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Dr. Ashley Martin: “Our study reveals high nitrogen isotope values in 2.75-billion-year-old shallow water stromatolites, and lower nitrogen values in deeper marine sediments.”

What can volcanism on the early Earth teach us about the formation of life on our planet? This is what a recent study published in Nature Communications hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated how volcanic activity billions of years ago could have influenced the Earth’s nitrogen cycle, thus influencing the development of marine life. This study has the potential to help researchers better understand the processes responsible for the development of life on early Earth, specifically in Earth’s oceans.

For the study, the researchers analyzed 2.5-billion-year-old samples of stromatolites, which are fossilized rock formations created by microorganisms, in southern Zimbabwe. The goal of the study was to ascertain a connection between nitrogen isotope patterns and an event known as the Great Oxidation Event that occurred approximately 2.5 billion years ago and is often hailed as a major turning point in the development of life on the Earth. During that time, most of the Earth’s land mass was underwater with volcanic activity occurring in the oceans. Therefore, the researchers found an interesting connection between volcanic activity and nitrogen levels that occurred simultaneously.

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Microsoft, after teaming up with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), last week unveiled a new chip that could fast-track the development of quantum computers and bring them into wider use within years instead of decades.

Microsoft has developed Majorana 1 – a breakthrough material known as a topoconductor – putting the tech giant on track to build the world’s first fault-tolerant prototype (FTP) of a scalable quantum computer within years – rather than decades.

That breakthrough came as part of the final phase of DARPA’s Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC) program.

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SAN FRANCISCO – BAE Systems won a $230.6 million NASA contract to deliver spacecraft for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency’s Lagrange 1 Series space weather project.

Under the firm-fixed-price award, announced Feb. 21, BAE Systems Space & Mission Systems, formerly Ball Aerospace, will develop Lagrange 1 Series spacecraft, integrate instruments, and support flight and mission operations. Contract-related work, scheduled to begin this month, will be performed in Boulder, Colorado, through January 2034.

The Lagrange 1 Series, part of NOAA’s Space Weather Next program, is designed to provide continuity of coronal imagery and upstream solar wind measurements, with spacecraft expected to launch in 2029 and 2032. BAE Systems also is building the Space Weather Follow On Lagrange 1 mission set to fly no earlier than September on NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe.

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What do rope winding and giant pasta shapes have to do with particle physics? The answer is a new superconducting magnet prototype under development at CERN, lovingly named Fusillo because of its shape.

Originally, CERN physicists became interested in developing this technology for use in compact particle accelerators, for example in a new storage ring for the CERN-based experiment ISOLDE. However, development of this technology could also have a big impact in the medical field. For example, one of the possible future applications of magnets like Fusillo is in hadron therapy to treat cancer.

Hadron therapy is a type of radiotherapy that uses beams of protons or light ions to irradiate cancer tissue. Compared to X-rays, which use beams of light, beams of ions release less energy along their path and more energy in one specific spot.

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Apical periodontitis, a chronic and hard-to-treat dental infection, affects more than half of the population worldwide and is the leading cause of tooth loss. Root canal is the standard treatment, but existing approaches to treat the infection have many limitations that can cause complications, leading to treatment failure.

Now, researchers at the School of Dental Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have identified a promising new therapeutic option that could potentially disrupt current treatments. The team of researchers is part of the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry, a joint research center between Penn Dental Medicine and Penn Engineering that leverages engineering and computational approaches to advance oral and craniofacial health care innovation.

In a paper published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, they show that ferumoxytol, an FDA-approved iron oxide nanoparticle formulation, greatly reduces infection in patients diagnosed with apical periodontitis.

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SpaceX’s Starship is poised for its eighth flight from Boca Chica, Texas, pending regulatory approval from the FAA. The previous flight resulted in a mid-air explosion, leading to increased scrutiny and a temporary suspension by the FAA. The upcoming launch will feature a daring maneuver to catch the booster stage with “chopstick” arms, showcasing advanced engineering feats. The mission aims to deploy Starlink simulators, marking progress toward new satellite technology. Elon Musk and SpaceX view Starship as crucial for future missions to Mars and the Moon, with NASA keenly following its progress.

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The edge of the Solar System is a strange place, full of oddities we’ve only just begun to probe. But perhaps the oddest of all is the Oort Cloud, a vast field of icy debris extending out to 100,000 times the distance between Earth and the Sun.

We have a rough idea of the size and shape of this field, but the fine particulars elude our understanding. Now, a new computational study has revealed a surprising structure – a spiral generated by the tidal forces exerted by the Milky Way galaxy itself.

The finding, in press at The Astrophysical Journal, is currently available on preprint server arXiv.

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