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Blog – Page 23

The spectrum of cosmic-ray antiprotons has been measured for a full solar cycle, which may allow a better understanding of the sources and transport mechanisms of these high-energy particles.

The heliosphere is a region of space extending approximately 122 astronomical units (au) from the Sun (1 au being the average distance between the Sun and Earth). This volume mostly contains plasma originating from the Sun but also various charged particles with higher energies. These particles can be categorized according to their energies and origins: Lower-energy solar energetic particles, for instance, come from the Sun itself, while Jovian electrons have their origin in the magnetosphere of Jupiter. Another such population comes from outside the Solar System: galactic cosmic rays (GCRs), which mostly consist of protons and electrons and their antiparticles and span a vast range of energies from mega-electron-volts to exa-electron-volts [1]. Astonishingly, energies at the high end of this range would correspond to a single particle carrying as much kinetic energy as a well-thrown baseball.

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Humans are inching closer to living beyond Earth, but sustaining life on the moon or Mars.

Mars is the second smallest planet in our solar system and the fourth planet from the sun. It is a dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin atmosphere. Iron oxide is prevalent in Mars’ surface resulting in its reddish color and its nickname “The Red Planet.” Mars’ name comes from the Roman god of war.

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Their work proves that even in isolated quantum systems, disorder naturally grows, aligning quantum mechanics with thermodynamics.

The Paradox of Entropy in Quantum Physics

The second law of thermodynamics is one of the fundamental principles of nature. It states that in a closed system, entropy — the measure of disorder — must always increase over time. This explains why structured systems naturally break down: ice melts into water, and a shattered vase will never reassemble itself. However, quantum physics appears to challenge this rule. Mathematically, entropy in quantum systems seems to remain unchanged, raising a puzzling contradiction.

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Advancements could enhance perceptual capabilities in robotics. Artificially engineered biological processes, such as perception systems, remain a challenging target for organic electronics experts due to the dependence of human senses on an adaptive network of sensory neurons that communicate by firing in response to environmental stimuli.

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A major international study reveals that most people with cardiovascular disease.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) encompasses a range of disorders affecting the heart and blood vessels, including coronary artery disease, heart attack, stroke, and hypertension. These conditions are primarily driven by atherosclerosis, a process where plaque builds up in the arterial walls, leading to narrowed or blocked arteries. Risk factors include smoking, unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, obesity, and genetic predisposition. CVD remains a leading cause of global mortality, emphasizing the importance of lifestyle changes, medical interventions, and preventive measures in managing and reducing the risk of heart-related illnesses.

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SPHEREx is a groundbreaking NASA

NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is the United States government agency responsible for the nation’s civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research. Established in 1958 by the National Aeronautics and Space Act, NASA has led the U.S. in space exploration efforts, including the Apollo moon-landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle program.

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A research team led by Dr. Sofia Sheikh of the SETI Institute, in collaboration with the Characterizing Atmospheric Technosignatures project and the Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center, set out to answer a simple question: If an extraterrestrial civilization existed with technology similar to ours, would they be able to detect Earth and evidence of humanity? If so, what signals would they detect, and from how far away?

Researchers used a theoretical, modeling-based method, and this study is the first to analyze multiple types of technosignatures together rather than separately. The findings revealed that , such as planetary radar emissions from the former Arecibo Observatory, are Earth’s most detectable technosignatures, potentially visible from up to 12,000 light-years away.

The research is published in The Astronomical Journal.

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Most metals expand when their temperature rises. The Eiffel Tower, for example, is about 10 to 15 centimeters taller in summer than in winter due to its thermal expansion. However, this effect is extremely undesirable for many technical applications.

For this reason, scientists have long been searching for materials that always have the same length regardless of the temperature. Invar, for example, an alloy of iron and nickel, is known for its extremely low . How this property can be explained physically, however, was not entirely clear until now.

Now, a collaboration between theoretical researchers at TU Wien (Vienna) and experimentalists at University of Science and Technology Beijing has led to a decisive breakthrough.

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Superconductors can carry electricity without losing energy, a superpower that makes them invaluable for a range of sought-after applications, from maglev trains to quantum computers. Generally, this comes at the price of having to keep them extremely cold, an opportunity cost that has frequently hindered widespread use.

Understanding of how work has also progressed, but there still remains a great deal about them that is unknown. For example, among many materials known to have , some do not behave according to conventional theory.

One such puzzling material is strontium ruthenate or Sr2RuO4, which has challenged scientists since it was discovered to be a superconductor in 1994. Initially, researchers thought this material had a special type of called a “spin-triplet” state, which is notable for its spin supercurrent. But even after considerable investigation, a full understanding of its behavior has remained a mystery.

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In order to find rare processes from collider data, scientists use computer algorithms to determine the type and properties of particles based on the faint signals that they leave in the detector. One such particle is the tau lepton, which is produced, for example, in the decay of the Higgs boson.

The leaves a spray or jet of low-energy , the subtle pattern of which in the jet allows one to distinguish them from jets produced by other particles. The jet also contains about the energy of the tau lepton, which is distributed among the daughter particles, and on the way is decayed. Currently, the best algorithms use multiple steps of combinatorics and computer vision.

ChatGPT has shown much stronger performance in rejecting backgrounds than computer-vision based methods. In this paper, researchers showed that such language-based models can find the tau leptons from the jet patterns, and also determine the energy and decay properties more accurately than before.

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