Tag Archives: light

Chips linked with light could speed up AI training while reducing energy consumption.

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IBM optical module prototype for connecting chips with optical fibers

IBM’s Ryan Rabin

Fiber optic technology helps chips communicate with each other at the speed of light, allowing them to transmit 80 times more information than using traditional electrical connections. This could significantly reduce the training time required for large-scale artificial intelligence models from months to weeks, while also reducing data center energy and emissions costs.

Most cutting-edge computer chips still communicate using electrical signals transmitted over copper wires. But as the tech industry rushes to train AI models at scale, a process that requires networks of AI superchips to transfer large amounts of data, companies are using fiber optic speed-of-light communications to link chips together. I am very passionate about this.

This technology is not new. The Internet already relies on undersea fiber-optic cables that stretch thousands of kilometers between continents. But to transmit data between fingernail-sized chips, companies need to connect as many hair-thin optical fibers as possible to the end of each chip.

“As everyone knows, the best communication technology is fiber optics. That’s why fiber optics is used everywhere for long-distance communications.” Mukesh Khare A preview of the technology was given at a press conference at IBM Research. “This co-packaged optical innovation essentially brings the power of fiber optics to the chip itself.”

Khare and his colleagues have developed an optical module that allows chipmakers to add six times more optical fibers to the edge of a chip than with current technology. This module uses a structure called an optical waveguide to connect 51 optical fibers per millimeter. It also prevents optical signals from one fiber from interfering with adjacent fibers.

“What IBM has really done here is take advantage of all of its materials and packaging technology, its history of leadership in that field, to truly break down the way waveguides can be used to achieve high-density optical fiber. “It’s about doing it,” he says. dan hutchison at TechInsights, a semiconductor technology research company headquartered in Canada. “For me, when I saw this, it was a big step forward.”

The result is enhanced chip-to-chip communication, potentially allowing AI developers to train large language models in less than three weeks instead of three months. Switching from wires to fiber optics for chip communications could also mean cutting energy costs for training such AI models by a factor of five.

IBM has already put its optical modules through stress tests that include high humidity and temperatures ranging from -40°C (-40°F) to 125°C (257°F). Hutcheson expects large semiconductor manufacturing companies may be interested in licensing the technology.

“We are in the early days of all of this, but semiconductor technology is the hottest area right now in terms of high-performance computing and AI technology,” he says.

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  • computing

Source: www.newscientist.com

Astronomers witness Jupiter’s ephemeral dark polar ellipse in ultraviolet light

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Earth-sized ovals at Jupiter's north and south poles, visible only at ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths, appear and disappear at seemingly random intervals, according to a study led by astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley.

False-color ultraviolet image of the entire planet showing a hood or cap of hydrocarbon fog covering the south pole. The edge of the arctic hood is visible at the top. Image credit: Troy Tsubota and Michael Wong, University of California, Berkeley.

Jupiter's dark ultraviolet ellipses are mostly located directly beneath bright auroral bands at each pole, similar to Earth's northern and southern lights.

This spot absorbs more ultraviolet light than the surrounding area, so it appears darker in images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

In annual images of the planet taken by Hubble between 2015 and 2022, dark ultraviolet ellipses appear 75% of the time at the south pole, but only in one in eight images taken at the north pole. A dark oval will appear.

The dark ultraviolet ellipses suggest that unusual processes are occurring in Jupiter's strong magnetic field. This magnetic field propagates all the way to the poles and deep into the atmosphere, much deeper than the magnetic processes that produce auroras on Earth.

The dark ultraviolet ellipse was first detected in the 1990s by Hubble at the North and South poles, and later also at the North Pole by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which flew close to Jupiter in 2000, but received little attention.

In a new analysis of Hubble images, University of California, Berkeley undergraduate student Troy Tsubota and his colleagues found that the oval shape is a common feature of Antarctica. They counted eight Southern Ultraviolet Dark Ovals (SUDOs) between 1994 and 2022.

In all 25 Hubble Earth maps showing Jupiter's north pole, only two northern ultraviolet dark ellipses (NUDOs) were found.

Most of the Hubble images were taken as part of the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL).

“In the first two months, we realized that these OPAL images were kind of a gold mine. We quickly built this analysis pipeline and asked what we could get by sending all the images. We were able to confirm that,” says Tsubota.

“That's when we realized we could actually do good science and real data analysis and have conversations with our collaborators about why these things appear.”

The authors also aimed to determine the cause of these areas of dense fog.

They theorized that the dark ellipse was likely being stirred up from above by a vortex created when the planet's magnetic field lines rub at two very far apart locations. One is the friction in the ionosphere and the Earth's sheet, the rotational motion of which has previously been detected using ground-based telescopes. Hot ionized plasma around the planet emitted by the volcanic moon Io.

The vortex rotates fastest within the ionosphere and gradually weakens as it reaches deeper layers.

Like a tornado landing on dusty ground, the deepest parts of the vortex stir up the hazy atmosphere, creating the dense patches observed by astronomers.

It is unclear whether the mixing will dredge more haze from below or create additional haze.

Based on their observations, researchers believe that the oval shape may form over about a month and disappear within a few weeks.

Astronomer Dr Shih Zhang said: “The dark elliptical haze is 50 times thicker than typical concentrations. This is because this haze is due to the dynamics of the vortex, rather than a chemical reaction caused by high-energy particles from the upper atmosphere. This suggests that it is likely to have been formed by At the University of California, Santa Cruz.

“Our observations show that the timing and location of these high-energy particles do not correlate with the appearance of the dark ellipses.”

This discovery, which the OPAL project was designed to discover, will reveal how the atmospheric dynamics of the solar system's giant planets differ from what we know on Earth. .

“Studying the connections between different atmospheric layers is extremely important for all planets, whether exoplanets, Jupiter, or Earth,” said Dr. Michael Wong, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley.

“We see evidence of processes connecting everything throughout the Jovian system, from internal dynamos to satellites, plasma torii, ionospheres, and stratospheric haze.”

“Finding these examples helps us understand the entire planet.”

of study Published in a magazine natural astronomy.

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TK Tsubota others. Jupiter's ultraviolet to dark polar ellipse shows the connection between the magnetosphere and atmosphere. Nat Astronpublished online on November 26, 2024. doi: 10.1038/s41550-024-02419-0

This article is adapted from the original release by the University of California, Berkeley.

Source: www.sci.news

Shocking discovery: Light can create its own shadow, reveals bizarre experiment

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The shadow of the laser beam appears as a horizontal line against a blue background.

Abrahao et al. (2024)

Usually light casts shadows on other objects, but with the help of rubies, laser beams themselves can cast shadows.

When two laser beams interact, they don’t collide like the lightsabers in the movies. star warssay Rafael Abrahao At Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. In real life, they simply pass through each other. But Abrahao and his colleagues discovered a way for one laser beam to block another, causing its shadow to appear.

The key ingredient was ruby ​​cubes. The researchers illuminated the cube with a green laser beam while shining a blue laser from the side. When green light passed through the ruby’s atoms, its properties changed in a unique way, which affected its response to blue light.

Atoms affected by the green light blocked the blue laser light instead of letting it pass, creating a shadow that was exactly the same shape as the green laser beam. Remarkably, the researchers were able to project blue light onto a screen and see this “laser shadow” with the naked eye.

Abrahao says he and his colleagues had a long discussion about whether what they had created was actually worthy of a shadow. Because moving the green laser beam also moved the green laser beam, we were able to see it without special equipment, and we were able to project it onto commonplace objects like markers, so we finally found a positive answer. I made a judgment.

Historically, understanding shadows has been critical to understanding what light can do and how it can be used, and this experiment has added to scientists’ light manipulation toolbox. Add unexpected technology, he says.

thomas kloba Researchers at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany say their experiment used a known process to create an impressive visual demonstration of how materials can help control light. . For example, the interaction between lasers and rubies is similar to the interaction of materials used in laser eye surgery, and if the laser light becomes dangerously strong, it must be able to react by blocking the laser light. yeah.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Material with Cloud-Inspired Design Can Redirect Light around Corners

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New material can bend light

university of glasgow

Scientists have discovered a technique that can bend light around corners, inspired by the way clouds scatter sunlight. This type of light bending could lead to advances in medical imaging, electronics cooling, and even nuclear reactor design.

Daniele Faccio Researchers at the University of Glasgow, UK, and their colleagues say they are shocked that this type of light scattering has gone unnoticed. This works on the same principle as clouds, snow, and other white substances that absorb light. When a photon hits the surface of such a material, it is scattered in all directions, with little penetration and reflection in the direction it came from. For example, when sunlight hits a high cumulonimbus cloud, it reflects off the top of the cloud, making that part of the cloud appear brighter and whiter. However, because little light reaches the bottom of the cloud, this area appears gray even though it is made of the same water droplets.

“The light bounces around and tries to penetrate in a sense, reflecting off all the molecules and defects,” Faccio says. “And in the end, the light doesn’t get in, it just gets reflected. That’s scattering.”

To replicate this process, the team 3D printed the object from an opaque white material, leaving a thin tunnel of transparent resin inside. When light hits a material, it tunnels and scatters, just like light hits snow or clouds. However, rather than scattering randomly in all directions until they are evenly distributed, the photons are directed back into the resin tunnel by the opaque material. The team used this to create a variety of objects that channel light in an organized way.

3D printed white blocks with curved channels guide scattered light

university of glasgow

Although functionally similar to fiber optic cables that transmit light along their length, these 3D printed objects operate on fundamentally different principles. Fiber optic cables control light by infinitely reflecting it inside. When a photon attempts to leave the cable’s plastic or glass inner core, it hits another material with a lower index of refraction and is internally reflected. In this way, light can be carried several kilometers at a time, even around bends.

The researchers say the material increases light transmission by more than two orders of magnitude compared to the same transparent, non-tunneled solid block, and can also direct light around curves. It is much less efficient than fiber optics, making it difficult to achieve long distances, but it is also very easy and cheap.

This light-bending method could provide a new way to perform medical imaging by taking advantage of existing translucent material tunnels, such as tendons or body fluids, within the spinal column. Faccio said the exact same principle works in the direction of heat and neutrons, so it could be applied to a variety of engineering applications, such as cooling systems and nuclear reactors.

“It was not at all clear that this would work. We were shocked,” Faccio said, adding that the phenomenon could have easily been discovered decades or even centuries ago. I believe there is. “It’s not like we’ve created or discovered a really niche, weird equation that has some weird properties.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Fossils from Mid-Devonian coral reefs shed light on early photosymbiosis evidence

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The symbiotic relationship between corals and their photosynthetic partners, algae (photosymbionts), dates back to at least the Devonian period (385 million years ago), according to a new study.

Dendroid Porites Coral Dendrostella trigeum tab-shaped coral fragments Romerolite Brevis Riphaeus. Image credit: Chong others., doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-08101-9.

All modern corals belong to a group called scleractinians, which evolved during the Triassic period.

These corals may provide habitat for symbionts (such as photosymbionts) that play a role in nutrient recycling, which is especially beneficial in nutrient-poor waters.

However, it is not clear whether earlier extinct forms of coral had photosymbionts.

“The Devonian period (419 to 359 million years ago) was a time when sea surface temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide were higher than they are today,” said Jonathan Jung, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, stated in their paper.

“Unlike today, its carbonate chemistry is dominated by calcite precipitation, likely due to the low magnesium-to-calcium ratio in seawater.”

“The Middle Devonian was the period of greatest expansion of metazoan reefs in the Phanerozoic era, and well-preserved reefs from this period span what is now Europe, North America, North Africa, Australia, Siberia, and China.” explained the researchers.

“In the Devonian period, these reefs bordered the lake seas on the southern margin of Lorsia and the northern boundary of Gondwana.”

“Along the southern margin of Lorsia, these ancient reef communities reached their greatest extent and highest diversity during the Givetian period of the Devonian period (approximately 387 to 382 million years ago).”

“These thriving metazoan coral reefs became diachronically extinct during the course of the Kerwasser crisis in the Late Fraznian (372.2 million years ago).”

“Then, coral reefs were built primarily by cyanobacteria/algae, which were present in very small numbers until the end of the Famenian period (Devonian-Carboniferous boundary).”

“The ability to host photosymbionts was paramount to the ecological success of ancient coral reef communities during the Givetian period, and the subsequent collapse of coral reefs in the Late Devonian was associated with a gradual loss of photosymbiotic relationships. It is suggested that

“However, there is still no clear consensus as to whether photosymbiosis was prevalent in now-extinct coral groups during the Paleozoic era.”

In their study, Dr. Jung and his co-authors examined fossils of two extinct reef coral groups from the mid-Devonian period: the tabula corals and the shibo corals.

They measured nitrogen isotopes bound to corals (15no/14N), can be used to distinguish whether corals obtain energy from photosynthetic symbionts.

Their results suggest that symbionts were present in the tabular corals they studied, but not in most civet corals.

This discovery provides definitive geochemical evidence of the oldest known example of symbiosis in corals.

“Wide-spread oligotrophy during the Devonian may have promoted coral photosymbiosis, and its occurrence may explain why Devonian reefs were the most productive reef ecosystems of the Phanerozoic.” the researchers wrote in their paper.

“These early signals of photosymbiosis in mid-Devonian corals indicate that it supported coral productivity under warm climate conditions.”

“The Late Triassic and Early Miocene (the subsequent period when coral photosymbiosis was reconstructed using nitrogen isotopes) were also warmer than today.”

“In contrast, under modern global warming caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, coral bleaching and associated mass mortality events are likely the greatest threat to the future of coral reefs, with the disruption of coral symbiosis due to warming.” It shows that there is.”

“The strength of coral photosymbiosis in past warm climates suggests that the failure of coral symbiosis under ongoing global warming will not be due to an increase in ocean surface temperatures reached, but rather an increase in ocean surface temperatures.” This shows that the rate of increase is greater than the adaptive capacity of the symbiotic relationship.

team's paper appear in the diary nature.

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J. Jung others. Coral photosymbiosis on mid-Devonian coral reefs. naturepublished online October 23, 2024. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-08101-9

Source: www.sci.news

New excavations shed light on early human activity in Laos’ jungles

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Archaeologists excavating Tam Parin (Monkey Cave) in northeastern Laos have discovered some of the earliest fossil evidence homo sapiens Presence in mainland Southeast Asia.

Excavation survey at Thamparin in northeastern Laos. Image credit: Hernandez others., doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108982.

“Using a technique known as microstratigraphy, we were able to reconstruct past cave conditions and identify traces of human activity in and around Tamparin,” said Flinders University's Ph.D. says. Candidate Vito Hernandez.

“This also helped us determine the exact conditions in which some of the earliest modern human fossils found in Southeast Asia were deposited at depth.”

Microstratigraphy allows scientists to study soils in minute detail, identifying structures and features that preserve information about past environments, as well as potential structures and features that were overlooked during the excavation process due to their small size. Even traces of sexual human and animal activity can be observed.

The hominin fossils discovered by archaeologists were deposited in Tamparin Cave between 86,000 and 30,000 years ago.

However, until now, no detailed analysis of the sediment surrounding these fossils has been conducted to understand how they were deposited in the cave or the environmental conditions at the time.

The new findings reveal that conditions within the cave varied dramatically, from a temperate climate with frequently wet ground conditions to a seasonally dry climate.

Dr Mike Morley from Flinders University said: “This environmental change would have affected the topography inside the cave and influenced how the deposits containing hominin fossils were deposited inside the cave.” said.

“How fast! homo sapiens The theory that they were buried deep inside the cave has long been debated, but our analysis of the sediments suggests that the fossils were pushed into the cave as loose sediment and debris that accumulated over time and were washed away by heavy rains. It has been shown that it was likely carried by water from the surrounding hillsides. ”

Researchers have also identified tiny traces of charcoal and ash preserved in the cave's sediments, indicating that forest fires occurred in the area during the dry season, or that humans visited the cave. This suggests that fire may have been used inside the cave or near the entrance. .

“With this study, our team gained unprecedented insight into the dynamics of our ancestors, who dispersed throughout Southeast Asia's ever-changing forest cover and during periods of regional climate instability.” ,” said Dr. Fabrice Demeter, a paleoanthropologist at the National Museum of Nature and Science. University of Copenhagen.

of result Published in a magazine dated October 10th Quaternary Science Review.

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VC Hernandez others. Late Pleistocene–Holocene (52–10 ka) microstratigraphy, fossil taphonomy, and depositional environment of Tam Parin Cave (northeastern Laos). Quaternary Science Reviewpublished online October 10, 2024. doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108982

Source: www.sci.news

Newly Found Planet Orbiting Barnard’s Star Only 6 Light Years from Earth

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Artist’s impression of Barnard’s b, a planet orbiting around Barnard’s star

ESO/M.Kornmesser

Barnard’s star, one of the Sun’s closest neighbors, appears to have at least one planet orbiting around it, and possibly three more that require further confirmation.

Astronomers have been searching for planets around Barnard’s star, 5.96 light-years away, since the 1960s. Barnard’s star is the next closest star to us after the three stars in the Alpha Centauri star system.

In 2018, researchers claimed to have discovered a planet at least three times the size of Earth called Barnard Star B, but subsequent analysis revealed that the apparent planet’s signal was actually a larger-than-expected star. Turns out it was caused by activity. .

now, Jonay González Hernández Researchers at the Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics have announced the discovery of a new Barnard star b, which has about 40 percent the mass of Earth.

The planet is much closer to its star than any other planet in our solar system, completing an orbit in just over three Earth days. This also means that its surface temperature is around 125°C (257°F), too hot for liquid water or life to exist.

Using an instrument called Espresso on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, González Hernández and his team observed tiny wobbles in Barnard’s star’s position caused by the orbiting planet’s gravity. I discovered this star.

They also found evidence of three more planets orbiting the star. However, the signal wasn’t strong enough to be certain, so more observations will be needed to confirm that.

“These detections are very tricky and always difficult because there is stellar activity, the magnetic field of the star that rotates with the star,” he says. Rodrigo Fernando Diaz at the National University of San Martin, Argentina. González Hernández and his team have thoroughly checked whether the observations are from a planet, but there could always be “unknown unknowns,” Fernando Díaz said. says. To really confirm this, he says, data from other telescopes is needed, which could take years of observations.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Reasons to stop making light of having “a touch of OCD”

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We’ve probably all heard people jokingly or proudly describe their habit of meticulously rearranging their bookshelves or taking an incredibly long time to clean their bathroom as “a bit OCD.”

Most people have a rough idea of ​​what OCD is, but it tends to be thought of as a behavioral quirk. In fact, the condition is characterised by intrusive thoughts and compulsions that cannot be stopped, and it is debilitating for the 1-3% of the world’s population that are affected.

In this light, the “kind of OCD” joke risks trivializing illnesses as serious as schizophrenia or depression. This misuse of the phrase may reflect our ignorance about OCD. But as we explore in “New Understanding of OCD Paves the Way for New Treatments,” we are now discovering more about how OCD manifests in the brain, which is influencing how we think about the illness.

It’s true that obsessions and compulsions exist in all of us to some degree — maybe you run back into the house to make sure the front door is locked, or you can’t help but think about an upcoming stressful event. In fact, many of the symptoms of OCD seem to represent distortions of beneficial behavior. But imagine what it would be like if the intrusive thoughts and urges to act were unstoppable. That’s the hallmark of OCD.

It is becoming clear that OCD is a complex condition that involves the immune system.

Thanks to decades of research into the mechanisms underlying this disease, we now know that entire brain networks are affected, causing a significant imbalance in the neurotransmitters that transmit signals around them, and that the disease is more complex than we thought, with the immune system and gut bacteria also playing a role.

These insights into the body and brain causes of OCD are paving the way for much-needed new treatments for people who don’t respond to current first-line therapies. But what’s clear is that OCD is an incredibly distressing condition, and we’re only just beginning to address the problem. It’s time to stop kidding ourselves.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Hubble Space Telescope Snaps Photo of NGC 346 in Ultraviolet Light

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The Hubble team has released a striking new photo taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of NGC 346, an open star cluster in one of our Milky Way galaxy’s closest neighbors.

This Hubble Space Telescope image shows the open star cluster NGC 346, located about 210,000 light-years away in the constellation Sigurd. Image courtesy of NASA/ESA/C. Murray, Space Telescope Science Institute/Gladys Kober, NASA, and The Catholic University of America.

NGC 346 is located in the constellation Tucana and is about 210,000 light-years away.

Also known as ESO 51-10, Kron 39, and Lindsay 60, the star cluster was discovered on August 1, 1826, by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop.

NGC 346 is part of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that is a satellite of the Milky Way galaxy.

The cluster was formed approximately 3 million years ago, has a diameter of 150 light years, and a mass 50,000 times that of the Sun.

“NGC 346’s hot stars are unleashing torrents of radiation and energy outflows that are eating away at the dense gas and dust of the surrounding nebula N66,” Hubble astronomers said in a statement.

“Dozens of hot, blue, high-mass stars shine within NGC 346, and the cluster is thought to contain more than half of the known high-mass stars in the entire Small Magellanic Cloud.”

The Hubble Space Telescope has previously observed NGC 346, but this new image shows the cluster in ultraviolet light, along with visible light data.

“Ultraviolet light helps us understand star formation and evolution, and Hubble is the only telescope capable of sensitive ultraviolet observations thanks to its sharp resolution and its location above the ultraviolet-blocking atmosphere,” the astronomers write.

“These particular observations were collected to learn more about how star formation shapes the interstellar medium – the gas distributed throughout seemingly empty space – in metal-poor galaxies like the Small Magellanic Cloud.”

“Elements heavier than hydrogen and helium are called ‘metals’, and the Small Magellanic Cloud has a lower metal content than most of the Milky Way.”

“This situation serves as an excellent example of a galaxy similar to those that existed in the early universe when there were few heavy elements to take up.”

Source: www.sci.news

Lunar samples shed light on the formation of the Moon’s largest crater

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Lunar samples collected by NASA's Apollo missions continue to enable new discoveries.

NASA/ESA

The Moon's largest crater is thought to have formed 4.338 billion years ago when a huge rock struck the lunar surface, leaving behind a swirling pool of magma, suggesting that Earth was experiencing extreme cosmic upheaval at the same time.

Chemical analysis of tiny zircon crystals found in lunar samples revealed that many of them solidified from magma about 4.3 billion years ago, but without measuring whether they all formed at precisely the same time, there was no way to know for sure whether many small impacts or one giant one melted the lunar crust into magma.

Melanie Balboni Balboni and her colleagues at Arizona State University solved this problem by measuring with extreme precision the ages of 10 zircon crystals that were brought back to Earth as part of NASA's Apollo missions. “To do this kind of dating, you have to melt the zircon,” Balboni says. “The lunar material is so precious, and there are so few reliable labs in the world that can do that, so no one has dared to do it. When I first did it, I was so scared.”

The researchers found that the crystals all formed at the same time, 4.338 billion years ago, which indicates that they likely formed in one giant impact. The same impact that created these crystals probably also formed the South Pole-Aitken Basin, the largest crater on the Moon, unless that impact crater was subsequently obscured by shifting sand or other impactors, Balboni says.

Not only is this a pivotal event in the history of the Moon, but it also tells us something about the space environment on Earth at that time. “The Moon is a very small object compared to Earth, so it was very likely that something very big struck Earth at that time,” Balboni said. “That big rock could have left behind cosmic gifts, like water, that might have helped the birth of life.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Using light to control robotic jellyfish made from magnetic fluid

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A jellyfish-shaped robot made from magnetic fluid can be controlled with light through an underwater obstacle course, and swarms of these soft robots could be useful for delivering chemicals throughout liquid mixtures or moving fluids through a lab-on-a-chip.

Ferrofluid droplets are made of magnetic nanoparticles suspended in oil, and can move across a flat surface and change shape when guided in different directions by a magnet. When these droplets are immersed in water and exposed to light, Sun Meng Meng, a researcher from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany, and his colleagues have succeeded in creating an object that defies gravity.

When ferrofluid absorbs light (and it’s particularly good at that, because it’s black), it heats up, causing tiny bubbles inside it to expand. This makes the droplets below the surface lighter and more buoyant, allowing them to float upwards, Sun says.

He and his colleagues built a soft robot with droplets of magnetic fluid encased in a jellyfish-shaped hydrogel shell, and then tested it. The researchers devised an obstacle course at the bottom of a tank of water that included a variety of platforms of different heights. They guided the robot through the course and had it navigate over the platforms.

In one experiment, they lined up three robotic jellyfish on the bottom of a tank and heated them with a laser, causing them to move upward one after the other. Sunlight focused by a magnifying glass had a similar effect, causing the jellyfish to float vertically.

Hamid Marvi, the Arizona State University researcher, says controlling an entire swarm of droplets simultaneously could one day be useful for delivering medicines or performing other functions in the human body. By encasing them in hydrogel, he says, light could be used to guide the ferrofluid droplets and move the hydrogel itself, enabling complex movements.

But Mulvey says many details need to be worked out before the ferrofluid can be used for medical purposes, such as whether it’s safe to ingest it. Sun and his colleagues hope to answer some of those open questions. For example, they hope to find a way to use optical fibers that can be inserted into the body to guide the robot, rather than lasers or sunlight.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

New study sheds light on amino acid metabolism and transport in tea plants

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High concentrations of free amino acids in tea leaves are important for tea’s flavor and health functions, but their biosynthesis, transport and turnover in the tea plant have remained unknown.

A practical model of nitrogen assimilation, amino acid synthesis, transport, and decomposition/recycling in tea plants. Image courtesy of Yu others., doi: 10.1093/hr/uhae060.

“Amino acids are essential for plant growth and have a significant impact on the flavor and health benefits of tea,” Professor Zhao Jian Hunan Agricultural University and colleagues.

“Especially the tea trees Camellia sinensis exhibits a unique amino acid profile that contributes to its distinctive taste and nutritional value.”

“Although the importance of amino acids such as theanine and glutamine (Gln) is known, the detailed dynamics of their synthesis, transport and degradation in tea plants remain unknown.”

“These challenges require intensive research to be carried out to understand the complex metabolic pathways and spatial distribution of amino acids within the tea plant.”

In the study, Professor Zhao and his co-authors analyzed the spatial dynamics of amino acid biosynthesis, transport and turnover in tea plants.

“This study provides a detailed analysis of the metabolic pathways and gene expression that control these processes,” the researchers said.

“By understanding these mechanisms, we hope to improve tea cultivation and enhance the quality of tea beverages.”

“This study revealed that nitrogen assimilation occurs mainly in the roots, where glutamate, theanine and arginine (Arg) are actively synthesized. These amino acids are then transported through the plant’s vascular system.”

“Transcriptome analysis revealed that genes involved in Arg synthesis are highly expressed in roots, whereas genes involved in Arg transport and degradation are expressed in stems and young leaves. This indicates that there is a sophisticated amino acid management system within the plant.”

“One of the key findings is the role of the CsGSIa gene, which is crucial for the synthesis, transport and recycling of amino acids.”

“Overexpression and knockdown experiments of CsGSIa in transgenic tea plants demonstrated significant effects on the levels of Gln and theanine.”

“The study also revealed that Arg, Gln, glutamic acid (Glu), and theanine are the major amino acids transported through xylem sap, facilitating long-distance nitrogen transport from roots to leaves.”

“Our findings provide a detailed map of amino acid metabolism in the tea plant, which is of vital importance for both basic science and applied agricultural practice,” Dr Zhao said.

“Understanding these metabolic pathways opens up new possibilities for breeding tea varieties with enhanced flavor and health benefits.”

The team’s findings have important implications for the tea industry.

“By elucidating the pathway of amino acid metabolism, our study paves the way for the development of tea plants with higher contents of beneficial amino acids, enhancing both flavour and nutritional value,” the researchers said.

“These insights can be applied to breeding programs and cultivation practices to produce superior tea varieties.”

“Furthermore, understanding these metabolic processes can help us develop strategies to improve nitrogen use efficiency, contributing to more sustainable and productive tea farms.”

of study Published in the journal Horticultural Research.

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Shuwei Yu others2024. Analysis of spatial dynamics of biosynthesis, transport and metabolism of major amino acids in tea plants (Camellia sinensis). Horticultural Research 11(5):uhae060; doi:10.1093/hr/uhae060

Source: www.sci.news

New Glasses Coated with Lithium Enhance Vision in Low Light

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A device that can convert infrared light into visible light

Laura Valencia Molina et al. 2024

Glasses coated with lithium compounds may one day help us see clearly in the dark.

For more than a decade, researchers have been searching for the best lightweight materials that can convert infrared light, invisible to the human eye, into visible light in order to provide an alternative to night-vision goggles, which are often heavy and cumbersome.

Until recently, the leading candidate was gallium arsenide. Laura Valencia Molina The researchers, from the Australian National University in Canberra, and their colleagues found that a film of lithium niobate coated with a lattice of silicon dioxide performed better.

“Through improved design and material properties, we have achieved a tenfold increase in the conversion rate from infrared to visible light compared to gallium arsenide films,” the team said. Maria del Rocio Camacho MoralesAt the Australian National University.

Through a series of experiments, the team demonstrated that the lithium niobate film could convert high-resolution images from infrared light with a wavelength of 1,550 nanometers to visible light with a wavelength of 550 nanometers, exceeding the capabilities of gallium arsenide.

Night vision goggles require infrared particles called photons to pass through a lens and be converted into electrons in a device called a photocathode. These electrons then pass through a phosphor screen to be converted into visible light photons. This entire process requires cryogenic cooling to prevent distortion of the image.

Molina says the lithium niobate film is hit by infrared light emitted by an object and illuminated with a laser at the same time. The film combines the infrared light with the laser light, which then up-converts the infrared light into visible light.

Camacho Morales says that one day, lattices of lithium niobate and silicon dioxide could be made into a film thinner than plastic wrap that could be coated over regular glasses to improve night vision.

While still in the research stage, the laser was positioned so that it could be easily shone onto the film along with infrared light emitted by the object, and the team is now experimenting with creating an array of nanolasers that can be positioned on top of the lithium niobate film.

The research is an important next step toward lightweight night-vision devices, and perhaps a film that can be attached to ordinary glasses, Camacho Morales said. It could also help drones navigate in the dark, he said, because current night-vision devices are too heavy to carry in some vehicles.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Hubble Space Telescope Shines Light on Stunning Spiral Galaxy NGC 4731

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The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured this stunning image of a barred spiral galaxy called NGC 4731.

This Hubble Space Telescope image shows NGC 4731, a barred spiral galaxy about 43 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. Image courtesy of NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Thilker.

NGC 4731 It is located in the constellation Virgo, about 43 million light years from Earth.

Also known as IRAS 12484-0607, LEDA 43507, and UGCA 302, it is classified as a barred spiral galaxy.

“Barred spiral galaxies outnumber regular spiral and elliptical galaxies combined, making up about 60 percent of all galaxies,” the Hubble astronomers said.

“The bar-like structure we see is the result of the orbits of stars and gas in our galaxy aligning, forming dense regions where individual stars move in and out over time.”

“This is the same process that maintains the spiral arms of our galaxy, but in the case of barred galaxies it's a bit more mysterious. As spiral galaxies mature they seem to form a bar at their centre, which explains the large number of bar structures we see today. But later on the bar can also be lost if the accumulated mass along it becomes unstable.”

“The orbital patterns and gravitational interactions of galaxies support the bar-like structure of the galaxy, transporting matter and energy and promoting star formation.”

“Indeed, the observing program studying NGC 4731 seeks to investigate this flow of matter within the galaxy,” they added.

beginning discovered Discovered on April 25, 1784 by German-born British astronomer William Herschel, NGC 4731 has a diameter of about 80,000 light years.

With LEDA 43526 Galaxy, Forms Holm 472, a pair of interacting galaxies.

NGC 4731 is also a member of the NGC 4697 galaxy group. Located Near the Virgo Supercluster.

“Beyond the bar, NGC 4731's spiral arms extend far beyond the scope of this close-up Hubble image,” the astronomers said.

“The galaxy's elongated arms are thought to be the result of gravitational interactions with other nearby galaxies in the Virgo Cluster.”

The color image of NGC 4731 includes ultraviolet, near-infrared, and optical observations. Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).

Six filters were used to sample different wavelengths, and color was generated by assigning a different hue to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter.

“The richness of color reveals the galaxy's swirling gas clouds, dark dust bands, bright pink star-forming regions, and most notably, its long, luminous arms stretching out behind it,” the researchers said.

Source: www.sci.news

Light pollution may be causing urban moths to evolve smaller wings

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Spindle ermine moth perched on a flower

DP Wildlife Invertebrates / Alamy

Moths trying to survive in bright cities may have evolved smaller wings to limit the amount of light they absorb.

Artificial lights that shine at night disrupt the lives of many insect species, diverting them from their habitats and mates, and exposing them to predators. Ecological changes due to light pollution may also have caused evolutionary changes, but clear examples are hard to find.

In search of such changes, evert van de shoot Researchers from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium analyzed the wing and body sizes of 680 spindle-shaped stoat moths.Yoponomeuta cañajera). These moths are previous experiment Test your reaction to light.

In their experiment, the researchers collected moth larvae from bright urban and dark rural locations in France and Switzerland and raised the moths together in the same garden. In the ‘flight to light’ test, urban moths were captured in 30 percent fewer light traps than rural moths, suggesting that they were less responsive to light.

Van de Schoot and his colleagues may have found an explanation for this. Careful measurements of the insects’ bodies revealed that moths in urban environments had slightly smaller wings on average than moths in rural areas. In both urban and rural populations, this small wing size correlated with a weak response in light trap experiments.

“What’s really surprising is that despite small changes in plumage, there are differences in rural and urban moth populations,” he says. Samuel Fabian At Imperial College London. He said the study’s focus on flight mechanics adds a new dimension to thinking about the effects of light on insects. “Nature is not static,” he says. “Nature adapts to us.”

Small wings can limit the distance and speed these moths can disperse to find mates and food. But if the trade-off makes moths less susceptible to the negative effects of being sensitive to light, it could be a beneficial adaptation in urban ecosystems, van de Scoot says.

The researchers say they cannot rule out the possibility that this change was driven by other differences between urban and rural areas, such as more fragmented habitats. Changes in visual acuity may also contribute to urban moths’ reduced response to light. Other insect species may also be affected differently.

But if such shifts in mobility were widespread, they could separate insect populations from each other and from the plants they pollinate, van de Scoot says. “It could be important for the entire ecosystem.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Light and sound therapy may provide preventative measures against chemically-induced brain changes in Alzheimer’s disease

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Some cancer treatments can cause so-called chemobrain, commonly defined as problems with memory and concentration.

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An experimental treatment for Alzheimer’s disease that involves flickering lights and low-pitched sounds may also help prevent cognitive impairment after cancer treatment, also known as chemical brain, a study in mice suggests.

In the case of Alzheimer’s disease, light and sound stimulation has been shown in small human trials to reduce memory and concentration problems, but larger studies are still investigating it.

The light flashes 40 times per second, or 40 Hz, and the sound also has a frequency of 40 Hz. This frequency was originally chosen because the brainwave intensity of Alzheimer’s patients is lower than 40 Hz and is associated with memory processing. The idea was that this treatment would stimulate these brain waves.

Subsequent research has shown that such brain waves may have a wide range of benefits for the brain, including increased immune cell activity and, more recently, strengthened drainage systems that may help remove a toxic protein called beta-amyloid. It suggests that there is.

Cai Li Hui The Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers who developed this approach thought it could help cancer patients who have memory and concentration problems after chemotherapy and other cancer treatments. It is thought that these may be caused by damage to brain cells, but the exact mechanism is unknown and there is no cure.

In the latest study, Professor Tsai’s team exposed cancer-free mice to light and sound for one hour a day while being given a common chemotherapy drug called cisplatin, compared to those who had just received chemotherapy. They found that they experienced less decline in mental acuity than mice.

Acuity was assessed by a memory test in which mice were exposed to either new or familiar objects, and the animals typically showed more interest in things they had never seen before. Chemotherapy reduced the mice’s ability to identify objects, but this was prevented by light and sound treatment.

The therapy had several effects, including reducing inflammation in the brain, reducing DNA damage, and reducing the loss of myelin, the insulation around nerve cell fibers.

nazanin derakshan Researchers at Britain’s University of Reading say the idea needs to be tested in people to see if it has any overall benefits. If this treatment is given at the same time as chemotherapy and reduces cell death in the brain, it may help cancer cells survive there, she says.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Slowing Alzheimer’s Disease Progression: How Light and Sound Can Remove Toxins from the Brain

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Cross-section of a mouse brain highlighting neurons that appear to release molecules that increase toxin clearance

Tsai Laboratory/MIT Picower Laboratory

A new explanation has emerged for why an experimental treatment for Alzheimer’s disease that involves flickering sounds and lights may help slow cognitive decline. This frequency appears to strengthen the brain’s waste processing network, helping to remove beta-amyloid and other toxic proteins that contribute to memory and concentration issues.

“Once we understand the mechanism, we can probably understand how to further optimize this whole concept and improve its effectiveness,” he says. Cai Li Hui at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The treatment involves exposure to light that flashes at a frequency of 40 times per second, or 40 hertz, and to a bass sound, also at 40 hertz. Typically, stimulation is given for one hour per day.

The key to this new approach is that large networks of brain cells naturally fire in sync with each other at different frequencies, known as brain waves. Brain waves around 40 Hz are common when people are concentrating and forming or accessing memories.

In 2016, Tsai’s team wondered if 40Hz stimulation could enhance cognitive performance in Alzheimer’s patients, since visual or auditory stimulation at a certain frequency is known to enhance brain waves at that same frequency. I decided to investigate.

Their group and other researchers have shown that this reduces amyloid accumulation in mice with Alzheimer’s disease and has cognitive benefits. Small trial in people with this condition, an even larger trial is underway. However, it is unclear how this treatment works, and another idea is that it boosts the function of immune cells in the brain.

Well, the special light and sound appears to work by enhancing the function of the brain’s drainage system, also known as the glymphatic system.

In the latest study, Tsai’s team conducted a series of experiments to study the mechanism of treatment in mice that were genetically modified to have amyloid buildup that normally occurs with age and to have worse memory than typical mice. carried out.

As expected, when the animals were exposed to light and sound, the amount of amyloid decreased. The new findings were that during treatment, the amount of cerebrospinal fluid entering the brain increased, and the amount of waste fluid leaving the brain through the glymphatic vessels increased.

This appears to occur because nearby blood vessels pulsate more, which may help glymph fluid flow through the blood vessels, allowing more water to flow into the glymph system.

The research team also found that the activity of a particular type of brain cell known as an interneuron appears to cause an increase in glymph flow by releasing a molecule called vasoactive intestinal peptide. When the research team chemically blocked the production of this molecule, the treatment no longer accelerated amyloid clearance.

Miken Nedergaard A professor at the University of Rochester in New York who helped discover the glymphatic system says the discovery is consistent with what we already know about it. “The brain, blood, and cerebrospinal fluid are all contained within the skull. When the blood volume expands, the brain tissue cannot be compressed, so the cerebrospinal fluid volume must also move.”

In the accompanying article natural medicineDr. Nedergaard says that a better understanding of the mechanisms of toxin removal in the brain “could be the key to unlocking that.” [their] Treatment Possibilities.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

New research on Zinc sheds light on the link between loud noise and hearing loss

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Exposure to loud noises, such as at music festivals, can worsen your hearing

Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Exposure to loud noises can disrupt zinc levels in the inner ear, potentially affecting hearing, a study in mice suggests. Treatments that reduce this could be used to treat or prevent such damage, for example, if taken before a rock concert.

Loud noises can cause cells in the inner ear die. Although it has long been known that this affects hearing, the mechanisms behind it are less clear.

Thanos Tsonopoulos Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, thought it might have something to do with free-moving zinc, which plays an important role in the neurotransmission of our senses.

Most of the zinc in the body is bound to proteins, but the rest acts as communication signals between organs, especially the brain, Tsonopoulos says. The highest concentration of free zinc in the body is in the cochlea, the snail-shaped structure in the inner ear that converts vibrations into electrical signals, which are then interpreted as sound.

To learn more, Tzounopoulos and colleagues tested free zinc levels in young mice that had been genetically engineered to produce biological markers that indicate the transport of free zinc throughout the body.

Tsonopoulos said mice exposed to 100 decibels of noise, about the same level as a bulldozer or motorcycle, for two hours straight developed significant hearing loss within the next 24 hours.

The researchers found that these mice had higher amounts of free zinc between and around the cells of the cochlea after the blast compared to before the blast and compared to a group of control mice that did not hear the loud noise. I discovered that

“There is a very strong upregulation of zinc, not only in terms of quantity but also in terms of regional spatial extent,” he says. “It goes everywhere.”

Tsonopoulos said the zinc appears to be released from specific cells in the cochlea after it is separated from the proteins to which it is normally bound. Free zinc ultimately causes cell damage and disrupts normal communication between cells, he says.

To see if lowering free zinc levels could protect hearing, Tsonopoulos and his team injected another group of mice with a compound that scavenged zinc into their abdomens or administered a slow-release drug into the inner ear. It was treated by placing an implant. The mice then listened to the same loud sound for two hours. Both groups experienced significant reductions in hearing loss.

With further research, zinc-capturing tablets, IV drugs, or slow-release implants could one day help prevent or treat inner ear damage caused by noise trauma, Tsonopoulos says.

“You can go to concerts, you can go to battle, you can take drugs,” he says. “Or, if you have an accident, you might have these compounds in your ER. [emergency room] We will give it to you to reduce the damage. ”

Future research should also determine how long after exposure to noise people can benefit from such zinc trap therapy, team members say. Amantha Satyaalso at the University of Pittsburgh.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

New discoveries from the Webb telescope shed light on the origins of supermassive black holes and galaxies

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New insights from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope overturn theories about how black holes shape the universe, reversing the classical theory that black holes formed after the first stars and galaxies appeared. It challenges our understanding. In fact, black holes may have accelerated the birth of new stars during the universe's first 50 million years.

This artist's impression shows the evolution of the universe, starting with the Big Bang on the left and continuing with the emergence of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The formation of the first stars ends the Dark Ages of the universe, followed by the formation of galaxies. Image credit: M. Weiss / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

“We know that these monster black holes exist in the centers of galaxies near the Milky Way, but now the big surprise is that they were also present at the beginning of the universe, and that they were like building blocks or seeds of early galaxies. It was something,” he said. Professor Joseph Silk, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University and the Sorbonne Institute of Astrophysics;

“They've really enhanced everything, including giant amplifiers for star formation. This completely overturns what we previously thought was possible, and how galaxies form. It has the potential to completely shake up our understanding of what happens.”

“The distant galaxies observed by Webb in the early universe appear much brighter than scientists expected, revealing an unusually large number of young stars and supermassive black holes.”

“Conventional wisdom holds that black holes formed after the collapse of supermassive stars, and that galaxies formed after the first stars illuminated the dark early universe.”

But the team's analysis suggests that for the first 100 million years, black holes and galaxies coexisted, influencing each other's fate.

“We argue that the outflow of the black hole crushed the gas clouds and turned them into stars, greatly accelerating the rate of star formation,” Professor Silk said.

“Otherwise, it's very difficult to understand where these bright galaxies came from, because they are typically smaller in the early Universe. Why on earth did they become stars so quickly? Do I need to create one?”

“A black hole is a region of space where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape its attraction.”

“Thanks to this force, they generate powerful magnetic fields that cause violent storms, eject turbulent plasma, and ultimately act like giant particle accelerators.”

“This process may be why Webb's detectors found more black holes and brighter galaxies than scientists expected.”

“We can't fully see these ferocious winds and jets so far away, but we know they must exist because many black holes have been seen in the early universe. I am.”

“The huge wind blowing from the black hole crushes nearby gas clouds, turning them into stars.”

“This is the missing link that explains why these first galaxies are much brighter than we expected.”

According to the research team, there were two stages of the young universe.

In the first stage, star formation was accelerated by high-velocity outflow from the black hole, while in the second stage, the outflow slowed down.

“Hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang, a supermassive black hole magnetic storm caused gas clouds to collapse and new stars to form at a rate far exceeding that observed in normal galaxies billions of years later,” Professor Silk said. Ta.

“These powerful outflows moved into energy conservation states, reducing the amount of gas available to form stars within the galaxy, thus slowing star formation.”

“We originally thought that galaxies formed when giant gas clouds collapsed,” Professor Silk said.

“The big surprise was that there was a seed in the middle of that cloud, a large black hole, that helped rapidly turn the inside of that cloud into a star at a much faster rate than we expected. So the first galaxies are incredibly bright.”

of study Published in Astrophysics Journal Letter.

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joseph silk other. 2024. Which came first, a supermassive black hole or a galaxy? Insights from JWST. APJL 961, L39; doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ad1bf0

Source: www.sci.news

Tesla issues mass recall of US vehicles over warning light malfunction

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Nearly all Tesla vehicles sold in the U.S. are being recalled due to small warning lights in the instrument panel. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced the recall of about 2.2 million vehicles on Friday, indicating increased scrutiny of electric vehicle manufacturers. Additionally, the agency upgraded its 2023 investigation into Tesla’s steering problems to a technical analysis, bringing it one step closer to a recall.

The update in response to the recall will enhance warnings and alerts for drivers. The document from NHTSA highlights that the font size for brake, parking, and anti-lock brake warning lights is smaller than required by federal safety standards, potentially making important safety information difficult to read and increasing the risk of a collision. The agency identified the problem during a routine safety compliance audit on January 8th. While Tesla has identified three warranty claims related to the issue, there are no reports of crashes or injuries.

The recall to fix the warning light issue will be done through a software update, affecting multiple models from 2012 to 2024. Tesla has already started releasing software updates, and owners will be notified by letter starting March 30th.

Following the announcement of the recall, Tesla’s stock fell another 2.7% in early trading on Friday, reaching its lowest level since May of last year.

In addition to the warning light issue, Tesla has faced scrutiny for its Autopilot system. Last December, NHTSA pressured Tesla to recall over 2 million vehicles for software updates and fixes related to the flawed system designed to make drivers more careful when using Autopilot. The recall was prompted by a two-year investigation into crashes involving the use of Autopilot, some of which were deadly.

Additionally, Tesla is recalling over 1.6 million electric vehicles exported to China due to problems with automatic assisted steering and door latch controls. The State Administration for Market Regulation in China announced the recall in early January, with Tesla planning to use remote upgrades to resolve the issue.

Overall, Tesla has faced challenges in addressing various safety concerns with its vehicles, including steering problems and Autopilot system issues, leading to substantial recalls and regulatory scrutiny.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Molecules sensitive to light may enhance efficiency of carbon capture

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This direct air recovery system can extract carbon dioxide from the air and reuse it later, but it requires a lot of energy.

Orjan Ellingvorg / Alamy

Photosensitive molecules called photoacids have the potential to make the process of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere more energy efficient. Researchers are currently devising ways to make photoacids more practical.

This can be particularly beneficial for direct air capture (DAC) systems, which blow air over carbon-trapping materials called adsorbents. Existing systems require large amounts of energy to separate pure CO2 from the adsorbent for storage or use elsewhere. This is a major barrier to using DAC to remove billions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year. “Every step I take is hitting a wall,” he says. Anna de Vries At ETH Zurich, Switzerland. “Direct air recovery companies everywhere are struggling and trying to create the most efficient process.”

Adding photoacid to the adsorbent may be effective. When exposed to light, each photoacid molecule changes shape and releases protons, making the solution more acidic. This “pH swing” releases CO2 from the adsorbent and photoacid mixture. When the light is turned off again, the photoacid and pH of the solution return to normal, allowing the adsorbent to absorb CO2 again. This cycle can then be repeated.

Typically, heat or pressure is used to release CO2, but using sunlight or lamps could potentially reduce the energy needed for this step, with the aim of halving the energy requirements of DACs. de Vries says. However, photoacids tend to be unstable and are not very soluble in water, which limits their efficiency in releasing CO2.

De Vries and colleagues added various solvents to the photoacid solution; found the mix This increases the solubility of the photoacid and extends its lifetime from just a few hours to nearly a month.

In another approach, Ubinduni Premadasa Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and colleagues found Another photoacid, which can remain responsive to light for longer and produce more acid, allows CO2 to be released from solution more efficiently.

greg match Researchers at the University of Newcastle in the UK say these are an “elegant and innovative” solution. But larger systems can face challenges, such as loss of solvent through evaporation in the air, he says.

Although these researchers focused on capturing CO2 from the atmosphere, the first large-scale tests on photoacids may be conducted in water. A Washington state startup called Banyu Carbon uses photoacids to separate CO2 from seawater and plans to install a system capable of removing one tonne of CO2 per year in 2024.

In this system, when photoacids are exposed to light, the resulting acidity is temporarily transferred to seawater, and CO2 absorbed from the atmosphere is released from seawater. alex gagnonAccording to the company's co-founders, this reduces the energy needed to separate the CO2 and eliminates the need to power fans.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Witness the growth of this plant-inspired robot as it reaches towards the light like a vine

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Robots that can grow around trees and rocks like vines could be used to construct buildings or measure pollution in hard-to-reach natural environments.

Vine-like robots are not new, but they are often designed to rely only on a single sense, such as heat or light, to grow upwards, making them less effective than others in certain environments. It doesn't work well.

Emanuela del Dottore The Italian Institute of Technology and colleagues have developed a new version called FiloBot that can use light, shadow, or gravity as a guide. It grows by wrapping a plastic filament into a cylindrical shape, adding a new layer to the body just behind the head that contains the sensor.

“Our robot has a built-in microcontroller that can process multiple stimuli and direct growth at a precise location, namely at the tip, ensuring that the structure of the body is preserved.” she says.

According to Dottore, having such fine control over the direction of the tip means the robot can easily navigate unfamiliar terrain by wrapping around trees and using shadowed areas of leaves as guideposts. This means that it can be moved.

FiloBot grows at approximately 7 millimeters per minute. Although slower than many traditional robots, this gentler progress could mean less disruption to sensitive natural environments, she says.

The researchers don't know exactly what the robot will be used for at this point, but they hope it can be deployed to collect data in areas that are difficult for humans to reach, such as the tops of trees.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

UV Light Found to Inactivate Coronavirus Particles, New Study Shows

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Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has had a profound impact on humanity. Prevention of infection by disinfecting surfaces and aerosols using non-chemical methods is highly desirable. Ultraviolet C (UVC) light is uniquely positioned to achieve pathogen inactivation.in new paper in a diary ACS PhotonicsScientists have reported the inactivation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus by UVC radiation and are investigating the mechanism.

David other. demonstrated inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 by 266 nm UVC light. This closely matches the absorption spectra of RNA and aromatic amino acids.Image credit: David other., doi: 10.1021/acsphotonics.3c00828.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 spreads through nosocomial, public, and workplace-based infections.

Transmission is thought to be direct through respiratory droplets or indirect through fomites, leading to increased interest in virus disinfection.

The SARS-CoV-2 virion consists of a core of nucleic acid strands containing the virus's genetic information, surrounded by a lipid membrane with protruding protein spikes. Each component is required for infection.

In the new study, Sumeet Mahajan and colleagues at the University of Southampton investigated how ultraviolet laser light affects each of these key components and destroys the virus.

By using special lasers with two different wavelengths, they were able to see how each viral component breaks down under bright light.

They found that the genomic material was highly sensitive to degradation, and the protein spike lost the ability to bind to human cells.

UV light includes UVA light, UVB light, and UVC light. Very little UVC light with frequencies below 280 nm reaches the Earth's surface from the sun.

The authors used UVC light in their study, which is less studied because of its antiseptic properties.

UVC light is strongly absorbed by various viral components, such as genetic material (about 260 nm) and protein spikes (about 230 nm), allowing the team to choose laser frequencies of 266 nm and 227 nm for this project.

Researchers found that low-power 266nm light causes RNA damage and affects the genetic information of viruses.

266 nm light also damaged the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, reducing its ability to bind to human cells by breaking disulfide bonds and aromatic amino acids.

Although 227 nm light was less effective at inducing RNA damage, it was effective at damaging proteins through oxidation, a chemical reaction involving oxygen that unravels protein structures.

Importantly, SARS-CoV-2 has one of the largest genomes of any RNA virus. This makes them particularly sensitive to genomic damage.

“Inactivating airborne viruses with light provides a versatile tool for disinfecting public spaces and sensitive equipment that is difficult to decontaminate using traditional methods,” Professor Mahajan said.

“We found differences in the susceptibility of the molecular components of the virus to light inactivation. This opens up the possibility of fine-tuned disinfection techniques.”

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George David other. Mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 inactivation using UVC laser irradiation. ACS Photonics, published online on December 25, 2023. doi: 10.1021/acsphotonics.3c00828

Source: www.sci.news

Fossils dating back 1.75 billion years shed new light on the evolution of photosynthesis

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Microscopic image of a modern cyanobacterium called Oscillatoria

Shutterstock / Ekki Ilham

Researchers have identified photosynthetic structures inside a 1.75 billion-year-old cyanobacteria fossil. This discovery is the oldest evidence yet of these structures and provides clues to how photosynthesis evolved.

Emmanuel Javeau Researchers from the University of Liège in Belgium analyzed fossils collected from rocks at three locations. The oldest site is the approximately 1.75 billion-year-old McDermott Formation in Australia, the other two are the billion-year-old Grassy Bay Formation in Canada and the Bllc6 Formation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. was.

From these rocks, the researchers extracted fossilized cyanobacteria that produce energy through photosynthesis. “They're so small, less than a millimeter, that you can't see them with the eye,” Java says. She and her colleagues placed the fossils in resin, sliced ​​them into sections 60 to 70 nanometers thick using a diamond-bladed knife, and analyzed their internal structures using an electron microscope.

They discovered that cyanobacteria in Australia and Canada contain thylakoids, membrane-enclosed sacs in which photosynthesis occurs. “These are the oldest fossilized thylakoids that we know of today,” Java says. Previously, the oldest thylakoid fossils were around 550 million years old. “So we delayed the fossil record by 1.2 billion years,” she says.

This is important because not all cyanobacteria have thylakoids and it is unclear when these structures, which make photosynthesis more efficient, first evolved, they said. Kevin Boyce at Stanford University in California. The origins of this diversification can now be traced back at least 1.75 billion years, he says. The oldest fossils of cyanobacteria are about 2 billion years old, but other evidence, such as geochemical signatures, indicate that photosynthesis has been around even longer than that.

It is widely believed that cyanobacteria helped build up oxygen in Earth's atmosphere 2.4 billion years ago. “The idea is that perhaps during this time they invented thylakoids, which increased the amount of oxygen on Earth,” Java says. “Now that we have discovered very old thylakoids and found them preserved in very old rocks, we think we might be able to test this hypothesis even further back in time,” she says. .

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Source: www.newscientist.com

New study sheds light on the visual masking phenomenon, unraveling the mystery of “invisibility”

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A new study has revealed how visual masking, a phenomenon in which rapid succession of images leads to unconscious image processing, occurs in both humans and mice. This study highlights the role of the cortex in conscious perception and provides important insights into the brain’s visual processing mechanisms.

Delve into the mysterious optical illusions and science of visual masking.

Recent research published in natural neuroscience Visual masking is a phenomenon that plays an important role in how we perceive things, or rather how we don’t “see” them. This study not only revealed aspects of conscious perception in the brain, but also demonstrated that this phenomenon occurs in both humans and mice.

Visual masking occurs when a person does not consciously recognize an image because another image is displayed in rapid succession. For effective masking, the first image must appear and disappear quickly, followed by her second image within about 50 milliseconds.

Groundbreaking research in visual perception

Allen Institute researcher Dr. Sean Olsen and his colleagues have delved into the science behind this optical illusion and shown for the first time that it also occurs in mice. After training the mice to report what they saw, the researchers were also able to pinpoint the specific areas of the brain needed for the visual masking illusion to work.

“This is an interesting observation, that what exists in the world is not accurately reflected in your perception,” Olsen said. “Like other optical illusions, we think this tells us something about how the visual system works and, ultimately, the neural circuits underlying visual perception.”

Exploring the brain’s role in visual recognition

Scientists discovered this strange phenomenon in the 19th century, but why and how the human brain does this remains a mystery.

The study narrows down the parts of the brain involved in perceiving the world around us, said Dr. Christoph Koch, a Distinguished Fellow at the Allen Institute who led the study with Dr. Olsen and Dr. Sam Gale. Ta. , a scientist at the Allen Institute.

When a rain of photons hits our retina, the information follows a predetermined path from the eyeball through several different areas of the brain and into the highly-processed areas of the cortex, the wrinkled outermost shell of the brain. It ends with Previous research on visual masking has led scientists to believe that neurons in early parts of the brain, in the retina and its pathways, are activated even when a person is unaware that they are looking at an image. I know. In other words, your brain sees things without your knowledge.

From mouse to human: parallel recognition

To explore where unconscious sensations turn into conscious perceptions and actions, scientists first taught 16 mice to move a small mouse in the direction of a rapidly flashing image in exchange for a reward if they chose the correct direction. I trained him to spin a Lego wheel. The scientists then added different masking images on either side of the screen immediately after the target image. Adding a mask prevented the animal from performing the task correctly. This means that the animal can no longer recognize the original target image.

Visual masking had never been tested in mice before, so the research team had to create a task for mice, in which the images and the way they were displayed were different from those used in previous human studies. I meant that. To confirm that the optical illusion they showed to rodents was also relevant to us, the research team tested it on 16 people (using keystrokes instead of a wheel). It turns out that human perception (or lack thereof) and mouse perception of this particular visual masking illusion are very similar.

This result implies that conscious perception is occurring in the visual cortex or in higher regions of the cortex downstream. This is consistent with the general sentiment in the field that the cortex is the seat of conscious cognition in mammals, including us, Koch said.

Reference: “Visual cortex is required for posterior masking in mice” by Samuel D. Gale, Chelsea Stroder, Corbett Bennett, Stefan Mihalas, Christoph Koch, and Sean R. Olsen, November 13, 2023 Day, natural neuroscience.
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-023-01488-0

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Using laser light to simulate material production

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Researchers at Osaka University have simulated the collision of photons with lasers, potentially paving the way to creating matter from light in the laboratory. This advance in quantum physics has the potential to understand the composition of the universe and discover new physics. (Artist’s concept) Credit: SciTechDaily.com

A team led by researchers from Osaka University and the University of California, San Diego has demonstrated how to use simulations to experimentally create materials from light alone. This could one day help test long-standing theories about the composition of the universe.

One of the most shocking predictions of quantum physics is that matter can be created solely from light (or photons), and in fact, objects known as pulsars have accomplished this feat. Although producing matter directly in this way has not been achieved in the laboratory, it could allow further testing of fundamental quantum physics theories and the fundamental makeup of the universe.

In a recently published study, physical review letterA team led by researchers from Osaka University photon– Collision of photons using only lasers. The simplicity of the setup and ease of implementation at currently available laser intensities make it a promising candidate for experimental implementation in the near future.

Image of a self-organizing photon collider driven by intense laser pulses propagating through a plasma.Credit: Yasuhiko Sentoku

Photon-photon collisions are theorized to be the fundamental means by which matter is created in the universe, resulting from Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2. In fact, researchers have created materials indirectly from light by accelerating metal ions, such as gold, into each other at high speeds. At such high velocities, each ion is surrounded by photons, creating matter and antimatter as they pass each other.

However, it is difficult to generate materials experimentally using laser light alone in modern laboratories, as very high-power lasers are required. The researchers set out to simulate how this feat is accomplished in the lab because it could lead to experimental breakthroughs.

“Our simulations show that when interacting with the laser’s strong electromagnetic field, a dense plasma It can self-assemble to form a photon-photon collider,” explains Dr. Sugimoto, lead author of the study. “This collider contains a population of gamma rays that is 10 times denser than the electron density in the plasma, and whose energy is a million times greater than the energy of the photons in the laser.”

Self-organizing photon collider driven by intense laser pulses. (a) Plasma density, (b) magnetic channel, and (c) angular distribution of emitted photons. Credit: Physical Review Letters

Photon-photon collisions in a collider produce electron-positron pairs, which are accelerated by a plasma electric field generated by a laser. This produces a positron beam.

“This is the first simulation of an accelerated positron from a linear Breit-Wheeler process under relativistic conditions,” said co-author Professor Alefeyev from UCSD. “We feel that our proposal is experimentally feasible and we look forward to real-world implementation,” said Dr. Vyacheslav Lukin, program director at the National Science Foundation, which supported the research. It is stated as follows. “This research shows a potential way to explore the mysteries of the universe in a laboratory setting. The future possibilities for current and future high-power laser facilities have become even more interesting.”

Applying this research to Star Trek’s fictional matter and energy conversion technology remains mere fiction. Nevertheless, this research has the potential to help experimentally confirm theories of the composition of the universe, and may even help discover previously unknown physics.

Reference: “Positron generation and acceleration in a self-organizing photon collider enabled by ultra-intense laser pulses” K. Sugimoto, Y. He, N. Iwata, Illinois. Yeh, K. Tantartalakul, A. Alefyev, Y. Szenk, August 9, 2023. physical review letter.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.065102

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Newly Discovered Fossils Shed Light on Enigmatic Human Lineage in the Levant

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Orthographic view of the static skull, mandible, and parietal bones.Credit: Tel Aviv University

Nesher Ramla homoan ancient hominin group discovered in Israel reveals a complex admixture of Eurasian and African hominins 140,000 years ago, changing perceptions of the origins of Neanderthals.

Researchers have discovered a previously unknown archaic hominin group they named Nesha Ramla. homo” at a recently excavated site in Israel. This group, dating from about 140,000 to 120,000 years ago, is thought to be the last survivor of the Middle Pleistocene. homo. They exhibit a unique blend of Neanderthal and ancient human characteristics and technology.

Neanderthals are thought to have originated and flourished in continental Europe long before modern humans arrived. However, recent evidence suggests a genetic contribution from as yet unknown non-European populations and points to a long and dynamic history of interactions between Eurasian and African hominin populations.

Human interaction in Eurasia and Africa

Here, Israel Hershkovitz, Yossi Zeidner and colleagues present fossil, artifact, and radiometric evidence from the Levantine region of the Middle East that illustrates this complexity. According to Hershkovitz et al., the newly discovered Nesher Ramla homo They exhibit anatomical features that are older than their contemporaneous Eurasian Neanderthals and modern humans, who also lived in the Levant. This discovery indicates that this archaic lineage may represent one of the last surviving populations of the Middle Pleistocene. homo in southwest Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Archaeological context and cultural interaction

In joint research, Zaidner other. We provide archaeological context for the new fossils and report on their associated radiometric dates, artifact assemblages, and the behavioral and environmental insights they provide. Researchers found that Nesher Ramla homo Familiar with technology that was previously known only to a select few homo sapiens And Neanderthals. Taken together, these findings provide archaeological support for close cultural interactions and genetic admixture between different human lineages before 120,000 years ago. This may help explain the different expressions of teeth and skeletal features in later Levantine fossils.

“Interpretation of Nesher Ramla fossils and stone tools will have mixed reactions among paleoanthropologists. Nevertheless, the age of Nesher Ramla materials, the discordant morphological and archaeological similarities , and the site’s location at the crossroads of Africa and Eurasia make this a major discovery,” writes Marta Lahr in an accompanying Perspective.

For more information about this research, see Types of prehistoric humans previously unknown to science.

References:

“Middle Pleistocene Homo from Nesher Ramla, Israel” Israel Hershkovitz, Hilla May, Rachel Salig, Ariel Pokhodzhaev, Dominique Grimaud Hervé, Emiliano Bruner, Cinzia Fornai, Rolf Quam, Juan. Written by Luis Arzuaga, Victoria A. Crenn, and Maria Martinon Torres, José María Bermudez de Castro, Laura Martin Frances, Vivian Soulon, Lou Albesado Ball, Amelie Viale, and Tim Schuler , Giorgio Manzi, Antonio Profico, Fabio Di Vincenzo, Gerhard W. Weber, Yossi Seidner, June 25, 2021, science.
DOI: 10.1126/science.abh3169

“Behavior and culture of Homo during the Middle Pleistocene, 140,000 to 120,000 years ago, and interaction with Homo sapiens” Yossi Seidner, Laura Senty, Marion Prevost, Norbert Mercier, Christophe Farguerre, Gilles Guerin, Hélène Valadas, Mairis Richard, Asmodee Ghaly, Christophe Pécherin, Olivier Tombre, Edwidge Pons-Branch, Naomi Porat, Ruth Shahak Gross, David E. Friesem, Reuven Yeshurun, Zohar Turdjman Yaffe, Amos Frumkin, Gadi Herzlinger, Ravid Eckstein, Maayan Shemar, Oz Valoner, Rachel Salig, Hila May, Israel Hershkovitz, June 25, 2021, science.
DOI: 10.1126/science.abh3020

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Nighttime exposure to high levels of light linked with higher risk of anxiety and depression

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A large-scale study involving 87,000 participants found that while excessive night-time light exposure increases the risk of mental illness, increasing daytime light can reduce these risks. This groundbreaking study highlights the importance of balancing light exposure for mental health and suggests simple lifestyle adjustments for better health.

Exposure to artificial light at night increases the risk of developing mental illnesses such as anxiety, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.PTSD), with a tendency toward self-harm.

The world’s largest study of the effects of light exposure on mental health, involving nearly 87,000 people, found that increased exposure to light at night increases the risk of mental health conditions such as anxiety, bipolar disorder and PTSD. Not only that, but it has also been shown that the possibility of self-injury increases. harm. Importantly, the study also found that enhancing exposure to natural light during the day may serve as a non-drug approach to reducing the risk of psychosis.

Day and night light exposure: a balancing act

People exposed to high amounts of light at night had a 30 percent increased risk of depression, while those exposed to high amounts of light during the day had a 20 percent decreased risk of depression. A similar pattern of results was found for self-harm, psychosis, bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and PTSD. These findings demonstrate that the simple practice of avoiding light at night and seeking brighter light during the day may be an effective non-pharmacological means of alleviating serious mental health problems. is showing.

The study, led by Associate Professor Sean Kane from the Monash School of Psychological Sciences and the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health in Melbourne, Australia, was published today in the journal Nature Mental Health.

“Our findings have potentially significant societal impact,” said Associate Professor Kane.

“If people understand that light exposure patterns have a huge impact on their mental health, they can take some simple steps to optimize their health. Let in bright light during the day. , it is important to get darkness at night.”

The study’s 86,772 participants, all from UK Biobank, were tested for light exposure, sleep, physical activity and mental health. Associate Professor Kane said the effects of night-time light exposure were independent of demographics, physical activity, season and employment.

“And our findings were consistent when considering shift work, sleep, urban versus rural living, and cardiometabolic health,” he said.

Challenging human biology with modern lighting

Modern, industrialized humanity has literally turned our biological systems upside down. According to Associate Professor Cain, our brains have evolved to function best in bright light during the day and little to no light at night.

“Humans today are challenging this biology, spending about 90% of their days under indoor electric lights that are too dim during the day and too bright at night compared to the natural light-dark cycle. It confuses our bodies and makes us feel sick,” he said.

Reference: “Day and night light exposure is associated with mental illness: an objective light study of over 85,000 people” Angus C. Burns, Daniel P. Windred, Martin K. Rutter, Patrick Olivier, Celine Vetter, Richa Saxena, Jacqueline M Lane, Andrew JK Phillips, Sean W. Kane, October 9, 2023; natural mental health.
DOI: 10.1038/s44220-023-00135-8

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New technology uses magnetism to control light sources

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Researchers have developed a new method to create transparent magnetic materials using laser heating. This breakthrough is crucial for the integration of magneto-optic materials and optical circuits, a major challenge in this field. This is expected to lead to advances in miniature magneto-optical isolators, miniature lasers, high-resolution displays, and miniature optical devices. Credit: SciTechDaily.com

A new laser heating technique by a Japanese research team enables the integration of transparent magnetic materials into optical circuits, paving the way for advanced optical communication devices.

In a major advance in optical technology, researchers at Tohoku University and Toyohashi University of Technology have developed a new method to create transparent magnetic materials using laser heating. This breakthrough, recently published in the journal Optical Materials, presents a new approach to integrating magneto-optic materials and optical devices, a long-standing challenge in the field.

“The key to this result is that we used a special laser heating technology to create a transparent magnetic material called cerium-substituted yttrium iron garnet (Ce:YIG),” said Taichi Goto, associate professor at Tohoku University’s Institute of Electrical Communication. he points out. (RIEC) and study co-author. “This method addresses the critical challenge of integrating magneto-optic materials into optical circuits without causing damage, an issue that has hindered progress in miniaturizing optical communication devices.”

Laser heating setup for preparing transparent magnetic materials.Credit: Taichi Goto et al.

Magneto-optical isolators in optical communications

Magneto-optical isolators are essential for achieving stable optical communications. These act like traffic lights at traffic lights, allowing movement in one direction but not the other. Integrating these isolators into silicon-based photonic circuits is difficult because they typically require high-temperature processes.

As a result of this challenge, Goto and his colleagues turned to laser annealing, a technique that selectively heats specific areas of a material with a laser. This allows precise control that affects only the target area without affecting the surrounding areas.

Previous work has exploited this to selectively heat bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet (Bi:YIG) films deposited on dielectric mirrors. This allows Bi:YIG to be crystallized without affecting the dielectric mirror.

However, problems arise when working with Ce:YIG, whose magnetic and optical properties make it an ideal material for optical devices, as exposure to air causes undesirable chemical reactions.

To get around this, the researchers designed a new device that uses a laser to heat the material in a vacuum, meaning without air. This made it possible to precisely heat small areas (approximately 60 micrometers) without changing the surrounding material.

Impact on optical technology

“Transparent magnetic materials created using this method are expected to greatly facilitate the development of compact magneto-optical isolators that are essential for stable optical communications,” Goto added. “It also opens the door to creating powerful miniature lasers, high-resolution displays, and miniature optical devices.”

Reference: “Vacuum laser annealing of magneto-optical cerium-substituted yttrium-iron-garnet films” Hibiki Miyashita, Yuki Yoshihara, Kanta Mori, Takumi Oguchi, Pan Boy Lim, Mitsuteru Inoue, Kazushi Ishiyama, Taichi Goto, 2023. November 14th, optical materials.
DOI: 10.1016/j.optmat.2023.114530

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NASA revives scientific endeavors in light of gyro challenge

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Hubble drifts over Earth after being released by the crew of the Space Shuttle Atlantis on May 19, 2009. Service Mission 4 (SM4), the fifth visit by astronauts to the Hubble Space Telescope, was an undisputed success, with the crew performing all planned tasks during the five spacewalks. . Credit: NASA

Following the gyroscope issue, NASA successfully resumed scientific activities in hubble space telescopethe system works optimally.

NASA returned the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope to scientific operations on December 8th. The telescope temporarily suspended scientific observations on November 23 due to a problem with one of its gyros. The spacecraft is in good health and operating again using all three of her gyros.

NASA has decided to return the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope to science operations after a series of tests to determine the performance of the gyro that caused the spacecraft to suspend scientific operations.

After analyzing the data, the research team determined that scientific activities could resume under the control of the three gyros. Based on the performance observed during testing, the team decided to operate the gyro in a higher precision mode during scientific observations. Hubble’s instruments and the observatory itself remain stable and healthy.

Hubble’s two primary cameras, Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Survey Camera, resumed scientific observations on December 8th. The team plans to restore operation of the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and Space Telescope Imaging Spectrometer later this month.

Hubble orbits more than 300 miles above Earth as seen from the Space Shuttle. Credit: NASA

About the Hubble Space Telescope

Launched in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope is a wonder of modern astronomy, orbiting Earth and capturing unprecedented views of the universe. Unlike ground-based telescopes, Hubble operates above the distortions of Earth’s atmosphere, providing clear images of distant galaxies, nebulae, and other celestial phenomena.

Its discoveries have revolutionized our understanding of the universe, from understanding the universe’s accelerating expansion to capturing the most detailed view of the solar system’s planets. Hubble’s longevity and adaptability have made it one of the most important instruments in the history of astronomy, and it continues to push the frontiers of our cosmic knowledge.

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Is Pulsar Light the Key to Solving the Dark Matter Mystery?

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New research explores the possibility that dark matter is composed of theoretical particles called axions, and focuses on detecting them through additional light from pulsars. Although axions have not yet been confirmed in early observations, this research is critical to understanding dark matter.

A central question in the ongoing search for dark matter is: What is dark matter made of? One possible answer is that dark matter is made up of particles known as axions. A recent study by astrophysicists at the University of Amsterdam and Princeton University suggests that if dark matter is indeed made of axions, it could manifest itself in the form of subtle additional glow emanating from pulsating stars.

Dark matter may be the most sought-after building block in our universe. Remarkably, this mysterious form of matter, so far undetectable by physicists and astronomers, is thought to make up a huge portion of what exists on Earth. It is suspected that more than 85% of the matter in the universe is “dark”, and at the moment it is only recognized by the gravitational force it exerts on other celestial bodies. Naturally, scientists want to look directly detect its existence rather than just inferring it from gravitational effects. And of course they want to know what of course, solve two problems One thing is clear: dark matter cannot be the same kind of matter that makes up you and me. If so, dark matter would simply behave like ordinary matter. Dark matter will form star-like objects, will glow, and will no longer be “dark.” So scientists are looking for something new, a type of particle that no one has detected yet, and perhaps one that only interacts very weakly with the types of particles we know about.

One common hypothesis is that dark matter may be made of: Axion. This hypothetical type of particle was first introduced in the 1970s when he solved a problem that had nothing to do with dark matter. The separation of positive and negative charges inside a neutron, one of the building blocks of a normal atom, turns out to be unexpectedly small. Of course, scientists wanted to know why. It turns out that the presence of a previously undetected type of particle that interacts very weakly with components of neutrons can cause just such an effect. Frank Wilczek, who later won the Nobel Prize, came up with the name for this new particle. Axion – as well as similar to another particle name such as protons, neutrons, and electrons. photon, but it’s also inspired by the laundry detergent of the same name. Axion existed to solve problems. In fact, it might clean up the two even if it’s not detected. Several theories about elementary particles, including string theory, one of the leading candidate theories for unifying all the forces in nature, seem to predict the possibility of axion-like particles.

Fortunately, there appears to be a way out of this conundrum for axions. If the theory predicting axions is correct, not only would axions be expected to be produced in large quantities in the universe, but some axions could also be converted to light in the presence of strong electromagnetic fields. If there is light, we can see. Could this be the key to detecting axions and, by extension, dark matter? To answer this question, scientists first had to ask themselves where in the universe the strongest known electric and magnetic fields occur. The answer is known in the region around rotating neutron stars. pulsar. These pulsars (short for “pulsating stars”) are dense objects with a mass about the same as the Sun, but a radius about 100,000 times smaller, or only about 10 km. Because pulsars are so small, they rotate at enormous frequencies and emit bright, narrow beams of radio radiation along their axis of rotation. Just like a lighthouse pulsarThe beam can sweep across the Earth, making it easy to observe the pulsating star. But the pulsar’s massive rotation does more than that. it is, neutron star It turns into a very powerful electromagnet. That could mean Pulsar is a highly efficient axion factory. The average pulsar can produce 50 orders of magnitude axions per second. Because of the strong electromagnetic fields surrounding pulsars, some of these axions can be converted into observable light.

As always in science, carrying out such observations in practice is, of course, not so easy. The light emitted by axions (which can be detected in the form of radio waves) is only a fraction of the total light these bright cosmic lighthouses send back to us. Much less can we quantify the difference and turn it into a measurement of the amount of dark matter. This is exactly what a team of physicists and astronomers are currently doing. Through a collaboration between the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United States, the research team has uncovered details about how axions are created, how axions escape the neutron star’s gravity, and…

First observational tests were performed on the theory and simulation results…referencesystem, simulate a subtle glow

Next, first observational tests were performed on the theory and simulation results…referencesystem to show that it is very unlikely that axions are a component of…s

Note: The original content contained HTML tags, it’s been removed in the rewrite.

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Active Matter Theory sheds new light on longstanding biological enigmas

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November 22, 2023A team of scientists has developed a new algorithm to solve theoretical equations for active materials, deepening our understanding of living materials. This research is of vital importance in biology and computational science, paving the way for new discoveries in cell morphology and the creation of artificial biological machines. Advanced open-source supercomputer algorithms predict the patterns and dynamics of living matter and enable exploration of its behavior across space and time. Biological materials are made up of individual components, such as tiny motors that convert fuel into motion. This process creates a pattern of movement, guiding the shape of the material itself through a consistent flow driven by constant energy consumption. Such permanently driven substances are called “active substances.”

How cells and tissues work can be explained by active matter theory, a scientific framework for understanding the shape, flow, and form of living matter. Active matter theory consists of many difficult mathematical equations. Scientists from Dresden’s Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG), the Dresden Center for Systems Biology (CSBD), and the Dresden University of Technology have developed an algorithm implemented in open-source supercomputer code. For the first time, you can solve active matter theory equations in realistic scenarios. These solutions bring him a big step closer to solving his century-old mystery of how cells and tissues acquire their shape, and to designing artificial biological machines. 3D simulation of active substances in a dividing cell-like geometry. Credit: Singh et al. Physics of Fluids (2023) / MPI-CBG

Biological processes and behaviors are often highly complex. Physical theory provides a precise and quantitative framework for understanding physical theories. Active matter theory provides a framework for understanding and explaining the behavior of active substances, which are materials made up of individual components that can convert chemical fuels (“food”) into mechanical forces. The development of this theory was led by several Dresden scientists, including Frank Uricher, director of the Max Planck Institute for Complex Systems Physics, and Stefan Grill, director of MPI-CBG. These physical principles allow us to mathematically describe and predict the dynamics of active organisms. However, these equations are very complex and difficult to solve. Therefore, scientists need the power of supercomputers to understand and analyze living matter. There are various ways to predict the behavior of active materials, including by focusing on small individual particles, by studying active materials at the molecular level, and by studying active fluids on a larger scale. These studies help scientists understand how active substances behave at different scales in space and time. Scientist in the research group of Dresden University of Technology Ivo Sbalzarini Professor at the Dresden Center for Systems Biology (CSBD), research group leader at the Max Planck Institute molecular cell The Dean of the Department of Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) and Computer Science at the Technical University of Dresden has now developed a computer algorithm to solve the active substance equation. Their research was published in the journal fluid physics and it appeared on the cover. They present an algorithm that is capable of solving complex equations for active materials in three-dimensional and complex-shaped spaces.

“Our approach can handle a variety of shapes in three dimensions over time,” says research mathematician Abhinav Singh, one of the study’s first authors. He continued, “Even when the data points are not regularly distributed, our algorithm employs a novel numerical approach that works seamlessly for complex biologically realistic scenarios, and the theoretical equations Using our approach, we can finally understand the long-term behavior of active materials in both mobile and non-mobile scenarios in order to predict dynamic scenarios. Additionally, theory and simulation can be used to program biological materials and create engines at the nanoscale to extract useful work.” The other first author, Philipp Suhrcke, holds a master’s degree in computational modeling and simulation from the Technical University of Dresden. “Thanks to our research, scientists can predict, for example, the shape of tissues and when biological materials will become unstable or dysregulated, leading to growth and disease. This has far-reaching implications for our understanding of mechanisms.”

The scientists implemented the software using the open source library OpenFPM. This means that others can use it freely. OpenFPM was developed by his Sbalzarini group to democratize large-scale scientific and technical computing. The authors first developed a custom computer language that allows computational scientists to write code for a supercomputer by specifying mathematical formulas that let the computer do the work of writing the correct program code. As a result, you no longer have to start from scratch every time you write code, effectively reducing code development time in scientific research from months or years to days or weeks, greatly increasing productivity.

Because the study of three-dimensional active materials has significant computational demands, using OpenFPM the new code is scalable on shared and distributed memory multiprocessor parallel supercomputers. This application is designed to run on powerful supercomputers, but can also be run on regular office computers to study 2D materials. Ivo Sbalzarini, the study’s lead researcher, summarizes: All this has been integrated into a tool for understanding her three-dimensional behavior of living matter. Our code, which is open source, scalable, and able to handle complex scenarios, opens new avenues in active materials modeling. This could ultimately lead to an understanding of how cells and tissues acquire their shape, addressing fundamental questions in morphogenesis that have puzzled scientists for centuries. There is a gender. But it may also be useful for designing artificial biological machines with minimal components.

References: “Numerical solver for three-dimensional active fluid dynamics and its application to active turbulence” by Abhinav Singh, Philipp H. Suhrcke, Pietro Incardina, and Ivo F. Sbalzarini, October 30, 2023. fluid physics. DOI: 10.1063/5.0169546 This research was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium f€ur Bildung und Forschung, BMBF), the Federal Center for Scalable Data Analysis and Artificial Intelligence, ScaDS.AI, and Dresden/Leipzig. The computer code supporting the results of this study is publicly available in the 3Dactive-hydynamics github repository at: https://github.com/mosaic-group/3Dactive-hydrodynamic sThe open source framework OpenFPM is available at: https://github.com/mosaic-group/openfpm_pdataRelated publications for embedded computer languages https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpc.2019.03.007https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-021-00121-x (function (d, s, id) {var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName (s) [0]; if (d.getElementById (id)) return; js = d.createElement (s); js.id = id; js.src = “https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.6”; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore (js, fjs); } (document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));

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Newly Discovered Light Properties Unveiled by Centuries-Old Theorem

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Researchers have used a 350-year-old mechanical theorem that is usually applied to tangible objects to uncover new insights into the properties of light. By interpreting light intensity as equivalent to physical mass, they mapped light into a system to which established mechanical equations could be applied. This approach reveals a direct correlation between the degree of non-quantum entanglement of light waves and the degree of polarization. These discoveries have the potential to simplify the understanding of complex optical and quantum properties through more direct light intensity measurements.

Researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology have applied a 350-year-old theorem originally used to describe the behavior of pendulums and planets to uncover new properties of light waves.

Ever since Isaac Newton and Christian Huygens debated the nature of light in the 17th century, the scientific community has grappled with the question: Is light a wave, a particle, or both at the same time at the quantum level? . Now, researchers at the Stevens Institute of Technology have used a 350-year-old mechanical theorem, typically used to describe the motion of large physical objects such as pendulums and planets, to A new relationship has been revealed. The most complex behavior of light waves.

Reveal relationships between light properties

The research, led by Xiaofeng Qian, an assistant professor of physics at Stevens College, and reported in the August 17 online issue of Physical Review Research, shows that the degree of non-quantum entanglement of light waves exists in a direct and complementary relationship. We proved for the first time that it does. It depends on the degree of polarization. As one increases, the other decreases, so the level of entanglement can be directly inferred from the level of polarization, and vice versa. This means that difficult-to-measure optical properties such as amplitude, phase, and correlation (and perhaps even properties of quantum wave systems) can be estimated from something much easier to measure: the intensity of light.

Physicists at Stevens Institute of Technology are using a 350-year-old theorem that explains how pendulums and planets work to uncover new properties of light waves. credit:
Stevens Institute of Technology

“We’ve known for more than a century that light sometimes behaves like waves and sometimes like particles, but reconciling these two paradigms is extremely difficult. We know that,” Chen said. There is a deep connection between the concepts of waves and particles not only at the quantum level but also at the level of classical light waves and point-mass systems. ”

Applying Huygens’ mechanical theorem to light

Qian’s team used a mechanical theorem originally developed by Huygens in his 1673 book on pendulums. This theorem explains how the energy required to rotate an object varies depending on the object’s mass and its axis of rotation. “This is a well-established mechanical theorem that explains how physical systems like clocks and prosthetic limbs work,” Qian explained. “But we were able to show that it can also provide new insights into how light works.”

This 350-year-old theorem describes the relationship between a mass and its rotational momentum. So how does this apply to light, which has no mass to measure? Qian’s team interprets the intensity of light as equivalent to the mass of a physical object, which can be interpreted using Huygens’ mechanical theorem. We mapped those measurements into a coordinate system. “Essentially, we found a way to transform optical systems so that they can be visualized as mechanical systems and described using established physical equations,” he explained. .

Once the researchers visualized light waves as part of a mechanical system, new relationships between wave properties quickly became apparent, such as the fact that entanglement and polarization are clearly related to each other.

“This hasn’t been shown before, but when you map the properties of light onto a mechanical system, it becomes very clear,” Qian says. “What was once abstract becomes concrete. Using mechanical equations, you can literally measure the distance between the ‘center of mass’ and other mechanical points to determine how different properties of light interact with each other. We can show how they are related.”

Elucidating these relationships has important practical implications, as it may allow us to estimate subtle and difficult-to-measure properties of optical systems, and even quantum systems, from simpler and more reliable measurements of light intensity. Qian explained that there is a gender. More speculatively, the researchers’ findings suggest that mechanical systems could be used to simulate and better understand the strange and complex behavior of quantum wave systems.

“It’s still in front of us, but this first study clearly shows that by applying mechanical concepts, we can understand optical systems in entirely new ways,” Qian said. Ta. “Ultimately, this research will help simplify the way we understand the world by allowing us to recognize the essential underlying connections between seemingly unrelated physical laws.”

References: “Bridging coherence optics and classical mechanics: Complementarity of general light polarization entanglement” by Xiao-Feng Qian and Misag Izadi, August 17, 2023. physical review study.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.5.033110

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