Nov 2, 2023
Measuring the Intensity of the World’s Most Powerful Lasers
Posted by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz in category: futurism
Electrons can help infer laser intensities that are too high to measure using conventional methods.
Electrons can help infer laser intensities that are too high to measure using conventional methods.
The Large Hadron Collider’s ATLAS Collaboration observes, for the first time, the coincident production of a photon and a top quark.
In the ever-evolving landscape of particle physics, a field that explores the nature of the Universe’s fundamental building blocks, nothing generates a buzz quite like a world’s first. Such a first is exactly what CERN’s ATLAS Collaboration has now achieved with its observation of the coincident production of single top quarks and photons in proton–proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) [1] (Fig. 1). This discovery provides a unique window into the intricate nature of the so-called electroweak interaction of the top quark, the heaviest known fundamental particle.
The standard model of particle physics defines the laws governing the behavior of elementary particles. Developed 50 years ago [2, 3], the model has—to date—withstood all experimental tests of its predictions. But the model isn’t perfect. One of the model’s biggest problems is a theoretical one and relates to how the Higgs boson gives mass to other fundamental particles. The mechanism by which the Higgs provides this mass is known as electroweak symmetry breaking, and while the standard model gives a reasonable description of the mechanism, exactly how electroweak symmetry breaking comes about remains a mystery.
Researchers have engineered ultracold molecular transitions ideally suited for probing beyond-standard-model effects of symmetry violations.
High-temperature cuprate superconductors are a broad class of materials that exhibit some unique characteristics. Due to their distinctive properties, these materials exhibit the highest superconducting temperatures reported to date under ambient pressure.
Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other institutes in China recently carried out a study aimed at better understanding the processes underpinning the high superconducting critical temperatures (Tc) observed in trilayer cuprates, a class of materials with three layers based on compounds containing copper. Their paper, published in Nature Physics, unveiled the electronic origin of the high Tc exhibited by these three-layered materials.
“Our group has been trying to understand the high temperature superconductivity mechanism in cuprate superconductors for many years,” Xingjiang Zhou, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org.
An interdisciplinary international research team has recently discovered that a massive anomaly deep within the Earth’s interior may be a remnant of the collision about 4.5 billion years ago that formed the moon.
This research offers important new insights not only into Earth’s internal structure but also its long-term evolution and the formation of the inner solar system.
The study, which relied on computational fluid dynamics methods pioneered by Prof. Deng Hongping of the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was published as a featured cover in Nature on Nov. 2.
In a world filled with endless connections and constant communication, the relationship between loneliness and aloneness is not always clear. Now, University of Arizona researchers have analyzed that relationship—and found that they are two different things that are not closely correlated.
People don’t feel lonely until they spend three-quarters of their time alone, the study found. However, when their alone time goes beyond 75%, it becomes difficult for them to avoid feelings of loneliness.
Published in the Journal of Research in Personality in September, the study also concludes that among older adults, there is a particularly strong association between time spent alone and feeling lonely. The study was led by Alex Danvers, a former postdoctoral associate at UArizona, and Liliane Efinger, a former visiting graduate student.
‘3D Pin’ technique helps researchers form stable bonds between suspended nanocrystals to create robust 3D structures.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have developed a way to potentially increase the effectiveness of T cell–based immunotherapy treatments, such as CAR T-cell therapy, against solid tumors. T cells are specialized white blood cells of the immune system that eliminate infected or abnormal cells. In animal studies, the enhanced T-cell therapies were effective against cervical cancer and neuroblastoma, a common solid tumor in children. The findings, by scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of NIH, appear in Clinical Cancer Research.
CAR T-cell therapy is a form of cellular immunotherapy that involves engineering T cells in the laboratory so they can specifically target and kill tumors. CAR T-cell therapy has been successful in treating blood cancers, but it hasn’t worked well for solid tumors. To improve the effectiveness of T-cell therapy against solid tumors, researchers at NCI’s Center for Cancer Research engineered T cells (CAR T cells and another form of cellular immunotherapy called TCR T cells) to carry cytokines, which are proteins that can boost T-cell function.
In laboratory studies, CAR and TCR T cells modified to express the cytokines IL-15 and IL-21 on their surface killed far more cancer cells than T cells carrying just one of these cytokines or neither of them. Previous research has found that treating patients with large amounts of cytokines caused severe, potentially fatal, side effects. The new approach aims to deliver this cytokine boost in a much more targeted way.
🚨 Urgent: Thousands of internet-accessible ActiveMQ instances are at risk.
HelloKitty ransomware group is actively exploiting a critical Remote Code Execution (RCE) flaw, CVE-2023–46604, in Apache ActiveMQ.
Find details here ➡️.
Continue reading “HelloKitty Ransomware Group Exploiting Apache ActiveMQ Vulnerability” »
Transplant is the only option now for liver failure, but it’s not for everyone. One Mayo Clinic M.D./Ph. D. student and her mentor are researching ways to regenerate liver cells as a possible treatment for end-stage liver disease.
“Research provides us with the understanding to develop tools to make big changes in clinical problems like those facing patients with liver failure,” says Nguyen. “I want to be on the forefront of developing medical technologies that provide alternatives. I derive a lot of passion for research through thinking about the future patients I will be treating in the clinic.”
Nguyen is a fifth-year M.D.-Ph. D. student in the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine, who is also completing her Ph.D. in regenerative sciences through the Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
Continue reading “Engineering stem cells to treat liver disease” »