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Astronomers are unraveling the mystery behind Ansky, a black hole system emitting powerful, repeating X-ray bursts called QPEs. These outbursts may result from a small object colliding with a gas disk, sending debris flying at near-light speeds. New Glimpse Into Mysterious X-Ray Outbursts For t

Astronomers using NASA’s IXPE satellite have finally cracked a cosmic mystery—how X-rays are produced in the energetic jets of supermassive black holes like the blazar BL Lacertae. The blazar BL Lacertae—a type of active galaxy powered by a supermassive black hole with bright, fast-moving jets ai

A global study estimates that exposure to the plastic additive DEHP caused over 356,000 heart disease deaths in 2018, with most deaths occurring in rapidly industrializing regions. A new analysis of global population data suggests that daily exposure to certain chemicals used in plastic household

Free-range atoms, roaming around without restrictions, have been captured on camera for the first time – enabling physicists to take a closer look at long predicted quantum phenomena.

It’s a bit like snapping a shot of a rare bird in your back garden, after a long time of only ever hearing reports of them in the area, and seeing the food in your bird feeder diminish each day. Instead of birdwatching, though, we’re talking about quantum physics.

The US researchers behind the breakthrough carefully constructed an “atom-resolved microscopy” camera system that first puts atoms in a contained cloud, where they roam freely. Then, laser light freezes the atoms in position to record them.

By Chuck Brooks.

Source: Forbes


Robotics is now revolutionizing numerous industry sectors through the integration of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and reinforcement learning, as well as advances in computer vision that empower robots to make complicated judgments.

Industrial automation in factories and warehouses has been the main emphasis of robotics for many years because of its efficiency and affordability. These settings are usually regulated, organized, and predictable. Consequently, industries like manufacturing, agriculture, warehouse operations, healthcare, and security have utilized robotics to automate mundane programmable tasks.

Robotics in those and many other industries are becoming more refined and capable with the contributions of new material sciences, and artificial intelligence tools. It now appears that with those advances, we are at the precipice of building functional, dexterous, and autonomous humanoid robots that were once the topic of futurist writing.

Researchers from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and Harvard University have experimentally demonstrated that new artificial materials known as metamaterials, with magnetic properties, can have their mechanical and structural behavior reprogrammed without altering their composition. This breakthrough could drive innovations in fields such as soft robotics and biomedicine.

The study explains how flexible magnets embedded within the structure of mechanical metamaterials can be used to reprogram their behavior.


The integration of flexible magnets in metamaterials allows for reprogrammable structures, offering vast potential in robotics and biomedical engineering.

Until now, only expensive and slow electron microscopes could reach this level of detail. But LICONN opens the door for more labs around the world to explore the brain’s cellular “wiring diagram” using tools they already have. It’s like giving everyone a high-powered zoom lens for decoding how the brain works, learns, and perhaps breaks down in disease.


In collaboration with the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), we published in Nature the first-ever method for using light microscopy to comprehensively map all the neurons and their connections in a block of brain tissue. The key finding from this validation experiment is that this approach works as well as electron microscopy-based connectomics.

Our brain is a complex organ. Billions of nerve cells are wired in an intricate network, constantly processing signals, enabling us to recall memories or to move our bodies.

Making sense of this complicated network requires a precise look into how these are arranged and connected. “LICONN,” a new microscopy method developed by scientists at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and Google Research, now helps piece together this puzzle.

Light microscopes have been evolving for centuries. Scientists use light microscopy to—literally and figuratively—illuminate the most intricate biological structures. However, unraveling the complex details and architecture of the brain remains a seemingly impossible challenge, considering its billions of densely packed neurons, each linked to other cells via thousands of synapses.