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Oct 8, 2024

BepiColombo spacecraft’s flyby of Mercury begins unraveling the planet’s magnetic mystery

Posted by in categories: particle physics, space

The team also studied the direct interaction between charged particles in the solar wind as well as plasma around Mercury and BepiColombo itself. This process is complicated by the fact that when the spacecraft is facing the sun, it is heated and cooled, and heavier charged particles called ions can’t be detected because BepiColombo becomes electrically charged and repels them.

However, when BepiColombo slips into the shadow of Mercury, cool ions in a sea of plasma become detectable. This allowed BepiColombo to see ions of the elements oxygen, sodium and potassium around Mercury. The team thinks these particles originated from the surface of the tiny planet and were launched into space by meteorite strikes or solar wind bombardment.

“It’s like we’re suddenly seeing the surface composition ‘exploded’ in 3D through the planet’s very thin atmosphere, known as its exosphere,” MPPE instrument lead Dominique Delcourt, from the Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas, said in the statement. “It’s really exciting to start seeing the link between the planet’s surface and the plasma environment.”

Oct 8, 2024

XB-1 achieves new speed record on fifth test flight

Posted by in category: space

On October 7, 2024, the XB-1, Boom Supersonic’s groundbreaking supersonic demonstrator, completed its fifth test flight from the Mojave Air & Space Port, reaching a new top speed of Mach 0.69 (324 KIAS) and a maximum altitude of 17,800 feet.

Flown by Chief Test Pilot Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg, the aircraft remained airborne for approximately 50 minutes, setting a new record for the program in terms of speed, altitude, and flight duration.

Continue reading “XB-1 achieves new speed record on fifth test flight” »

Oct 8, 2024

Uncovering Genetic Links to Psychiatric Disorders in the Brain

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, neuroscience

Summary: Scientists have identified how genetic variants influence the risk of neurological and psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia and autism. Using live neural cells and DNA sequencing, researchers discovered thousands of “non-coding” genetic variants with context-dependent functions, activated during brain development.

These variants act like switches, turning genes on or off depending on cellular pathways. This research offers new insights into the biological mechanisms behind psychiatric disorders and could lead to personalized treatments based on genetic profiles.

Oct 8, 2024

If Helene causes a chip shortage, it’ll be different than COVID

Posted by in category: computing

Helene shut down the Spruce Pine mines that produce ultra-pure quartz, and some fear that could cause shortages and higher prices on things we buy.

So, how likely is that to happen?

The good news is Sibelco, Spruce Pine’s largest quartz mine, says its employees and contractors are all safe and accounted for.

Oct 8, 2024

Our Galaxy Appears To Be Part Of Structure So Large It Challenges Our Models Of Cosmology

Posted by in category: cosmology

The tiny red dot is us.

Oct 8, 2024

Quantum state tomography with locally purified density operators and local measurements

Posted by in categories: information science, quantum physics

Quantum state tomography plays a fundamental role in characterizing and evaluating the quality of quantum states produced by quantum devices. It serves as a crucial element in the advancement of quantum hardware and software, regardless of the underlying physical implementation and potential applications1,2,3. However, reconstructing the full quantum state becomes prohibitively expensive for large-scale quantum systems that exhibit potential quantum advantages4,5, as the number of measurements required increases exponentially with system size.

Recent protocols try to solve this challenge through two main steps: efficient parameterization of quantum states and utilization of carefully designed measurement schemes and classical data postprocessing algorithms. For one-dimensional (1D) systems with area law entanglement, the matrix product state (MPS)6,7,8,9,10,11,12 provides a compressed representation. It requires only a polynomial number of parameters that can be determined from local or global measurement results. Two iterative algorithms using local measurements, singular value thresholding (SVT)13 and maximum likelihood (ML)14, have been demonstrated in trapped-ion quantum simulators with up to 14 qubits15. However, SVT is limited to pure states and thus impractical for noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) systems. Meanwhile, although ML can handle mixed states represented as matrix product operators (MPOs)16,17, it suffers from inefficient classical data postprocessing.

Oct 8, 2024

US physicists prioritize closer study of the Higgs

Posted by in category: particle physics

In the meantime, physicists in the US will continue developing plans for both proposed colliders.

“The purpose of particle physics is to understand what makes up the universe and how it works,” Zwaska says. “With the discovery of the Higgs boson, we have this new fundamental constituent of the universe, and now we need the tools to understand how it works.”

Oct 8, 2024

Once in lifetime chance to see comet only visible from Earth every 80,000 years

Posted by in category: space

A rare comet could be visible to the naked eye in the sky for several nights as it orbits around the sun before disappearing for another 80,000 years.

Oct 8, 2024

The far side of our galaxy has been observed for the first time

Posted by in category: space

TL;DR

Using a precise parallax method, scientists measured the distance to a star-forming region 66,000 light-years away on the far side of the Milky Way. This discovery, using the Very Long Baseline Array, confirmed the existence of the Scutum-Centaurus Arm and uncovered its undulating shape. The interstellar dust obstructing visible light made this feat more challenging, but tracking molecules like methanol and water helped scientists achieve this. This is part of a larger effort to map the entire Milky Way, with about a quarter still unexplored, offering more insights into the galaxy’s true structure.

Oct 8, 2024

Using DNA to make nanoelectronics

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, engineering, nanotechnology

To realize the full potential of DNA nanotechnology in nanoelectronics applications requires addressing a number of scientific and engineering challenges: how to create and manipulate DNA nanostructures? How to use them for surface patterning and integrating heterogeneous materials at the nanoscale? And how to use these processes to produce electronic devices at lower cost and with better performance? These topics are the focus of a recent reviewarticle.

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