In this episode:00:45 The biggest black hole jets ever seenAstronomers have spotted a pair of enormous jets emanating from a supermassive black hole with a combined length of 23 million light years — the biggest ever discovered. Jets are formed when matter is ionized and flung out of a black hole, creating enormous and powerful structures in space. Thought to be unstable, physicists had theorized there was a limit to how large these jets could be, but the new discovery far exceeds this, suggesting there may be more of these monstrous jets yet to be discovered.Research Article: Oei et al. 09:44 Research HighlightsThe knitted fabrics designed to protect wearers from mosquito bites, and the role that islands play in fostering language diversity.Research Highlight: Plagued by mosquitoes? Try some bite-blocking fabricsResearch Highlight: Islands are rich with languages spoken nowhere else12:26 A sustainable, one-step method for alloy productionMaking metal alloys is typically a multi-step process that creates huge amounts of emissions. Now, a team demonstrates a way to create these materials in a single step, which they hope could significantly reduce the environmental burdens associated with their production. In a lab demonstration, they use their technique to create an alloy of nickel and iron called invar — a widely-used material that has a high carbon-footprint. The team show evidence that their method can produce invar to a quality that rivals that of conventional manufacturing, and suggest their technique is scalable to create alloys at an industrial scale.Research article: Wei et al.25:29 Briefing ChatHow AI-predicted protein structures have helped chart the evolution of a group of viruses, and the neurons that cause monkeys to ‘choke’ under pressure.Nature News: Where did viruses come from? AlphaFold and other AIs are finding answersNature News: Why do we crumble under pressure? Science has the answerSubscribe to the Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.