When I tell people that I am a proud Boarisch-Schwob—Bavarian-Swabian—Indigenous person, I am often met with disbelief. I am white. I am European. I come from Bavaria, one of Europe's wealthiest regions. For some people, those facts settle the question before I have explained anything else.
When the Marshall Fire tore through suburban Colorado in late 2021, residents had only hours to decide where to go. Some fled to nearby towns. Others stayed farther away for weeks or months. Now, a recent study published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications suggests those decisions were shaped not only by distance or danger but also by something more human: the pull of familiar communities and social ties.
Despite their depiction as massive monsters that simply suck in everything, including light, astronomers know black holes actually spin. And they spin really, really quickly. Determining just how quickly is key to understanding how they affect their immediate vicinity and the galaxies that surround them. A new paper by Tegan Thomas of the University of Virginia and her colleagues, available on the arXiv preprint server, has good news and bad news on that front. The bad news is that we currently can't determine how fast black holes are actually spinning. The good news is that, hopefully in the next few years, we will have a new tool that will allow us to do so.
Researchers from Trinity's School of Engineering have successfully demonstrated the geopolymer, showcasing its potential as a scalable option for circular construction.
On July 14, 2026, "Gus," one of the most complete specimens of Tyrannosaurus rex, went to an as-yet-unidentified buyer for $50.1 million. This auction at Sotheby's set a record for the most valuable fossil ever sold. Another dinosaur has entered the luxury collectibles market, a reminder that even Earth's deepest history can be sold to the highest bidder.
Fabrics are made by repeatedly intertwining yarns into characteristic patterns. Many of their properties, such as stretchiness, arise not only from the material itself but also from how the yarns are arranged and entangled. Such properties illustrate how topology—the underlying patterns of connectivity and entanglement within a structure—can shape a material's overall behavior. Understanding these relationships could help researchers design materials with tailored properties through the design of their topology.
One of the most intractable, contentious and niche issues in U.S. politics has come back into the spotlight. This week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to make daylight saving time permanent in the United States.
As homelessness increases around the world, more unhoused people are turning to parks and other urban green spaces to seek shelter. However, these places are also home to animals that live in and around urban areas.
Hotels have long encouraged guests to reuse towels, limit linen changes and conserve energy. Yet tourism remains a significant source of carbon emissions, and voluntary sustainability programs often struggle to achieve lasting behavior change. New research suggests a different approach may be more effective: connecting the environmental impact of a stay directly to what travelers pay.
Cleaning up pollution around the world could bring significantly more rainfall to India's monsoon than regional action alone, research from the University of Reading shows and highlights the value of international cooperation on air quality.
