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One day our civilization may settle our whole galaxy, with mighty star empires consisting of millions if not billions of worlds, but what would the centers of such empires be like?

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Credits:
Cosmic Capitals.
Episode 447; May 16, 2024
Written, Produced \& Narrated by:
Isaac Arthur.

Editors:

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*BREAKTHROUGH!!*

Scientists may one day be able to freeze brains and bring them back to life following a major breakthrough in cryogenics.

Researchers in China have successfully frozen and thawed human brain tissue, after which it regained normal function.

They hope the new technique will…

Continue reading “Frozen brain tissue brought back to life in major breakthrough” | >

A new concept called quantum spherical codes could make the notoriously fragile information in a photon-based quantum computer less susceptible to errors.

Many recent experiments have stored quantum information in bosonic modes, such as photons in resonators or optical fibres. Now an adaptation of the classical spherical codes provides a framework for designing quantum error correcting codes for these platforms.

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Researchers at Linköping University in Sweden have developed a battery constructed from zinc and lignin that can be recharged over 8,000 times. This innovation aims to offer an affordable and eco-friendly battery alternative, especially for regions with limited electricity access. The findings are detailed in the journal Energy & Environmental Materials.

“Solar panels have become relatively inexpensive, and many people in low-income countries have adopted them. However, near the equator, the sun sets at around 6 PM, leaving households and businesses without electricity. The hope is that this battery technology, even with lower performance than the expensive Li-ion batteries, will eventually offer a solution for these situations,” says Reverant Crispin, professor of organic electronics at Linköping University.

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Fruit fly study reveals brain-cell circuitry that could underlie how creatures large and small see wavelengths of light as information-rich hues.

Perceiving something – anything – in your environment means becoming aware of what your senses are detecting. Today, for the first time, Columbia University neuroscientists identify brain-cell circuitry in fruit flies that converts raw sensory signals into color perceptions that can guide behavior.

Their findings are published today (May 16) in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

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UCLA Health researchers have identified a process that memories while reducing metabolic costs, even during sleep. This efficient memory is found in a brain region essential for learning and memory, which is also where Alzheimer’s disease originates.

The discovery is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Does this sound familiar: You go to the kitchen to fetch something, but when you get there, you forget what you wanted. This is your working memory failing. Working memory is defined as remembering some information for a short period while you go about doing other things. We use working memory virtually all the time. Alzheimer’s and dementia patients have working memory deficits and it also shows up in mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Hence, considerable effort has been devoted to understanding the mechanisms by which the vast networks of neurons in the brain create working memory.

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Solid-state batteries store and release electric charge by moving ions back and forth between two electrodes. From our typical perspective, the ions flow through the battery’s solid electrolyte like a gentle stream.

But when seen on an atomic scale, that smooth flow is an illusion: Individual ions hop erratically from one open space to another within the electrolyte’s roomy atomic lattice, nudged in the direction of an electrode by a steady voltage. Those hops are hard to predict and a challenge to trigger and detect.

Now, in the first study of its kind, researchers gave the hopping ions a jolt of voltage by hitting them with a pulse of laser light. To their surprise, most of the ions briefly reversed direction and returned to their previous positions before resuming their usual, more random travels. It was the first indication that the ions remembered, in a sense, where they had just been.

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New research identifies ONe novae as key sources of phosphorus, essential for life, with peak production aligning with the early Solar System.

Astronomers have proposed a new theory to explain the origin of phosphorus, one of the elements important for life on Earth. The theory suggests a type of stellar explosion known as ONe novae as a major source of phosphorus.

After the Big Bang, almost all of the matter in the Universe was comprised of hydrogen. Other elements were formed later, by nuclear reactions inside stars or when stars exploded in events known as novae or supernovae. But there are a variety of stars and a variety of ways they can explode. Astronomers are still trying to figure out which processes were important in creating the abundances of elements we see in the Universe.

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Using NASA ’s MMS mission data, SwRI explores unusual substorm events in Earth’s magnetotail to better understand magnetic reconnection and its effects on the global magnetosphere.

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is investigating an unusual event in the Earth’s magnetotail, the elongated extension of the planet’s magnetosphere trailing away from the Sun. SwRI scientists are examining the nature of substorms, fleeting disturbances in the magnetotail that release energy and often cause aurorae, using data from NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission.

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