Science

Scientists have detailed two different studies this week involving black holes, one that focuses on the black hole located at the center of our galaxy, another that is located in the center of a galaxy located millions of light-years away. Though they're located far apart, these two black holes have something in common: they're both hungry as evidenced by their unusual consumption habits. Researchers with UCLA say the black hole at the center of our galaxy is having a 'big feast' unlike anything previously observed.

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NASA has announced that for the first time, Hubble Space Telescope has discovered an exoplanet with water vapor that exists within the habitable zone of its star. The exoplanet has been named K2-18b and it is located outside of our solar system. Because the planet's atmosphere contains water vapor and it's located within the habitable zone, there may be bodies of liquid water located on the surface.

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Researchers from ETH Zurich and a company called SensArs have developed a new interface to connect a leg prosthesis with the residual nerves left in the thigh of two patients who had an above the knee amputation. The goal was to provide the people with sensory input from the prosthetic foot.

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Scientists previously believed that there was only one species of electric eel, but that has now been proven wrong. There are at least three species of the electric eel. The new species were recently discovered by members of the Sao Paulo Research Foundation with support from various other organizations. The team found that one of the new species of electric eels can produce a charge of up to 860 volts.

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Kansas state health officials are reporting the third death of an individual who had developed a severe lung condition following the recent use of a vaping device. The announcement was made by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, which reports in a letter published on September 10 that the death involved an adult over the age of 50.

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Researchers at MIT have created a new programmable ink that offers some of the most interesting properties similar to a chameleon. MIT scientists at the Computer Science and Artificial intelligence Laboratory or CSAIL have created a programmable ink that brings us closer to inanimate objects that can change colors like the chameleon.

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Harvard researchers have created a new method of 3D printing human tissues that could one day lead to 3D printed artificial human organs. The researchers created a new technique called SWIFT (sacrificial writing into functional tissue.) SWIFT overcomes one major hurdle of 3D printing organs by printing vascular channels into living matrices composed of stem cell-derived organ building blocks (OBBs).

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After years of preparation and months after launch, the Indian moon mission, that included the Vikram lander that separated from the orbiter last week, ran into problems on the last portion of its descent. On Friday the ISRO confirmed that it had lost contact with the Vikram lander as it descended to the surface of the moon on the final stages of its landing.

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The Indian Space Research Organization has confirmed that it lost contact with the Vikram lunar lander, bringing an end to what would have been a historic landing near the Moon's south pole. The loss of contact took place after the Vikram lander started its descent, which was described as normal and 'as planned' ahead of the anomaly.

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While observing a large supernova in the 'Fireworks' galaxy, researchers accidentally captured imagery of a brief, bright spot in the same galaxy that didn't originate from the supernova. This spot wasn't visible in the initial NASA NuSTAR observation but was spied a little over a week later in a followup observation by the space agency's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

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Scientists have discovered a new type of duck-billed dinosaur. The nearly complete skeleton was unearthed in 72 million-year-old marine deposits in Mukawa Town in northern Japan. The scientists say that the new dinosaur belongs to a new genus and species of herbivorous hadrosaurid. The dino has been named Kamuysaurus japonicus.

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Scientists have been using a key tracer, isotopes of oxygen, to try and figure out how much atmosphere Mars lost. The problem they have had is that previous measurements have disagreed significantly. New observations by NASA-funded scientists have found that the amount of isotopes of oxygen vary depending on the time of day and the surface temperature of Mars.

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