Researchers generate, for the first time, a vortex beam of atoms and molecules

Vortices may conjure a mental image of whirlpools and tornadoes—spinning bodies of water and air—but they can also exist on much smaller scales. In a new study published in Science, researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science, together with collaborators from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Tel Aviv University, have created, for the first time, vortices made of a single atom. These vortices could help answer fundamental questions about the inner workings of the subatomic world and be used to enhance a variety of technologies—for example, by providing new capabilities for atomic microscopes.

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High-speed holography of cells spots physical beacons of disease

Biomedical engineers at Duke University have engineered a holographic system capable of imaging and analyzing tens of thousands of cells per minute to both discover and recognize signs of disease.

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Three-body interactions bring egoists into the collective comfort zone—even penguins

A research team from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) has worked together with TU Darmstadt and an MPI based in Garching to examine the group dynamics of communicating active particles. These particles are consistently focused on self-optimisation. By always endeavoring to maintain their own personal comfort, they also help the other group members. As the researchers describe in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, such self-optimisation is a common multi-body phenomenon which can occur for penguins and bacteria.

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Modeling suggests friendships may lead to lopsided elections

Have you ever thought about not voting because your preferred candidate's victory seems assured? New Cornell research uses mathematical modeling to show that type of thinking can have the opposite effect, resulting in the election of politicians who do not represent the preferences of the electorate as a whole.

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Filtering microplastics trash from water with acoustic waves

Microplastics are released into the environment by cosmetics, clothing, and industrial processes or from larger plastic products as they break down naturally.

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Intense correlationship proved between irradiation damage and performances of tritium breeding materials

Severe irradiation environment would bring damage to the microstructure of the materials and affect the stable operation and tritium recovery of fusion reactor. Therefore, the efficient tritium production from tritium breeding materials is the guarantee for the realization of tritium self-sufficiency in fusion reactor.

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Breaking the symmetry of sound waves allows the sound to be directed to a certain place

Research undertaken by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) has concluded that sound can be directed to a certain place if the sound waves' symmetry is broken. In order to carry out this work, recently published in the journal Nature, researchers used the whispering gallery phenomenon, a circular, vaulted room in which you can hear what is being said in a specific part of the room from anywhere, even if it is being whispered.

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Möbius strip microlasers for non-Euclidean photonics applications

Photonics is a branch of technology development that specializes in the creation of devices that can generate, detect or manipulate light. Recently, researchers at Université Paris-Saclay coined a new term for a new photonics sub-field called non-Euclidean photonics.

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Bolometers operate at higher temperatures using new superconducting material

Receivers combining a superconducting hot electron bolometer (HEB) with a reference oscillator are the work horses of supra-terahertz astronomy, observing for example star formation and galaxy evolution. Until now, mainly niobium nitride HEBs—that have to be operated at low temperatures of 4 Kelvin—have been selected for space and balloon borne telescopes. A team of scientists at SRON, TU Delft, Chalmers University and RUG have now demonstrated a HEB based on magnesium diboride, a new superconducting material, which not only can simultaneously detect more spectral lines, but can also be operated around 20 Kelvin. The latter can significantly reduce the cost, weight, volume, and required electrical power of space instruments. The study is published in Applied Physics Letters.

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Physicists detect signs of neutrinos at Large Hadron Collider

The international Forward Search Experiment team, led by physicists at the University of California, Irvine, has achieved the first-ever detection of neutrino candidates produced by the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN facility near Geneva, Switzerland.

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A doubly magic discovery

A team of researchers, including scientists from the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) and the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University (MSU), have solved the case of zirconium-80's missing mass.

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Electrons set the stage for neutrino experiments

Neutrinos may be the key to finally solving a mystery of the origins of our matter-dominated universe, and preparations for two major, billion-dollar experiments are underway to reveal the particles' secrets. Now, a team of nuclear physicists have turned to the humble electron to provide insight for how these experiments can better prepare to capture critical information. Their research, which was carried out at the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and recently published in Nature, reveals that major updates to neutrino models are needed for the experiments to achieve high-precision results.

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Rare Einstein papers set record at Paris auction

Albert Einstein's handwritten notes for the theory of relativity fetched a record 11.6 million euros ($13 million) at an auction in Paris on Tuesday.

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Origami, kirigami inspire mechanical metamaterials designs

The ancient arts of origami, the art of paper-folding, and kirigami, the art of paper-cutting, have gained popularity in recent years among researchers building mechanical metamaterials. Folding and cutting 2D thin-film materials transforms them into complex 3D structures and shapes with unique and programmable mechanical properties.

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Rare Einstein manuscript set to fetch millions

Albert Einstein's handwritten notes for the theory of relativity are being auctioned in Paris on Tuesday, expected to fetch millions of euros.

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Heat flow controls the movement of skyrmions in an insulating magnet

Tiny amounts of heat can be used to control the movement of magnetic whirlpools called skyrmions, RIKEN physicists have shown. This ability could help to develop energy-efficient forms of computing that harness waste heat.

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Skyrmions: Fundamental particles modeled in beam of light

Scientists at the University of Birmingham have succeeded in creating an experimental model of an elusive kind of fundamental particle called a skyrmion in a beam of light.

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Rare Einstein manuscript set to fetch millions

A rare manuscript by theoretical physicist Albert Einstein goes under the hammer in Paris on Tuesday, with auctioneers aiming for a stratospheric price tag.

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Why do frozen turkeys explode when deep-fried?

Deep-frying a turkey is a great way to get a delicious, moist meal for Thanksgiving. But this method of cooking can be a very dangerous undertaking.

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How ultracold, superdense atoms become invisible

An atom's electrons are arranged in energy shells. Like concertgoers in an arena, each electron occupies a single chair and cannot drop to a lower tier if all its chairs are occupied. This fundamental property of atomic physics is known as the Pauli exclusion principle, and it explains the shell structure of atoms, the diversity of the periodic table of elements, and the stability of the material universe.

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Energizer atoms: Physicists find new way to keep atoms excited

JILA researchers have tricked nature by tuning a dense quantum gas of atoms to make a congested "Fermi sea," thus keeping atoms in a high-energy state, or excited, for about 10% longer than usual by delaying their normal return to the lowest-energy state. The technique might be used to improve quantum communication networks and atomic clocks.

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Estimating the quality of sound spaces from observed speech

In the future, smartphones, which almost everyone has, and smart speakers, 3.7 million installed in Japanese households, might save your life. Apart from daily-use features, these devices can read emergency messages aloud to inform us of the current situation of an earthquake and how to evacuate. However, we might lose such crucial information due to difficulty listening in some circumstances. The intelligibility of speech is dramatically degraded by noise such as conversations and vacuum cleaners and reverberation as in poor auditoriums or subways.

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Revolution in imaging with neutrons

An international research team at the Research Neutron Source Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II) of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed a new imaging technology. In the future this technology could not only improve the resolution of neutron measurements by many times but could also reduce radiation exposure during X-ray imaging.

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Iodine successfully tested in satellite ion thrusters

A team of researchers from ThrustMe, working with colleagues from Sorbonne Université, has successfully tested the use of iodine as an ionizing agent in an ion-thrusting spacecraft engine. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes their two-year test of the chemical element. The team has also posted a press release describing their work on their site.

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Muonic X-ray emission spectroscopy study of Roman coins reveals thriving empires

A study of gold coins from different moments of the Roman Empire has revealed the thriving economy at the time of minting.

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New study helps to understand cosmological lithium problem

An international research team has recently updated the 7Li(d,n)24He reaction rate based on latest experimental data, which removes the significant ambiguity in the cosmological lithium (Li) problem from the perspective of nuclear physics.

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A glimpse of deformation in helium-8

New TRIUMF research from the Saint Mary's University-led IRIS group has unveiled an unexpected shape deformation in the nucleus of helium-8 (He8), providing further insight into the unique dynamics of how neutron-rich nuclei take shape and maintain stability.

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Study explores the origin of clonal dominance in excitable cell networks

Clonal dominance is a phenomenon that occurs when descendants (i.e., clones) of one or more founder cells in an organism contribute disproportionally to the system's final structure as the tissue grows. This phenomenon is associated with numerous biological processes, including bacterial growth and the genesis of tumors. While numerous studies have investigated clonal dominance, its origin is still is poorly understood.

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Combining muography with existing technology to improve volcanic eruption predictions

An international team of researchers is proposing that vulcanologists consider using muography with existing technology to improve volcanic eruption predictions. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, the group describes ways they believe muography could be combined with existing technology to provide volcanologists with more information about the status of a given volcano.

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Glass as stable as crystal: Homogeneity leads to stability

Scientists from The University of Tokyo Institute of Industrial Science used computer simulations to study the aging mechanism that can cause an amorphous glassy material to turn into a crystal. They find that removing tiny irregularities in local densities help prevent the atomic "avalanches" that trigger ordered structure formation. This work may lead to more stable glassy materials, including for pharmaceutical applications.

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New holographic camera sees the unseen with high precision

Northwestern University researchers have invented a new high-resolution camera that can see the unseen—including around corners and through scattering media, such as skin, fog or potentially even the human skull.

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Experiments visualize temperature-driven spatial change of magnetic patterns at atomic scale

Experiments led by a group of Boston College researchers enabled atomic scale visualization of a temperature-driven spatial change of magnetic patterns in a Mott insulator, the team has reported in Science Advances.

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Mathematicians derive the formulas for boundary layer turbulence 100 years after the phenomenon was first formulated

Turbulence makes many people uneasy or downright queasy. And it's given researchers a headache, too. Mathematicians have been trying for a century or more to understand the turbulence that arises when a flow interacts with a boundary, but a formulation has proven elusive.

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A computer algorithm that speeds up experiments on plasma

A team of researchers from Tri Alpha Energy Inc. and Google has developed an algorithm that can be used to speed up experiments conducted with plasma. In their paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, the group describes how they plan to use the algorithm in nuclear fusion research.

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Study shows what happens to apparent horizons when binary black holes merge

Binary black hole mergers are fascinating cosmological events, which have been theorized to be the among the strongest sources of gravitational waves in the universe. While astrophysicists have carried out extensive research focusing on these events, many questions remain unanswered.

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Portable device capable of monitoring gamma radiation and neutrons in radioactive and nuclear processes

A group of researchers from the Institute of Corpuscular Physics (IFIC), a joint center of the University of Valencia and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), has patented a compact and portable device capable of simultaneously monitoring gamma radiation and neutrons produced in radioactive processes and nuclear reactions. This detector also makes it possible to measure these radiations with a wide range of energy and visualize them spatially, which can give rise to multiple applications: from the detection of radioactive materials in nuclear safety programs to mitigating the side effects of hadron therapy, a novel way to treat cancer.

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First direct measurement of the overall impact of ocean eddy killing

Ocean currents, propelled by kinetic energy from the wind, are the great moderators of our climate. By transferring heat from the equator to polar regions, they help make our planet habitable.

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First observation of an inhomogeneous electron charge distribution on an atom

Until now, observing subatomic structures was beyond the resolution capabilities of direct imaging methods, and this seemed unlikely to change. Czech scientists, however, have presented a method with which they became the first in the world to observe an inhomogeneous electron charge distribution around a halogen atom, thus confirming the existence of a phenomenon that had been theoretically predicted but never directly observed. Comparable to the first observation of a black hole, the breakthrough will facilitate understanding of interactions between individual atoms or molecules as well as of chemical reactions, and it opens a path to refinement of the material and structural properties of various physical, biological, and chemical systems. The breakthrough will be published on Friday in Science.

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Researchers recreate deep-Earth conditions to see how iron copes with extreme stress

Far below you lies a sphere of solid iron and nickel about as wide as the broadest part of Texas: the Earth's inner core. The metal at the inner core is under pressure about 360 million times higher than we experience in our everyday lives and temperatures approximately as hot as the Sun's surface.

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New atomic data portal

Even if you're one of the most precise physicists on the planet—as University of Delaware Professor Marianna Safronova is—you still will need collaborators whose skills complement your own and make new opportunities possible.

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COSINE-100 team find no evidence of dark matter, casting more doubt on DAMA/LIBRA results

An international team of researchers working on the COSINE-100 experiment in South Korea has been unable to reproduce the signals reported by the researchers working on the DAMA/LIBRA experiment in Italy despite using similar technology. Their paper was published in the journal Science Advances.

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Catching the fog as it rolls in for more fresh water

In the Namib desert—one of the driest places in the world—a tiny species of beetle climbs the dunes, leans its body toward the wind, and catches the only source of water it can: passing droplets of fog.

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Deep-frying sounds reveal oil temperature and the path to a perfect snack

Tempura, schnitzel, samosas, french fries, a deep-fried stick of butter at the county fair—who doesn't love food crisped up in sizzling oil?

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Uncovering the optimization secrets of fish schools

Nature documentaries have long exploited the elegant swerves of massive schools of fish. Fish team up to more easily cut through the water and protect themselves from predators.

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Nuclear radiation used to transmit digital data wirelessly

Engineers have successfully transferred digitally encoded information wirelessly using nuclear radiation instead of conventional technology.

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How to COVID-proof the grocery line, classroom, and orchestra

Despite effective vaccines, it has become clear that SARS-CoV-2 will not fully disappear anytime soon. At the 74th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics, physicists and engineers will present innovative ways to avoid clouds of coronavirus whether waiting in line, going to class, listening to the opera, or encountering people elsewhere.

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Simultaneous TES readout at level of Athena-like telescopes

Scientists at SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research have simultaneously read out the signal of 37 TES pixels at a resolution of 2.2 eV for X-rays (6 keV). It is the first time that a simultaneous readout fulfills the requirements for future space telescopes at the level of Athena in terms of both number of pixels and energy resolution. In 2020, SRON already set a world record of 1.3 eV energy resolution for X-rays with TES, but only with a single pixel readout.

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Attaining precise sample alignment under extreme conditions

The exact angular alignment of sample materials for the determination of their physical properties under extreme conditions is often difficult. Engineer Stefan Findeisen and physicist Dr. Hannes Kühne from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have developed the "Rotax," a filigree two-axis rotator that can do just that. Now, the device is ready to conquer the market.

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Using machine learning to derive black hole motion from gravitational waves

The announcement that the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) had detected gravitational waves during the merger of two black holes sent ripples throughout the scientific community in 2016. The earthshaking news not only confirmed one of Albert Einstein's key predictions in his general theory of relativity, but also opened a door to a better understanding of the motion of black holes and other spacetime-warping phenomena.

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Remote high-voltage sensor unveiled

Ever since the first human placed a bare hand on an uninsulated electric line, people have refrained from personally testing energetic materials. Even meters made of metal can melt at high voltages.

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Detectors for a new era of ATLAS physics

The High-Luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) will dramatically increase the rate of collisions in the ATLAS experiment. While offering an opportunity for physicists to explore some of the rarest processes in the universe, the large collision rate brings new challenges—in particular, higher radiation levels and significantly more data. The ATLAS collaboration is adapting to deal with these challenges by upgrading all parts of its detectors with new, state-of-the-art instruments.

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How a novel radio frequency control system enhances quantum computers

A team of physicists and engineers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) successfully demonstrated the feasibility of low-cost and high-performance radio frequency modules for qubit controls at room temperature. They built a series of compact radio frequency (RF) modules that mix signals to improve the reliability of control systems for superconducting quantum processors. Their tests proved that using modular design methods reduces the cost and size of traditional RF control systems while still delivering superior or comparable performance levels to those commercially available.

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New theory suggests dark matter can create new dark matter from regular matter

An international team of physicists is proposing an addition to dark matter theory. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the group is suggesting that dark matter came from regular matter and that dark matter is able to create more dark matter from regular matter.

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Identifying a fundamental link between the size of atomic nuclei and blackhole thermodynamic principles

Using an entirely new approach based on a ground-breaking geometrical understanding of entropy, a collaborative team involving the University of Surrey have found a new way to calculate the sizes of the nuclei in the helium isotopes 4He, 6He, 8He, assuming only the radius of the proton. 

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Ultra-pure semiconductor opens new frontier in the study of electrons

Princeton researchers have created the world's purest sample of gallium arsenide, a semiconductor used in devices that power such technologies as cell phones and satellites.

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Why teapots always drip

The "teapot effect" has been threatening spotless white tablecloths for ages: if a liquid is poured out of a teapot too slowly, then the flow of liquid sometimes does not detach itself from the teapot, finding its way into the cup, but dribbles down at the outside of the teapot.

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Micro-scale current sheets unleash macro-scale space weather

While movies show Earth as existing in a calm, pristine corner of the universe, in reality the near-Earth space environment is dangerous and dynamic. On any given day, hot charged particles and blobs of plasma, called the solar wind, travel from the sun and are deflected by the Earth's magnetic field, causing beautiful aurora around north and south poles. During solar storms, however, the solar wind can compress the Earth's magnetic field, causing the magnetic field lines to rearrange and reconnect (also known as magnetic reconnection), shooting hot, dense plasma back toward the Earth. Processes like these are commonly referred to as space weather. Because of the effect that these space-based disruptions can have on key elements of our modern society, such as telecommunication systems and power grids, obtaining a good understanding of these processes is just as essential as understanding ground-based weather.

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Making entropy production work

While Rolf Landauer was working at IBM in the early 1960s, he had a startling insight about how heat, entropy, and information were connected. Landauer realized that manipulating information releases heat and increases entropy, or the disorder of the environment. He used this to calculate a theoretical lower limit for heat released from a computation, such as erasing a bit. At room temperature, the limit is about 10-21, or one billionth of a trillionth of a joule. (A joule is about the energy required to lift an apple by a meter.)

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Strengthening the second law of thermodynamics

According to the second law of thermodynamics, the total entropy of a closed process can increase or stay the same, but never decrease. The second law guarantees, for example, that an egg can wobble off a table and leave a mess on the floor but that such a mess will never spontaneously form an egg and leap back on the table. Or that air will escape a balloon but never, on its own accord, inflate it. Since at least the 19th century, physicists have been investigating the role of entropy in information theory—studying the energy transactions of adding or erasing bits from computers, for example.

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Scientists experimentally reconstruct Bloch wavefunction for the first time

Lightspeed is the fastest velocity in the universe. Except when it isn't. Anyone who's seen a prism split white light into a rainbow has witnessed how material properties can influence the behavior of quantum objects: in this case, the speed at which light propagates.

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New tool to investigate more effective cancer treatment

Researchers at Queen's University Belfast have discovered a new tool that will help to investigate more effective forms of cancer treatment. Using high-powered lasers, the experts have been able to generate a 'pure beam' of carbon ions with unique properties.

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Quantum-enabled gas imaging camera to dramatically cut methane leaks

Methane gas concentrations in the atmosphere have increased by about 150% since 1750, and if released into the atmosphere, methane is approximately 80 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 20-year time frame (IPCC, AR6). The mitigation of methane emissions will play a vital role in enabling climate change strategies.

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Using 'mirror nuclei' to probe fundamental physics of atoms and neutron stars

About 20 years ago, Michigan State University's B. Alex Brown had an idea to reveal insights about a fundamental but enigmatic force at work in some of the most extreme environments in the universe.

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Securing data transfers with relativity

The volume of data transferred is constantly increasing, but the absolute security of these exchanges cannot be guaranteed, as shown by cases of hacking frequently reported in the news. To counter hacking, a team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, has developed a new system based on the concept of zero-knowledge proofs, the security of which is based on the physical principle of relativity: information cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Thus, one of the fundamental principles of modern physics allows for secure data transfer. This system allows users to identify themselves in complete confidentiality without disclosing any personal information, promising applications in the field of cryptocurrencies and blockchain. These results can be read in the journal Nature.

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Thin-film, high-frequency antenna array offers new flexibility for wireless communications

Princeton researchers have taken a step toward developing a type of antenna array that could coat an airplane's wings, function as a skin patch transmitting signals to medical implants, or cover a room as wallpaper that communicates with internet of things (IoT) devices.

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3D simulations improve understanding of energetic-particle radiation and help protect space assets

A team of researchers used 3D particle simulations to model the acceleration of ions and electrons in a physical process called magnetic reconnection. The results could contribute to the understanding and forecasting of energetic particles released during magnetic reconnection, which could help protect space assets and advance space exploration.

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A strategy to control the spin polarization of electrons using helium

Spintronics, also known as spin electronics, is a research field that explores how the intrinsic spin of electrons and its magnetic moment can be exploited by devices. Spintronic devices are promising for a wide range of applications, particularly for efficiently storing and transferring data.

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New technique provides detailed information on nuclear material

Whether soil contaminated with nuclear material or archaeological finds: Analyzing isotopes can help determining the age and origin of a sample very accurately. Researchers from Leibniz University Hannover (LUH) and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have now developed a new technique suitable for obtaining information on the origin of microparticles by analyzing isotope distributions. The project was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Siebold Sasse Foundation by more than two million euros. Their findings have now been published in Science Advances.

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New method to prepare diagnostic medical radioisotope

Researchers at the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have conducted a study on preparation of low specific activity (LSA) 99Mo/99mTc generator, which has potential application prospect for the accelerator/reactor-based production of the medical isotope 99Mo.

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Physicists discover how particles self-assemble

A team of physicists has discovered how DNA molecules self-organize into adhesive patches between particles in response to assembly instructions. Its findings offer a "proof of concept" for an innovative way to produce materials with a well-defined connectivity between the particles.

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