Yue Hu

Infrared light with a wavelength of about three micrometers is the working range for identifying molecules: each molecule absorbs light at its own characteristic frequencies, leaving behind "fingerprints." But until now, instruments for this range could not simultaneously provide broad frequency coverage, sufficient power, and…

In a kitchen where you're simultaneously boiling soup, frying meat, and baking bread, everything happens in one pot. That's roughly what the central molecular zone (CMZ) looks like — a dense clump of gas at the very heart of the Milky Way.

Interstellar space is not empty: it is filled with tenuous gas, which is warm in some places and cold in others. The boundaries between such regions resemble the walls between soap bubbles.

A bunch of keys lies on the table: each opens only one lock. In living cells, nanobodies often play the role of such keys: tiny antibody fragments that stick to strictly defined proteins. They can be used to deliver a drug exactly to a diseased cell or to block a harmful process.