Yes, last year's detection of neutron stars colliding was indeed "kind of a big deal," especially here at Georgia Tech. Seventeen of our faculty members, researchers, and students were part of the international Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory team that detected the first-ever observation of a kilonova, or neutron star mashup.

A Georgia Tech honors graduate who was both a Rhodes and Truman Scholar may have a chance to impact the purchase of new technologies for the Air Force. William Roper, currently founding director of the Pentagon's Strategic Capabilities Office, is President Trump's nominee to be assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisitions.

Georgia Public Broadcasting radio host Celeste Headlee replays her 2015 interview with Patricia Yang, a doctoral student and co-winner of an Ig Nobel Award, an honor presented by Improbable Research given to science projects that "make you laugh, then make you think." Yang's award was for a study

Look up at the winter sky on a clear night. The brilliance of the stars is breathtaking. James Sowell, an astronomer in the School of Physics, weighs in on why stargazing is so beautiful in the winter. "There are more brighter stars in the quarter of the sky that we call the winter sky. Plus, cold air holds less moisture than the warmer summer air, making the nights clearer. So, faint stars that may go unseen during the summer nights may be more visible," Sowell says.

You won’t feel it happen, but the kilogram, used to measure the mass of electrons, galaxies, and everything in between, is about to be transformed. The General Conference on Weights and Measures is set to meet to redefine the kilogram in terms of a physical constant, Planck's constant. Ronald Fox of the School of Physics, an early advocate of redefining the kilogram, is very pleased.

School of Physics researchers Paul Goldbart, Benjamin Loewe, and Anton Souslov have made a breakthrough in fluid dynamics. They've derived hydrodynamic equations describing active fluids, something that had proven very difficult to do in the past. Their research was published in the New Journal of Physics.

The latest discovery from Georgia Tech physicists may seem like something straight out of Black Mirror. But don't worry, it's not that sinister.

"A person's accomplishments accumulate over years and decades. Something else accumulates, too — their poop. The quantities of poop that people leave behind during an individual bathroom break can vary widely, depending on age, body weight, diet, exercise and other factors." David Hu's research on how long it takes animals to defecate informs this story. Hu is affiliated with the Schools of Mechanical Engineering, Biological Sciences, and Physics. 

Scientists have spotted a theorized—but never-before detected—property of quantum matter in the lab. The team proved that a particular quantum material can demonstrate electrical dipole fluctuations—irregular oscillations of tiny charged poles on the material—even in extremely cold conditions, in the neighborhood of minus 450 degrees Fahrenheit. The story is based on a Science paper, coauthored by School of Physics Assistant Professor Martin Mourigal.

Of all the exoplanets, planets outside of Earth's solar system, discovered in recent years, one that's captured some of the most attention is Kepler-186f. It's often described as one of the "most Earth-like" of all exoplanets discovered and a new study just adds to the case.