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Electrons Mysteriously Slow to a Crawl Inside This Magnetic Material

Inside an unusual magnetic material, electrons are doing something physicists did not expect: slowing to a near crawl while moving together in quantum lockstep.

A team at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) found that electrons in Fe5GeTe2 can enter a charge-ordered state where they move collectively, remain quantum coherent, and travel far more slowly than expected.

The result could force scientists to rethink how magnetism works in this material. It may also offer a new way to store information by switching between distinct electronic and magnetic states.

“Entirely Surprising” — Scientists Have Found a Martian Meteorite Unlike Any Known Before

A meteorite found in Algeria has opened a rare window into nearly 2 billion years of Mars’ history that had largely been missing from the geological record.

Researchers at Boston College have determined that Northwest Africa (NWA) 13,441, a rock blasted from Mars before eventually reaching Earth, crystallized about 1.273 billion years ago. Its age places it squarely within a huge gap in the known record of shergottites, the most common type of Martian igneous meteorite. Even more unexpectedly, its chemistry points to a deep Martian source unlike any previously identified in this group.

“The characteristics of this meteorite were entirely surprising,” said Ethan Baxter, a Boston College professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences and founder of the university’s Center for Isotope Geochemistry. “No other Martian meteorite like this has an age of 1.27 billion years.”

The Modern Attack Chain: Rethinking Google Workspace Security in the Age of AI

Google Workspace attacks do not always begin with phishing. Stolen OAuth tokens can provide another path into Gmail, Drive, and connected systems. Material Security explains why organizations need defenses that cover the entire Workspace attack chain.

Youth-associated protein helps restore healthy function in immune cells in the aging brain

Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have identified a role for the youth-associated protein TIMP2 in supporting the healthy function of microglia, the brain’s resident immune cells.

In a study published Aug. 12 in Nature Communications, they found that loss of TIMP2 caused microglia to develop several features associated with aging and neurodegeneration. Conversely, restoring TIMP2 in the blood of aged mice improved the ability of microglia to clear debris and reduced molecular markers associated with inflammation and other maladaptive states.

The findings provide new insight into how youth-associated factors may influence the aging brain and suggest that TIMP2 may help maintain healthy immune function in the brain as organisms age.

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