Uranus’s main cloud deck...

Hydrogen sulfide is the same colorless, toxic gas that gives rotten eggs their smell, and people can detect it at very low concentrations, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry...

On an infrared camera, a warm object normally stands out clearly against cooler surroundings. Researchers have now built a three-dimensional cloak that bends heat around an object, erasing its thermal outline while protecting the space inside from temperature extremes...

This approach could eventually improve heat control around microchips and sensitive electronic components. It may also help protect equipment in severe environments or reduce the thermal signatures used to locate people and machinery...

They printed a precise aluminum lattice in 3D to create highly conductive pathways through the cloak. Aluminum moves heat readily, allowing energy to travel quickly through selected regions. The remaining spaces were filled through mold casting with a rubbery material that transfers heat much more slowly.

Together, the materials created a controlled thermal route. Some sections accelerated heat flow while others restricted it, steering energy around the space occupied by the concealed object...

...In electronic systems, the cloak might redirect heat away from vulnerable components or prevent nearby heat sources from interfering with delicate devices.

It could also help protect equipment exposed to extreme temperatures. Security and defense applications are another possibility, including reducing the infrared signatures that allow thermal cameras to distinguish people or machinery from their surroundings...

...Concealing an object that produces its own heat presents a more difficult problem because that energy would continue building inside the protected region and could eventually reveal its location...

The researchers now plan to investigate smart, multifunctional cloaks capable of performing those active tasks. Such devices could eventually do more than hide a thermal signature by deliberately controlling where heat gathers, how it spreads, and where it leaves the protected region...

Early on the morning of July 24, Ukrainian forces attacked more Wildberries logistics centers — this time in Crimea, the Leningrad region, and St. Petersburg. In Russia’s northwest, drones damaged two separate warehouse complexes, in Shushary and Utkina Zavod. Authorities did not report any injuries. Nikolai (name changed), a St. Petersburg resident who was near the site of the drone strike in Shushary, told Meduza what happened after the attack...

People had expected this and said so openly: “It’s strange that we haven’t been hit yet.” If Wildberries was under attack, then all the big logistics centers would be destroyed, St. Petersburg’s included. It was only a matter of time...

When the internet shutdown happened last year, everyone was furious and complained. Then they got used to it very quickly: “Fine, whitelists it is. Fine, VPNs it is. We’ll each buy 300,000 VPNs and find the best one.”

Then came the gasoline crisis: at first people were horrified, and now it’s eased off. The same thing is happening with Wildberries: the fire in Elektrostal caused a sensation; it was some kind of super-event. But now everyone is very calm about it.

The deeper questions worry people far more: whether martial law will be imposed, whether there will be a mobilization. I can’t say people are out on the street talking about it on every corner, but you hear these conversations when you’re sitting in a bar or someplace like that. It worries men and women alike. Some are already making plans — voting, for instance, and then leaving the country right away, just in case.

One year on from the first-ever collisions of oxygen at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the main LHC Collaborations – ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb – have each reported signs of the state of matter known as quark–gluon plasma (QGP) originating from these collisions.

QGP is a state of matter that forms under intense pressure and at temperatures over 100 000 times hotter than the centre of the Sun. Under these extreme conditions, composite particles break down into quarks and the gluons that ordinarily hold them together. Scientists believe that this was the state of the Universe in the first millionths of a second after the Big Bang...

It was previously thought that colliding heavy ions such as lead – which is over 200 times heavier than the protons typically collided at the LHC – was the only way to create the conditions necessary to form QGP. But recently this premise has been thoroughly challenged, including earlier this year when the ALICE Collaboration, which specialises in the study of this extreme state of matter, reported a new sign of QGP from proton–proton and proton–lead collisions. And last year, the LHC Collaborations opened up a new probe of QGP when they found the first hints of QGP from oxygen–oxygen collisions. Now, having searched even more deeply, the LHC experiments have seen multiple signs of QGP formation in oxygen–oxygen and neon–neon collisions...

...The Ukrainian defense ministry reported that the drone is highly maneuverable and provides precise and smooth control at various speeds.

The Cyclops UAS was developed by a Ukrainian company. The system has several variants.

The first variant is less expensive, simpler in design, and easier to operate. These are designed to engage ground targets, as well as slow-moving aerial targets at low altitudes.

The second variant has significantly higher tactical and technical characteristics and is designed to effectively engage high-speed Shahed drones at high altitudes...

..."Eventually, we need some form of universal basic income for everybody while they work and once they retire," Roubini added. "We're already on the way."...

"We'll have either ex-post distribution—that is universal basic income—or we'll have it ex-ante. Ex-ante means some form of socialism," Roubini explained. "Essentially, the government is going to take over some fraction of the big tech firms."

He said AI companies are already willing to hand over stakes to the government, alluding to a Financial Times report that said OpenAI has discussed giving 5% as a way for the public to share in the upside of AI.

Altman's proposal would entail other AI companies providing similar stakes, although it's not clear if his U.S. rivals would be willing to do so.

As a result, Roubini believes universal basic income or socialism is inevitable, saying "We're going already in that direction, effectively."...

...he called it optimistic, given that it assumes 10% growth and "machines doing all the work."...

...the fires destroyed thousands, or even tens of thousands, of items belonging to sellers who work through Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer. Very rough, preliminary estimates put the damage at more than 50 billion rubles. Up to 15% of the company’s total warehouse space may have been affected...

Social media users have pointed out that Wildberries does in fact sell war-related goods, including body armor, combat helmets, camouflage uniforms, and fiber-optic cable for drones...

The Kotovsk warehouse opened in late May 2025 and plays an important role in regional logistics. The center can store up to 54 million items. At the opening, Kim said:

"Building a logistics center in Tambov Oblast will help optimize existing routes, significantly reduce costs and transit times for transportation, storage, and delivery of goods. In addition, having a logistics center will help local entrepreneurs develop small and medium-sized businesses by giving them the ability to store, distribute, and ship goods to other cities."

...In early July, Wildberries added a clause to its seller agreement exempting the company from any liability in the event of a drone attack. The amendment took effect on July 7 — 11 days before Ukraine’s strike on the warehouses...

"Today it wasn’t just goods that burned. Another illusion burned — that someone would protect entrepreneurs. The rules are changing. The risks are being shifted onto us. The losses are becoming ours too. It’s only going to get worse. Something urgently needs to change, radically."

...One of the challenges of clean energy is transporting and storing massive amounts of solar and wind power over long distances...

According to the new study, pulverized iron powder could act as a highly efficient, recyclable clean energy storage material...

The concept taps into a beautifully simple chemical loop. When iron powder is combusted, it releases intense heat and turns into iron oxide. In other words, it rusts. To reset it, scientists use green hydrogen generated from excess renewable energy to strip away the oxygen, reducing the rust back into pure iron powder. No carbon dioxide escapes into the atmosphere. The cycle simply repeats...

As it burns similarly to fossil fuels, energy giants wouldn’t need to rebuild their infrastructure from scratch...

The expensive components already in place, such as the steam cycles, massive turbines, heavy generators, and local grid connections, could be fully preserved...

..."Once you have super-conducting technology available in space, you can then create very strong magnetic fields and you can use them for various use cases," he said. "You can accelerate things in space very fast or change the trajectory of a satellite completely without fuel."...

"When we go to space, we get hurt by radiation, and these superconducting magnets can create umbrellas of magnetic fields around the spacecraft to protect the interior," said Arshavsky. "So we can shield people in space from that radiation."...

...a Yale-led team measured the internal motions of a faint, diffuse galaxy called NGC 1052-DF9 and found its stars moving too slowly to hide a normal dark matter halo. The galaxy joins two earlier oddballs, DF2 and DF4, and all three lie along the same narrow line of galaxies in the NGC 1052 field...

A few years ago the same group noticed that DF2 and DF4 were not alone. About a dozen faint galaxies in the field fall along a remarkably tight, straight trail, and follow-up work showed their velocities increase steadily along its length...

That geometry points to a specific and dramatic origin. In one leading idea, two gas-rich galaxies slammed into each other at high speed long ago. The dark matter of each passed straight through, because dark matter barely interacts with anything, while the ordinary gas piled up, shocked and compressed, and later collapsed into a string of small galaxies made almost entirely of normal matter...

...The finding is that DF9’s motion is consistent with its stars alone and inconsistent with a full dark matter halo. That is not the same as proving the halo is exactly zero. A modest amount of dark matter still fits inside the error bars; a normal amount does not...

The deeper reason astronomers care is almost the opposite of what the headline suggests. Finding galaxies without dark matter is, oddly, some of the better evidence that dark matter is real. If gravity simply behaved differently in faint galaxies, as some alternative theories propose, then every galaxy of a given size should show the same anomaly. Instead a few galaxies, all apparently born in the same collision, stand out from thousands of ordinary ones. Dark matter that can be left behind in a crash is dark matter that exists as a substance, not as a quirk of the equations...

...After a long, challenging cruise phase with nine planetary flybys (one by Earth, two by Venus and six by Mercury), BepiColombo finally closed this chapter last Monday by permanently switching off its SEP thrusters...

Without any other source of propulsion, BepiColombo will follow a “ballistic” or free-falling trajectory as it initiates its first key arrival manoeuvre – MTM separation – on 3 September 2026.

After the MTM is ejected, the remaining spacecraft composite (MPO-Mio-MOSIF) will continue its planetary approach using MPO’s chemical propulsion system. This system will adjust the spacecraft’s trajectory ahead of the critical Mercury orbit insertion manoeuvre on 21 November, then guide it into Mio’s deployment orbit in early December before finally lowering MPO into its science orbit by March 2027...

In 2025, astronomers reported one of the largest rotating structures ever found: a cosmic filament some 50 million light-years long, holding close to 300 galaxies, with many of them turning in step with the filament as a whole. The coordinated motion is difficult to reconcile with the way galaxies are thought to acquire their spin...

Galaxies are thought to get their spin early, through what is called tidal torque: as matter collapses under gravity, the uneven pull of its surroundings sets it turning. On that picture, a galaxy’s spin is shaped mostly by its own local patch of the universe, and there is no obvious reason for hundreds of galaxies, spread across tens of millions of light-years, to share a single coordinated rotation tied to the filament around them...

The question underneath is an old one, which is where galaxies get their angular momentum. This filament has not answered it, but it has handed the problem a large and awkward new clue.