Article by Dr. Amira Val Baker, Astrophysicist, Resonance Science Foundation Research Scientist

Relativistic jets synonymous with black holes have been observed in a highly magnetized neutron star for the first time – putting current theories into question!

We see jets of ionized matter in all types of astrophysical objects from the plasma jets seen emanating from the surface of stars like our Sun (read more here) to the relativistic jets emanating from black holes. The energy of these jets and relativistic nature depends on the nature of the object and the location of the jet formation – with the most prominent generally emanating from the polar regions as extended beams along the axis of rotation.

However, although these jets are observed in some neutron stars, they have never been observed in highly magnetized neutron stars. This phenomenon has previously led theorists to conclude that magnetic fields inhibit their formation. Subsequent theories suggested that...

^{By Dr. Inés Urdaneta / Physicist at Resonance Science Foundation}

The detection of gravitational waves (GW) was a remarkable breakthrough for many reasons, one of which is the possibility of testing or disproving different theories describing gravity. Some of these new theories require the existence of extra dimensions in addition to the standard 3D+1 of general relativity (GR). These additional dimensions are mainly required to provide an alternative route in the dark matter and energy hypothesis, since gravity would leak into these additional dimensions, diminishing the amplitude of the observed GW signal. This would produce an error in the inferred distance to the gravitational wave source predicted by GR. If true, it could account for the yet undetectable dark matter and energy at the cost of challenging GR theory, since the existence of dark matter and dark energy depends on the assumption that GR is valid at all scales and distances.

The collision of two neutron stars...

Article by Dr. Amira Val Baker, Astrophysicist, Resonance Science Foundation Research Scientist

Why are some planets rocky and some gaseous? We may just be nearer to finding an answer through a new planet discovered by master’s student Merrin Peterson.

Have you ever wondered why the Earth is rocky and solid and planets like Jupiter and Neptune are gaseous? To add to the intrigue there are brown dwarfs which are neither planet or star, read more on brown dwarfs here.

So, what is it that classifies something as a planet and differentiates between rocky planets and gaseous planets?

Planets and stars are theorized to have formed in the collapsing dust of a nebulae, with the star forming in the centre of rotation and the planets forming in the corresponding disk. Obviously at the centre of rotation the angular momentum will be the greatest and the star will be experiencing significant energy production and emitting vast quantities of visible light. This is not the case for...

Article by William Brown, Biophysicist, Resonance Science Foundation Research Scientist

An experiment has confirmed that quantum mechanics allows events to occur with no definite causal order. The work has been carried out by Jacqui Romero, Fabio Costa and colleagues at the University of Queensland in Australia, who say that gaining a better understanding of this indefinite causal order could offer a route towards a theory that combines Einstein’s general theory of relativity with quantum mechanics

In classical physics – and everyday life – there is a strict causal relationship between consecutive events. If a second event (B) happens after a first event (A), for example, then Bcannot affect the outcome of A. This relationship, however, breaks down in quantum mechanics because the temporal spread of a particles’s wave function can be greater than the separation in time between A and B. This means that the causal order...

by Kevin Mcelwee, Princeton University

Article by William Brown, Resonance Science Foundation Research Biophysicist

That the human brain contains magnetite is well established; however, its spatial distribution in the brain has remained unknown. A new study shows that the reproducible magnetization patterns of magnetite is preferentially partitioned in the human brain, specifically in the cerebellum and brain stem.

In 1992 researchers identified the presence of magnetite—a permanently magnetic form of iron oxide—in human brain tissue. Iron in the body was no surprise. It is commonly found in ferritin, an intracellular protein common to several organisms, and the magnetite was thought to have formed biogenically, with some possibly originating in ferritin. But the presence of magnetite in the brain could be more than incidental. Various studies have shown that brain cells respond to external magnetic fields. There’s also a disturbing link to neurodegenerative disease: Evidence exists of elevated levels...

By Kerstin Brachhold

How the three domains of life (Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya) evolved is still a matter of debate. One hypothesis, namely the domain cell theory (DCT), proposes that each of the three domains of life arose from a pre-existing ancestor. In this scenario each domain represents a unique and independent cellular lineage. Another hypothesis posits that Eukarya arose by a cellular fusion event between a bacterium and an archaeon. In their article published in BioEssays, James Staley and Gustavo Caetano-Anollés challenge this popular cell fusion hypothesis. Instead they propose an Archaea-first model and discuss evidence supporting the co-evolution of early archaeal lineages with emerging Bacteria and Eukarya.

Gamma-ray bursts are some of the highest-energy explosions ever detected, shining brighter than a million trillion times the output of Earth's sun, according to NASA.

A new study, published Aug. 13 in The Astrophysical Journal, has found that high-energy black hole gamma-ray bursts are time-reversed, meaning the brilliant light wave is spit out one way and then sent out again in the opposite order.

It is titled “Smoke and Mirrors,” but a new discovery from College of Charleston astrophysicist Jon Hakkila may be anything but smoke and mirrors.

Hakkila and student researchers have discovered a peculiarity in the light curves of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) that may provide a breakthrough in understanding the conditions that produce these events. GRBs are the intrinsically brightest explosions known in the universe. They last from seconds to minutes, and originate during the formation of a black hole accompanying a beamed supernova or...

by Dr. Amira Val Baker, Resonance Science Foundation Astrophysicist

Gamma-rays have been observed emanating from the solar poles at a higher rate than expected.

Gamma-rays are the highest observed energy of electromagnetic radiation and are typically produced in energy transitions in atomic nuclei. Similar to photons of light being emitted as electrons reconfigure in atoms, photons of light are released in the reconfiguration of nuclei in an atomic nucleus, albeit at a much higher energy range!

Our star – the Sun – is a hot rotating ball of plasma continuously emitting radiation at a broad range of energies, from radio to gamma-rays.

Energy generation is greatest in the centre of the Sun, decreasing radially outward.

High energy radiation, such as gamma-rays, are thus thought to be due to the bombardment of the solar atmosphere by high velocity protons – hadronic cosmic rays. However, as the gamma-rays from such an interaction are assumed to be absorbed long before...

Article by Rafi Letzer

We are not living in the first universe. There were other universes, in other eons, before ours, a group of physicists has said. Like ours, these universes were full of black holes. And we can detect traces of those long-dead black holes in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) — the radioactive remnant of our universe's violent birth.

At least, that's the somewhat eccentric view of the group of theorists, including the prominent Oxford University mathematical physicist Roger Penrose (also an important Stephen Hawking collaborator). Penrose and his acolytes argue for a modified version of the Big Bang.

In Penrose and similarly-inclined physicists' history of space and time (which they call conformal cyclic cosmology, or CCC), universes bubble up, expand and die in sequence, with black holes from each leaving traces in the universes that follow. And in a new paper released Aug. 6 in the preprint journal arXiv—apparent...