MISSISSAUGA, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 26, 2023--

Microsoft's got something cooking for us. Let's peek under the lid and see what it

(Bloomberg Markets) -- Indonesia isn’t exactly a stock trading hotbed. No other Southeast Asian country has a smaller market for

The Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium begins on Thursday. Plus, earnings from Lowe's, Nvidia, Dollar Tree, Intuit, and Ulta Beauty.

Many of us will never get our heads around the fact that scientists can actually look back in time. The power of telescopes enables us to study phenomena that occurred billions of years ago, and even gaze upon the dawn of creation itself. Now, astrophysicists have solved a great mystery at the heart of our universe's birth, when everything was shrouded in a dense fog. In four separate papers published in (or accepted into) The Astrophysical Journal, scientists at MIT, Japan’s Nagoya University, ETH Zurich and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands have shared some stunning insights into the period known as the Epoch of Reionisation. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Relatively little is known about this era, during which the thick fog engulfing the universe gradually cleared, allowing stars and galaxies to shine. However, fresh observations made using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are beginning to pull back the curtain on it all. Now, scientists have finally figured out why one billion years after the Big Bang, that dense fog finally dispersed. First things first, what exactly is the Epoch of Reionisation? During the first billion years after the Big Bang, space was filled with a soupy mist of ionised gas which was impenetrable to light. As the gas began to cool, protons and electrons began to combine to form mostly neutral hydrogen atoms and some helium. These clumps of neutral hydrogen are then believed to have started forming stars, grouped into galaxies. This process reionised the gas but, because space had expanded by this point, the newly ionised hydrogen was diffuse enough to allow light to stream through, as Science Alert notes. A few million years later, the universe had become the transparent expanse with which we’re now familiar. To explain, here’s a look at what those four new papers reveal about why space became so much clearer. Paper 1 In the first study, researchers at the University of Groningen revealed that they had discovered crucial evidence of star formation during the Epoch of Reionisation. They found a specific wavelength of hydrogen, called hydrogen alpha, which is formed when a star is born and blasts out huge amounts of ionising ultraviolet radiation. Until now, no one was sure what produced all the ultraviolet light that emerged during the Epoch of Reionisation. But, thanks to their detection of hydrogen alpha, the Groningen team of astronomers that star formation had a “significant role in the process of reionisation”. Paper 2 Another paper, spearheaded by Japanese astrophysicist Daichi Kashino, added galaxies into the mix. According to Kashino and his international team, reionisation happened in “bubbles” around the plethora of newly-formed galaxies. They used JWST data to pinpoint these pockets and measure them precisely, identifying that they had a 2 million light-year radius around the tiny galaxies. Over the next hundred million years, the bubbles grew larger and larger, eventually merging and causing the entire universe to become transparent, according to an article published by NASA. Paper 3 A third group of researchers, led by ETH Zurich astrophysicist Jorryt Matthee, analysed the characteristics of these bubbles and found that the early galaxies they contained were hot, low in metals and dust and very active. He said they were “more chaotic” than those in the nearby universe, adding: "Webb shows they were actively forming stars and must have been shooting off many supernovae. They had quite an adventurous youth!” Paper 4 A fourth paper, led by MIT cosmologist Anna-Christina Eilers, focused its attention on the quasar galaxy at the centre of the JWST observations. This quasar is, according to NASA, an “extremely luminous active supermassive black hole that acts like an enormous flashlight”. Eilers and her team used data from the telescope to confirm that the black hole is the most massive currently known in the early universe, weighing 10 billion times the mass of the Sun. “We still can’t explain how quasars were able to grow so large so early in the history of the universe,” she said. “That’s another puzzle to solve!” Conclusion Well done if you’ve survived to the end – this is all pretty heavy-going. But the key point here is that before the JWST no one knew for sure what caused reionisation. Now, thanks to the mighty golden-eyed telescope, one of the great mysteries behind the birth of creation has finally been solved. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The top US consumer financial watchdog is sharpening his focus on lenders’ use of artificial intelligence when making

Apple will bring Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro to the iPad, answering questions about the future of its high-powered tablets. The professional video and music editing apps have been remade for Apple’s tablets, with new touch interfaces and additional features added from the Mac counterpart. Apple has been making the iPad Pro for years, with the first released in 2015. Recent models have brought them in line with Apple’s laptops, using the same chips for faster performance. But at the same time, Apple has been relatively slow in adding professional apps to the platform that can make use of that computing capability. That had led some to wonder whether Apple was truly committed to its iPads being a professional platform. Now Apple has put its two main professional and creative apps onto the platform, and they will arrive later this month. “We’re excited to introduce Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad, allowing creators to unleash their creativity in new ways and in even more places,” said Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of worldwide product marketing, in a statement. “With a powerful set of intuitive tools designed for the portability, performance, and touch-first interface of iPad, Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro deliver the ultimate mobile studio.” The new versions of the app are largely similar to their Mac counterparts. They include the same basic design and similar functionality. The updates do however add some tools within the iPad version, such as a new sound browser in Logic Pro. And they also include new options that are built specifically for the tablet, such as support for the Apple Pencil. Customers will have to pay for the iPad versions of the app separately, even if they own the desktop one, with each app costing £4.99 per month or £49 per year. Final Cut Pro requires an M1 chip or later, and Logic Pro needs an A12 chip or later, and the apps must be updated to the latest operating system. Both of the apps will be available from 23 May. Apple’s announcement is unusual in that it comes just a month before its big software event, the Worldwide Developers Conference, which is held at the beginning of June. Apple usually announces new updates to its own apps at that event. Read More Apple announces shock results Tim Cook reveals his thoughts on AI – and Apple’s plans to use it Google gets rid of passwords in major new update

Some Senate Democrats are pushing the Biden administration to impose tough limits on hydrogen tax credits they say

The 2023 Women's World Cup finally gets underway on Thursday with the two host nations kicking off the tournament and the summer of footballing festivities.

AMSTERDAM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 18, 2023--

Scientists think they have discovered a previously unknown hidden structure inside the Earth’s core that could change our understanding of our planet. In school, most of us were taught there are four main layers to the Earth’s structure: the crust, the mantle, the outer core and the inner core. What we know about the Earth’s insides has mostly derived from geologists’ knowledge and observations of volcanoes and seismic waves. But now, scientists believe that there may also be a whole extra layer hidden inside the inner core that no one knew about. Earth’s molten inner core is predicted to be around 5,000 degrees Celsius in temperature and scientists have calculated that it takes up around just 1 per cent of the planet’s total volume. The discovery of a potential fifth layer to the planet’s core came a few years ago when scientists used an algorithm to model thousands of scenarios of the inner core to observe the length of time it takes seismic waves to travel through Earth based on data by the International Seismological Centre. Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter Scientists were able to analyse how different material properties within the inner core would affect seismic waves differently and found that some scenarios were certainly more likely than others. The algorithm showed how different materials altered the angle of seismic waves, leading them to hypothesise that there was a change of material somewhere in the inner core. Joanne Stephenson, an Australian National University geophysicist, explained: “We found evidence that may indicate a change in the structure of iron, which suggests perhaps two separate cooling events in Earth's history.” She continued: “The details of this big event are still a bit of a mystery, but we've added another piece of the puzzle when it comes to our knowledge of the Earth's inner core.” While their data isn’t conclusive, it does correlate with other similar studies that have looked into the anisotropy of the Earth’s inner core. Stephenson said: “It's very exciting - and might mean we have to re-write the textbooks!” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Honda’s profit for the fiscal year that ended in March has dropped 1.7% as sales took a hit from a semiconductor shortage and restrictions in China related to the coronavirus pandemic