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Category: particle physics

Hearing research traces evolution of key inner ear protein

In the intricate machinery of the inner ear, hearing begins with a protein that moves a few billionths of a meter up to 100,000 times per second. That protein, called TMC1, sits at the tips of sensory hair cells deep in the snail-shaped cochlea. When sound waves move these microscopic hairs, TMC1 acts as a channel, opening and allowing charged particles to flow into the cell and trigger an electrical signal to the brain.

Without TMC1, that signal never starts. Mutations in the TMC1 gene are a well-known cause of hereditary hearing loss in humans. Because of this central role, TMC1 is an attractive target for researchers designing gene therapies aimed at restoring hearing. Several groups are testing ways to supply working copies of the gene or fix harmful mutations.

For these efforts to be safe and effective, scientists need to know in detail how TMC1 is built, how it opens, and which parts of the protein are most sensitive to change. However, the hair-cell system that includes TMC1 is so complex, sensitive, and hard to access that it is notoriously difficult to take apart and study directly.

‘Cool’ detectors cut neutrino mass upper limit by an order of magnitude

Their mass is extremely low, but how light are neutrinos really? A collaboration comprising German and international research groups has optimized its experiments to determine the mass of these “ghost particles.” In doing so, they succeeded in further adjusting downward the upper limit on the neutrino mass scale that had previously been determined in similar experiments. The study is published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

As part of the “Electron Capture in Ho-163 Experiment” (ECHo), the researchers are using the isotope Holmium-163 (Ho-163), whose decay processes allow for conclusions on the neutrino mass. According to ECHo spokesperson Prof. Dr. Loredana Gastaldo, a scientist at Heidelberg University’s Kirchhoff Institute for Physics, the current results verify that even larger-scale investigations will be feasible in future to get even closer to the mass of neutrinos and ultimately precisely determine it.

Neutrinos are elementary particles with extremely low mass that have no electrical charge. Because their interaction with matter is very weak, the properties of these “ghost particles” are very difficult to determine. This is especially true for the neutrino mass, which has yet to be precisely measured, with only its upper limit being known. According to Gastaldo, determining the mass could pave the way for new theoretical models beyond the standard model of particle physics and thereby contribute to a better understanding of the evolution of our universe.

Dust-resilient perovskite solar cells could cut manufacturing costs and expand green energy worldwide

Research appearing in Communications Materials has shown that perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are remarkably resilient to dust during production, challenging the industry belief that high-performance solar technology must be manufactured in sterile and expensive cleanrooms. This discovery could reduce the need for ultra-clean factories, making solar cell production cheaper and more accessible worldwide.

PSCs are a new type of technology that uses a unique crystal structure to harvest light. They are thinner, lighter, and potentially much cheaper to produce than the traditional silicon panels found on roofs today. However, traditional silicon cells are incredibly fragile during the making process; even a single microscopic dust particle can ruin a cell. This forces manufacturers to use expensive, energy-hungry cleanrooms, creating a massive barrier to production in developing nations.

Researchers at Swansea University’s Faculty of Science & Engineering have now found that perovskite technology has a unique tolerance to common dust and debris.

Now you see it, now you don’t: Material can transition between quantum states

A team of scientists led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has identified a rare, switchable quantum property in a new type of nickel sulfide material. The discovery could have applications in high-speed transistors, adaptive sensors and other devices that require a material’s electronic structure to be controlled on the fly. The research is published in the journal Matter.

The compound, KxNi4S2 (0 ≤ x ≤ 1), contains nickel and sulfur sandwiched between layers of potassium. The “(0 ≤ x ≤ 1)” in the name means that the amount of potassium in the material can vary from no potassium at all to a full potassium atom, depending on the sample.

First detailed in a 2021 paper, it was created as part of an ongoing quest to develop more superconductors. As researchers examined the layered material’s characteristics, they happened upon a remarkable feature: applying an electrical current could drive the potassium layers out, collapsing the sandwich and changing the material’s structure.

New ultra-fast particle detector could help unmask dark matter

The CMS experiment at CERN is building a new detector that will unravel the chaotic particle collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, helping scientists identify particles based on their speeds.

What if Olympic officials could record sprinters’ times only to the nearest minute? “We would know who started the race, and who finished the race, but that’s it,” said Bryan Cardwell, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Virginia. “There’s no way to know who arrived first and who arrived last.”

Cardwell and his colleagues on the CMS experiment are currently tackling a similar problem. The CMS experiment records the tracks and properties of subatomic particles created by the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. As it stands, physicists get a picture of all the particles produced in a collision, but they have insufficiently detailed information about when the particles were produced or how fast they were traveling, making it difficult to tell them apart.

Microsoft-backed start-up raises $40 million for helium atom beam lithography that could print chips at atomic resolution — 0.1nm beam is 135 times narrower than ASML’s EUV light

Lace Lithography, a Norwegian start-up backed by Microsoft, raised $40 million in Series A funding on Monday to develop a chipmaking tool that uses a helium atom beam instead of light to pattern silicon wafers, Reuters reported. The company claims its technology can create chip features 10 times smaller than current lithography systems, with a beam width of just 0.1 nanometers compared to the 13.5nm wavelength used by ASML’s EUV scanners. Lace aims to have a test tool running in a pilot fab by 2029.

The advantage of Lace’s system is that atoms don’t have a diffraction limit, whereas photon-based lithography, including ASML’s EUV systems, is constrained by the wavelength of the light it uses. As chipmakers push features smaller, they rely on increasingly complex multi-patterning techniques to work around that limit, but Lace sidesteps the problem entirely by replacing photons with neutral helium atoms and a beam measuring roughly the width of a single hydrogen atom.

Teleportation is no longer just science fiction—at the quantum level

(Science fiction’s “warp drive” is speeding closer to reality.)

Inspired by science fiction, they landed on “quantum teleportation.” Since then, the idea has gone from theoretical concept to an experimentally verified reality. The first experiments in the late 1990s showed that quantum states could be transmitted across short distances, while subsequent research proved it works across increasingly longer distances—even to and from low Earth orbit, as Chinese scientists demonstrated in 2017. They’ve achieved quantum teleportation by taking advantage of quantum entanglement, a natural phenomenon in which tiny particles can become linked with each other across infinite distances.

Quantum teleportation is very different from the teleportation of matter we see in fiction. It involves transferring a quantum state without moving any matter. And while experts say it won’t lead to Star Trek-esque beaming, it could help bring about a new era of computing that revolutionizes our understanding of the subatomic world—and by extension, of the nature of the universe and everything within it.

Boron arsenide semiconductor sets record in quantum vibrations

You may not be able to hear it, but all solid materials make a sound. In fact, atoms—bound in lattices of chemical bonds—are never silent nor still: Under the placid surface of each and every object in our surroundings, a low hum hovers or a high-energy squeak titters.

As atoms vibrate in their lattices, they do so by either all moving in the same direction, in which case their collective vibration shows up as a low humming sound, or by moving in opposite directions from one another, giving rise to an energetic vibration that registers as a bright squeak or titter.

New NMR method allows the observation of chalcogen bonds

Toward the right side of the periodic table below oxygen, are the chalcogens, or “ore-forming” elements. The chalcogens that occur naturally, including sulfur, selenium and tellurium, are all somehow involved in biological processes. Molecules containing sulfur, like the antioxidant glutathione, play a central role in redox regulation, the balance between oxidation and reduction that is essential for maintaining cellular health.

Recent studies have suggested that the heavier selenium and tellurium are active in biological redox systems as well, but the instability of molecules containing chains of different chalcogen atoms has made structural analysis difficult.

Traditional methods have largely relied on mass spectrometry, which cannot be used to directly observe molecular bonds. This limitation motivated a team of researchers at Kyoto University to develop a method that would allow them to more clearly observe chains of chalcogens. The paper is published in the journal ACS Measurement Science Au.

CERN hails delicate test on transporting antimatter as a scientific success

Scientists in Geneva took some antiprotons out for a spin—a very delicate one—in a truck, in a never-tried-before test drive that has been deemed a success.

If this so-called antimatter had come into contact with actual matter, even for a fraction of an instant, it would have been annihilated in a quick flash of energy. So experts at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, had to be extra careful when they took 92 antiprotons on the road for a short ride on Tuesday.

The antiprotons were suspended in a vacuum inside a specially designed box and held in place by supercooled magnets.

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