Harvard SEAS researchers show mathematically that when many robots share a space, adding a certain amount of randomness in their paths improves their efficiency.   

As humanity's exploration of the Earth's internal structure deepens, Earth's free oscillations, serving as crucial "fingerprints" for revealing the large-scale structure and dynamic processes within the Earth, have always been a core subject in geophysics. Ground-based station observations are currently the mainstream method for measuring Earth's free oscillations. With the advancement of space technology, high-precision inter-satellite distance measurement holds the potential to become a novel method for detecting these oscillations.

In a recent paper published in Space: Science & Technology, a research team from the School of Physics and Astronomy at Sun Yat-sen University, in collaboration with the TianQin Research Center for Gravitational Physics, proposed a novel detection and analysis method for Earth's free oscillations utilizing the "TianQin" space-borne gravitational wave detector. The study constructed a theoretical response model for Earth's free oscillations within the TianQin detector and derived their analytical waveform for high-orbit satellite laser interferometric measurements. Through numerical simulation and Bayesian parameter estimation, the research team demonstrated that for a major seismic event like the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, TianQin could achieve a clear detection with a signal-to-noise ratio as high as 73 and independently distinguish at least nine different free oscillation modes.

This research not only methodologically demonstrates for the first time the feasibility of directly detecting Earth's free oscillations using high-orbit gravitational wave detectors, but also pioneers a new interdisciplinary pathway integrating space-based gravity measurement with geophysical research. By leveraging the frequency splitting effect introduced by satellite orbital motion, this method can circumvent calibration errors inherent in traditional multi-station observations, enabling more independent and precise probing of Earth's internal structure. This work significantly expands the interdisciplinary application scope for China's autonomous space science mission—the TianQin project—and provides novel theoretical tools and technical reserves for future space-based exploration of Earth's internal structure and seismic mechanisms.

The most realistic picture yet of how galaxies formed and then evolved from the beginning of time has been revealed in a suite of new and unique audiovisual simulations. This data, published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, shows that the standard cosmological model can successfully explain the observed growth of galaxies, from the first billion years after the Big Bang to the present day, when key physics is included. Unlike earlier simulations, the COLIBRE 'virtual universes' model the cold gas and cosmic dust inside galaxies – the raw materials from which stars form and which strongly affect how galaxies look in telescopes. By including these previously missing ingredients and using far more computing power than ever before, the simulations successfully reproduce real galaxies, both in the present-day universe and in the early universe as seen by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Manipulation of structured electromagnetic (EM) waves is key to boosting wireless communications capacity. Recently, scientists have invented a space-time-coding metasurface that generates structured EM waves with multidimensional orbital angular momentum, greatly increasing the number of communication channels. Meanwhile, the metasurface can directly encode information into the channels, eliminating the need for external modulators. Benefiting from simple yet high-performance metasurface hardware, this technology enables high-dimensional multiplexing and opens new opportunities for ultra-high-speed wireless communications.

Researchers have documented several cases of spatial orientation in tarantulas living both in trees and in underground burrows. Spatial orientation refers to the ability of an animal to understand where it is in three-dimensional space and how to navigate purposefully within its environment. The observations suggest that tarantulas may remember and reuse information to improve their chances of catching prey or to locate their retreats, for example.

Crystals, bacterial colonies, flame fronts: the growth of surfaces was first described in the 1980s by the Kardar–Parisi–Zhang equation. Since then, it has been regarded as a fundamental model in physics, with implications for mathematics, biology, and computer science. Now—forty years later—a Würzburg-based research team from the Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat has achieved the first experimental demonstration of KPZ behavior on 2D surfaces in space and time. This was made possible by sophisticated materials engineering and a bold experimental approach: researchers injected polaritons—hybrid particles composed of light and matter—into the material. The results have been published in Science.