Fast radio bursts are mysterious and brief flashes of radio emissions that were thought to be produced by magnetars, highly magnetized rotating neutron stars. Yet magnetars appear primarily in young star clusters. A repeating burst discovered last year has been pinpointed to the distant outskirts of an old but massive elliptical galaxy where, theoretically, such stars would long since have disappeared. Does this mean magnetars are not the source of FRBs?

A team of researchers led by Emory’s Chunhui Xu recently found that heart muscle cells can grow -and survive in the microgravity environment of space. Her findings, published in Biomaterials, show promise for developing hardier heart cells that could effectively repair damaged hearts in cell therapy –  the process of transplanting millions of heart cells to repair damaged hearts – on earth.

Astronomers previously thought all FRBs were generated by magnetars formed through the explosions of very young, massive stars. But new FRB is pinpointed to the outskirts of 11.3-billion-year-old galaxy without young, active stars — calling those assumptions into question. “Just when you think you understand an astrophysical phenomenon, the universe turns around and surprises us," researcher says.

Instead of relying on energy-hungry reactors to generate high temperatures and pressure, researchers are looking underground at Earth’s natural heat and forces to cook up ammonia for fertilizer. In a proof-of-concept study, published January 21 in the Cell Press journal Joule, researchers generated ammonia by mixing nitrogen-laced water with iron-rich rocks—without any energy input or CO2 emission. This new recipe may lead to a more sustainable alternative to current methods, theoretically churning out enough ammonia for 2.42 million years.