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A researcher at The University of Texas at Austin has developed a mug-sized device that can clean water using only a small jolt of electricity. The device could be used to help get drinking water to people left stranded by extreme weather events.

Dr. Donglei “Emma” Fan — an associate professor in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Cockrell School of Engineering — along with her research team, was able to create the device using a specially designed “branched” electrode, now patented.

The electrode, when electrified, created a field that E. coli and other bacterial cells are attracted to, causing them to “swim” into the electrode branches. In lab experiments, the device successfully removed 99.997% of E. coli bacteria from water samples in just 20 minutes.

Quantum researchers uncover important implications for quantum technology.

In a recent publication in Nature Physics, the LSU Quantum Photonics Group offers fresh insights into the fundamental traits of surface plasmons, challenging the existing understanding. Based on experimental and theoretical investigations conducted in Associate Professor Omar Magaña-Loaiza’s laboratory, these novel findings mark a significant advancement in quantum plasmonics, possibly the most noteworthy in the past decade.

Rethinking Plasmonic Behavior

Jupiter is iconic, with its swirls of water and ammonia vapor that characterize its outer surface and its distinctive Giant Red Spot, a gigantic storm raging across its face.

But its mysteries abound — such as Jupiter’s strange and asymmetrical magnetic field, which has a strong area of magnetism in its equator called the “Great Blue Spot” — blue because that’s how it’s color-coded in maps tracing the magnetic field.

In an effort to understand the planet’s magnetic field better, a team of American scientists from Harvard University, the California Institute of Technology, NASA and the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas studied an atmospheric jet — a high speed current in the gas giant’s atmosphere — in the Great Blue Spot. Their finding? It’s a dynamic system that fluctuates every four years or so.

An exploration of Frank Herbert’s implicit and explicit warnings against the unmitigated advancement and dependence on AI (Artificial Intelligence), while also examining how these fundamental concerns, leading to AI’s prohibition, consistently resonate throughout the series. One of its less explored, but equally compelling, elements is its commentary on the rise of artificial intelligence. Dune is set in the far future taking place in an interstellar empire that is devoid of thinking machines after a universal ban against computing technology that is made in the likeness of a human mind. The reasons behind this prohibition not only serve as a caution against the perils of artificial intelligence, but they also underscore broader warnings present throughout Herbert’s Dune books.

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Intro track: honey juice by harris heller.

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