ERIK MARTIN WILLÈN: March 2026

Monday, March 2, 2026

Astronomers may have just found one of the missing links in galaxy evolution - Astronomy & Space - UNIVERSE

Eighteen of the recently discovered dusty, star-forming galaxies (in red) formed almost 13 billion years ago. Credit: UMass Amherst

A team of 48 astronomers from 14 countries, led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has discovered a population of dusty, star-forming galaxies at the far edges of the universe that formed only a billion years after the Big Bang, believed to have occurred 13.7 billion years ago. The galaxies may represent a snapshot in the galactic life cycle, linking recently discovered ultradistant bright galaxies formed 13.3 billion years ago with early "quiescent" (dead) galaxies that stopped forming stars about two billion years after the Big Bang.

Challenging what we know about cosmos

The new discovery challenges current models of the universe, making the findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, a step toward revising cosmic history.

"My research involves trying to identify and understand a population of rare, dusty star-forming galaxies that were only discovered at the end of the 1990s," says Jorge Zavala, assistant professor of astronomy at UMass Amherst and the paper's lead author.

Part of what has made these galaxies so difficult to study is the dust, which absorbs UV and visible light, essentially making them invisible to telescopes that rely on the UV and visible parts of the spectrum.

New tools for seeing hidden galaxies

But with the invention of submillimeter telescopes, which can see longer-wavelength light, suddenly astronomers were able to shine light into dusty parts of the universe that had previously remained dark. As the dust absorbs UV and visible light, it also creates heat—radiating infrared energy visible to these telescopes.

Zavala and his co-authors relied on the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub millimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile to first identify a population of about 400 bright, dusty galaxies. They then used near-infrared observations made by NASA's recently launched James Webb Space Telescope to pinpoint approximately 70 faint dusty galaxy candidates on the edge of our universe, most of which had never been seen before.

By going back to the ALMA data and "stacking" the observations, the team was able to confirm that these are in fact dusty galaxies formed almost 13 billion years ago.

What dusty galaxies reveal about time

While technical knowledge necessary to make this discovery is itself newsworthy, the real story is about what this discovery means for our understanding of the history of the universe.

"Dusty galaxies are massive galaxies with large amounts of metals and cosmic dust," Zavala says. "And these galaxies are very old, which means stars were being formed in the early universe, earlier than our current models predict."

Furthermore, it seems that the galaxies Zavala and his team found are related to two other sets of rare, anomalous galaxies: the ultrabright, star-forming galaxies that formed soon after the Big Bang (recently discovered by JWST), and much older, massive "quiescent" galaxies that have essentially died and are no longer forming stars.

"It's as if we now have snapshots of the life cycle of these rare galaxies," Zavala notes. "The ultrabright ones are young galaxies, the quiescent ones are in their old age, and the ones we found are young adults."

Though it will take much more research to confirm these suggestions, if the hypothesis of Zavala and his team holds true, it means both that our current astronomical models of the universe's formation are missing something, and that star formation occurred earlier in the universe's evolution than previously thought.

Provided by University of Massachusetts Amherst

by Daegan Miller, University of Massachusetts Amherst

edited by Stephanie Baum, reviewed by Robert Egan

Source: Astronomers may have just found one of the missing links in galaxy evolution

Drug that targets immune cells shows potential as new treatment for diabetic heart disease - medicalxpress

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Researchers from Queen Mary University of London have found that a medication originally developed for glycemic control can reverse serious heart damage—not by controlling blood sugar as originally intended, but by retraining the immune system to protect the heart from within.

The findings, published this month in Nature Cardiovascular Research, reveal a previously unknown link between immune dysfunction and the metabolic deterioration seen in diabetic hearts—and point toward an entirely new class of cardiac treatment.

Diabetic cardiomyopathy is one of the most serious and least-discussed complications of type 2 diabetes. It develops independently of blocked coronary arteries, instead arising from a combination of chronic inflammation, metabolic dysfunction, and structural damage, which progressively stiffens and weakens the heart muscle. Patients develop diastolic dysfunction—meaning the heart struggles to relax and fill properly—leaving them increasingly vulnerable to heart failure and far more likely to suffer severe damage if they have a heart attack.

Despite its prevalence, no approved therapies specifically target metabolism of diabetic hearts. Standard diabetes treatments regulate blood sugar levels, but largely leave the heart's underlying deterioration untouched.

AZD1656 treatment attenuates diastolic dysfunction and reduces infarct size in dbCM. Credit: Nature Cardiovascular Research (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s44161-025-00769-0

How an abandoned diabetes drug helps

The drug AZD1656 was originally developed by Astra Zeneca to improve blood sugar control in people with type 2 diabetes, but didn't work well for that purpose. Rather than targeting blood sugar, subsequent research revealed that the drug can rebalance the immune system by helping regulatory T (Treg) cells (a type of protective immune cell) move around the body more effectively.

This discovery prompted an international team of researchers, led by Professor Dunja Aksentijevic of the William Harvey Research Institute at Queen Mary University of London, to investigate whether AZD1656's immune effects could be used to advantage in the diabetic heart.

The team found that AZD1656 corrects the Treg cell imbalance and can reverse serious heart damage in diabetic patients, a completely different mechanism than any described to date. They show that AZD1656 boosts the ability of protective immune Treg cells to travel into the heart, where they calm inflammation, reduce post-infarct scarring, and—remarkably—allow the heart's disrupted energy systems to recover almost to normal.

Heart function gains beyond blood sugar

The study also showed that treatment dramatically improved heart function, cut heart attack damage, and restored the heart's metabolic profile to near-healthy levels. Crucially, none of this was explained by changes in blood sugar, body weight, liver, fat or muscle metabolism.

Dunja Aksentijevic, Professor of Cardiovascular Physiology and Metabolism at Queen Mary University of London and a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow, said, "This work stems directly from my Wellcome Career Re-Entry Fellowship and establishes aberrant immunometabolic signaling as a promoter of cardiac remodeling in type 2 diabetes. Targeting this axis by enhancing the migratory capacity of regulatory T cells improved diabetic cardiomyopathy, thus opening a new therapeutic direction for the treatment of hundreds of millions of people worldwide living with type 2 diabetes."

Provided by Queen Mary, University of London

by Queen Mary, University of London

edited by Robert Egan

Source: Drug that targets immune cells shows potential as new treatment for diabetic heart disease

HFC electrolyte delivers energy-dense lithium battery that keeps running at −50 °C - Engineering - Energy & Green Tech

Credit: Nankai University

A research team in China has developed an electrolyte using monofluorinated hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) solvents capable of achieving energy densities higher than 700 Wh kg⁻¹ at room temperature and about 400 Wh kg⁻¹ at −50 °C, a significant improvement over current technologies. Their work, recently published in Nature, has potential applications in electric vehicles, aerospace, and grid storage for operation in extreme climates.

Swapping out electrolyte solvents

The electrolyte material in electrochemical energy storage devices, such as lithium batteries, helps to carry charge between the cathode and anode. This is facilitated by solvents that help to dissolve lithium salts. Electrolyte solvents in batteries have traditionally used oxygen- and nitrogen-based ligands. However, these materials hinder charge transfer at the electrode–electrolyte interface, especially under fast-charging or low-temperature conditions due to strong binding.

Scientists have attempted to modify oxygen- and nitrogen-based solvents, but this often resulted in increased solvent viscosity or reduced performance at low temperatures. HFCs have been proposed as a substitution, although some studies showed poor salt solubility and instability with lithium metal. But, the research team involved in the new study believed HFCs could dissolve lithium salts better with some modifications.

"If the exclusive HFCs–F and Li⁺ coordination can be delicately designed by strengthening the Lewis basicity of F atoms to enable substantial Li-salt dissolution, the predictable low binding energies will promote the interfacial kinetics of energy-dense batteries," they write.

Higher energy density, lower temperatures

To achieve these goals, the team synthesized and characterized six different HFC solvents, and then tested their electrochemical performance in coin and pouch cells across a wide temperature range. The newly synthesized solvents were found to dissolve lithium salts at >2 mol/L. One solvent, in particular, exceeded expectations, working well even at a temperature of −50 °C.

"Among them, 1,3-difluoropropane (DFP)-based Li-ion electrolyte is endowed with all merits for energy-dense and low-temperature batteries, including low viscosity (0.95 cp), high oxidation stability (>4.9 V) and ionic conductivity of 0.29 mS cm⁻¹ at −70 °C. By incorporating F atoms in the first solvation shell, the weak F–Li⁺ coordination facilitates the Li plating/stripping process with Coulombic efficiency (CE) up to 99.7% and exchanges current density one magnitude larger than O–Li⁺ coordination at −50 °C.

"The electrolytes further enable the operation of lithium-metal pouch cells under an electrolyte amount of less than 0.5 g Ah⁻¹, achieving energy densities greater than 700 Wh kg⁻¹ at room temperature and about 400 Wh kg⁻¹ at −50 °C," the study authors write.

Current high-performance cells, such as those used in electric vehicles, typically reach around 250–270 Wh/kg at room temperature, meaning the new electrolyte offers a marked improvement and ability to use batteries in extreme climates. The team notes that further improvements could improve temperature range and stability even more.

The study authors write, "By further modulating the carbon and fluorine numbers, high-boiling-point (>100 °C) HFCs with well-maintained Li-metal compatibility can be designed. The F-coordination chemistry puts forward a promising pathway to break the power and energy density ceiling of batteries."

by Krystal Kasal, Phys.org

edited by Gaby Clark, reviewed by Robert Egan

Source: HFC electrolyte delivers energy-dense lithium battery that keeps running at −50 °C