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Research roundup: 7 cool science stories we almost missed
“Black hole stars,” making cookies from plastic, tiny sound-powered drones, and more.
It’s a regrettable reality that there is never enough time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across. So every month, we highlight a handful of the best stories that nearly slipped through the cracks. August’s list includes the discovery of a new celestial object astronomers have dubbed a “black hole star”; breaking down plastics with microbes and turning them into edible cookies; how whale calls are connected to Einstein’s special theory of relativity; and how avocado tree flowers switch sex during the day, among other highlights.
In 2024, astronomers combing through datasets taken by the James Webb Space Telescope noticed hundreds of mysterious little red dots lurking therein, believed to be baby quasars. They existed when the Universe was just a few hundred million years old. One such object in particular captured scientists’ interest: a red dot that was extremely red and very bright, but whose properties didn’t fit with any known astrophysical object. Astronomers have now concluded that the little red dot is a “black hole star,” so named because it is the size of a large star but produces far more energy than would be possible via nuclear fusion—energy comparable to what an active black hole would produce.
They described this new object in detail in a paper published in the journal Nature. Initially, the authors thought the object was so red because it was surrounded by dust, but while the light produced was extremely bright, it completely disappeared below certain wavelengths. This is known as a “Balmer break” and is usually a signature of a stellar atmosphere. But this was the deepest break ever observed. Also, there was no evidence of metals or any element other than hydrogen and helium in the spectrum.
The authors decided to run computer simulations to determine what could produce this unusual combination of features. They reasoned that the red dot must be a powerful energy source surrounded by a very dense hydrogen cocoon, but the only possible source capable of that degree of brightness (100 billion times brighter than a star) would be an active accreting black hole. The team concluded that MoM-BH*-1, as they’ve named the red dot, is a black hole star: a massive central black hole (about 100 solar masses) surrounded by a dense cocoon of hydrogen the size of our solar system. Astronomers hope the discovery of black hole stars—two more have since been identified—will help them solve the puzzle of how supermassive black holes formed so soon after the Big Bang.
Nature, 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10846-4 (About DOIs).
Plastic pollution is a serious environmental concern, and microbes are helping scientists mitigate the issue in a variety of ways. Scientists at Southern Illinois University have figured out how to use microbes to break down polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the material used for plastic beverage bottles, into an edible cookie they suggest would be ideal for future astronauts on deep-space missions, submarines, or colonies on the Moon or Mars. They presented their work at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Chicago.
SIU professor Lahiru Jayakody and colleagues figured that since plastic is carbon-based and food is carbon-based, food products could be a handy upcycling market for PET waste. They programmed different kinds of yeast to convert plastic molecules into proteins, vitamins, and flavorings via a proprietary process that relies on water and oxygen at high temperature and pressure to break down plastic bottles into tiny pieces to make them more accessible to microbes. The microbes then get to work transforming those pieces into proteins, fats, and acids.
The final step: adding fiber, starch, and sweetener and extruding the resulting “dough” through a 3D printer to form little cookies. They’ve dubbed their creation µBites (microbites). The researchers have not yet conducted hum