Lifeboat Foundation

Imagine a dust particle in a storm cloud, and you can get an idea of a neutron’s insignificance compared to the magnitude of the molecule it inhabits.

But just as a dust mote might affect a cloud’s track, a neutron can influence the energy of its molecule despite being less than one-millionth its size. And now physicists at MIT and elsewhere have successfully measured a neutron’s tiny effect in a radioactive molecule.

The team has developed a new technique to produce and study short-lived radioactive molecules with neutron numbers they can precisely control. They hand-picked several isotopes of the same molecule, each with one more neutron than the next. When they measured each molecule’s energy, they were able to detect small, nearly imperceptible changes of the nuclear size, due to the effect of a single neutron.

Very recently, researchers led by Markus Aspelmeyer at the University of Vienna and Lukas Novotny at ETH Zurich cooled a glass nanoparticle into the quantum regime for the first time. To do this, the particle is deprived of its kinetic energy with the help of lasers. What remains are movements, so-called quantum fluctuations, which no longer follow the laws of classical physics but those of quantum physics. The glass sphere with which this has been achieved is significantly smaller than a grain of sand, but still consists of several hundred million atoms. In contrast to the microscopic world of photons and atoms, nanoparticles provide an insight into the quantum nature of macroscopic objects. In collaboration with experimental physicist Markus Aspelmeyer, a team of theoretical physicists led by Oriol Romero-Isart of the University of Innsbruck and the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences is now proposing a way to harness the quantum properties of nanoparticles for various applications.

Briefly delocalized

“While atoms in the motional ground state bounce around over distances larger than the size of the atom, the motion of macroscopic objects in the ground state is very, very small,” explain Talitha Weiss and Marc Roda-Llordes from the Innsbruck team. “The quantum fluctuations of nanoparticles are smaller than the diameter of an atom.” To take advantage of the quantum nature of nanoparticles, the wave function of the particles must be greatly expanded. In the Innsbruck quantum physicists’ scheme, nanoparticles are trapped in optical fields and cooled to the ground state. By rhythmically changing these fields, the particles now succeed in briefly delocalizing over exponentially larger distances. “Even the smallest perturbations may destroy the coherence of the particles, which is why by changing the optical potentials, we only briefly pull apart the wave function of the particles and then immediately compress it again,” explains Oriol Romero-Isart.

When gravitational waves were first detected in 2015 by the advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), they sent a ripple through the scientific community, as they confirmed another of Einstein’s theories and marked the birth of gravitational wave astronomy. Five years later, numerous gravitational wave sources have been detected, including the first observation of two colliding neutron stars in gravitational and electromagnetic waves.

As LIGO and its international partners continue to upgrade their detectors’ sensitivity to gravitational waves, they will be able to probe a larger volume of the universe, thereby making the detection of gravitational wave sources a daily occurrence. This discovery deluge will launch the era of precision astronomy that takes into consideration extrasolar messenger phenomena, including electromagnetic radiation, gravitational waves, neutrinos and cosmic rays. Realizing this goal, however, will require a radical re-thinking of existing methods used to search for and find gravitational waves.

Recently, computational scientist and lead for translational artificial intelligence (AI) Eliu Huerta of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, in conjunction with collaborators from Argonne, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, NVIDIA and IBM, has developed a new production-scale AI framework that allows for accelerated, scalable and reproducible detection of gravitational waves.

To create high-resolution, 3D images of tissues such as the brain, researchers often use two-photon microscopy, which involves aiming a high-intensity laser at the specimen to induce fluorescence excitation. However, scanning deep within the brain can be difficult because light scatters off of tissues as it goes deeper, making images blurry.

Two-photon imaging is also time-consuming, as it usually requires scanning individual pixels one at a time. A team of MIT and Harvard University researchers has now developed a modified version of two-photon imaging that can image deeper within tissue and perform the imaging much more quickly than what was previously possible.

This kind of imaging could allow scientists to more rapidly obtain high-resolution images of structures such as blood vessels and individual neurons within the brain, the researchers say.

If a virtual world has ever left you feeling nauseous or disorientated, you’re familiar with cybersickness, and you’re hardly alone. The intensity of virtual reality (VR)—whether that’s standing on the edge of a waterfall in Yosemite or engaging in tank combat with your friends—creates a stomach-churning challenge for 30–80% of users.

In a first-of-its kind study, researchers at the University of Maryland recorded VR users’ brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG) to better understand and work toward solutions to prevent cybersickness. The research was conducted by Eric Krokos, who received his Ph.D. in computer science in 2018, and Amitabh Varshney, a professor of computer science and dean of UMD’s College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences.

Their study, “Quantifying VR cybersickness using EEG,” was recently published in the journal Virtual Reality.

A unique study of ancient diamonds has shown that the basic chemical composition of the Earth’s atmosphere which makes it suitable for life’s explosion of diversity was laid down at least 2.7 billion years ago. Volatile gases conserved in diamonds found in ancient rocks were present in similar proportions to those found in today’s mantle, which in turn indicates that there has been no fundamental change in the proportions of volatiles in the atmosphere over the last few billion years. This shows that one of the basic conditions necessary to support life, the presence of life-giving elements in sufficient quantity, appeared soon after Earth formed, and has remained fairly constant ever since.

Presenting the work at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference, lead researcher Dr. Michael Broadly said, “The proportion and make-up of volatiles in the atmosphere reflects that found in the mantle, and we have no evidence of a significant change since these diamonds were formed 2.7 billion years ago.”

Volatiles, such as hydrogen, nitrogen, neon, and carbon-bearing species are light chemical elements and compounds, which can be readily vaporized due to heat, or pressure changes. They are necessary for life, especially carbon and nitrogen. Not all planets are rich in volatiles; Earth is volatile-rich, as is Venus, but Mars and the Moon lost most of their volatiles into space. Generally, a planet rich in volatiles has a better chance of sustaining life, which is why much of the search for life on planets surrounding distant stars (exoplanets) has focused on looking for volatiles.

People with a disrupted GPR75 gene weighed less and were less likely to be obese.

‘Magneto-rotational hypernova’ soon after the Big Bang fuelled high levels of uranium, zinc in ancient stellar oddity.

A massive explosion from a previously unknown source — 10 times more energetic than a supernova — could be the answer to a 13-billion-year-old Milky Way mystery.

Astronomers led by David Yong, Gary Da Costa and Chiaki Kobayashi from Australia’s ARC Centre of Excellence in All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) based at the Australian National University (ANU) have potentially discovered the first evidence of the destruction of a collapsed rapidly spinning star — a phenomenon they describe as a “magneto-rotational hypernova”.

The international James Webb Space Telescope has passed the final mission analysis review for its launch on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

This major milestone, carried out with Arianespace, the Webb launch service provider, confirms that Ariane 5, the Webb spacecraft, and the flight plan are set for launch. It also specifically provides the final confirmation that all aspects of the launch vehicle and spacecraft are fully compatible.

During launch, the spacecraft experiences a range of mechanical forces, vibrations, temperature changes, and electromagnetic radiation. All technical evaluations performed by Arianespace on the mission’s key aspects, including the launch trajectory and payload separation, have shown positive results.