Lifeboat Foundation

In June 2021, NASA’s Juno spacecraft flew close to Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon, observing evidence of magnetic reconnection. A team led by Southwest Research Institute used Juno data to examine the electron and ion particles and magnetic fields as the magnetic field lines of Jupiter and Ganymede merged, snapped and reoriented, heating and accelerating the charged particles in the region.

“Ganymede is the only moon in our solar system with its own magnetic field,” said Juno Principal Investigator Dr. Scott Bolton of SwRI. “The snapping and reconnecting of Ganymede’s magnetic field lines with Jupiter’s creates the magnetospheric fireworks.”

Magnetic reconnection is an explosive physical process that converts stored magnetic energy into kinetic energy and heat. Ganymede’s mini-magnetosphere interacts with Jupiter’s massive magnetosphere, in the magnetopause, the boundary between the two regions.

One of the biggest achievements of quantum physics was recasting our vision of the atom. Out was the early 1900s model of a solar system in miniature, in which electrons looped around a solid nucleus. Instead, quantum physics showed that electrons live a far more interesting life, meandering around the nucleus in clouds that look like tiny balloons. These balloons are known as atomic orbitals, and they come in all sorts of different shapes—perfectly round, two-lobed, clover-leaf-shaped. The number of lobes in the balloon signifies how much the electron spins about the nucleus.

That’s all well and good for individual atoms, but when atoms come together to form something solid—like a chunk of metal, say—the outermost electrons in the atoms can link arms and lose sight of the nucleus from where they came, forming many oversized balloons that span the whole chunk of metal. They stop spinning about their nuclei and flow through the metal to carry electrical currents, shedding the diversity of multi-lobed balloons.

Now, researchers at the Quantum Materials Center (QMC) at the University of Maryland (UMD), in collaboration with theorists at the Condensed Matter Theory Center (CMTC) and Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), have produced the first experimental evidence that one metal—and likely others in its class—have electrons that manage to preserve a more interesting, multi-lobed structure as they move around in a solid. The team experimentally studied the shape of these balloons and found not a uniform surface, but a complex structure. This unusual metal is not only fundamentally interesting, but it could also prove useful for building quantum computers that are resistant to noise.

Several experiments have been set up outside nuclear reactors to record escaping antineutrinos. The data generally agrees with theory, but at certain energies, the antineutrino flux is 6–10% above or below predictions. These so-called reactor antineutrino anomalies have excited the neutrino community, as they could be signatures of a hypothetical sterile neutrino (see Viewpoint: Getting to the Bottom of an Antineutrino Anomaly). But a new analysis by Alain Letourneau from the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA-Saclay) and colleagues has shown that the discrepancies may come from experimental biases in associated electron measurements [1].

The source of reactor antineutrinos is beta decay, which occurs in a wide variety of nuclei (more than 800 species in a typical fission reactor). To predict the antineutrino flux, researchers have typically used previously recorded data on electrons, which are also produced in the same beta decays. This traditional method takes the observed electron spectra from nuclei, such as uranium-235 and plutonium-239, and converts them into predicted antineutrino spectra. But Letourneau and colleagues have found reason to doubt the electron measurements.

The team calculated antineutrino spectra—as well as the corresponding electron spectra—using a fundamental theory of beta decay. This method works for some nuclei, but not all, so the researchers plugged the gaps using a phenomenological model. They were able to treat all 800-plus reactor beta decays, finding “bumps” in the antineutrino flux that agree with observations. Similar features are predicted for electron spectra, but they don’t show up in the data. The results suggest that an experimental bias in electron observations causes the reactor antineutrino anomalies. To confirm this hypothesis, the researchers call for new precision measurements of the fission electrons.

Transforming the spectral lines of each element into a musical tone provides a fun tool for teasing out patterns in the electronic structures of atoms.

Footage shows meteor spotted flying through the night sky from various parts of the UK.

You need not be a student of Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints to recognize artist Katsushika Hokusai’s Under the Wave Off Kanagawa – or the Great Wave, as it has come to be known.

Like Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, it’s been reproduced on all manner of improbable items and subjected to liberal reimagining – something Sarah Urist Green, describes in the above episode of her series The Art Assignment as “numerous crimes against this image perpetrated across the internet.”

Such repurposing is the ultimate compliment.

Comprehensive database of AIs available for every task.

Insightfulness might play a critical role in the ability to assess the accuracy of information, according to new research published in the journal Thinking & Reasoning. The study found that people with greater insight-based problem solving skills were less likely to fall for fake news.

With rise of the internet and social media, susceptibility to misinformation has become of increasing concern. The authors of the new research sought to better understand the cognitive mechanisms associated with believing in misinformation. They were particularly interested in the role of insight-based problem solving.

“I’m a neuroscientist and study the neural correlates of creativity and idea generation, specifically how we generate ideas accompanied by ‘Aha! moments’ i.e., insights,” said study author Carola Salvi, a professor at the John Cabot University of Rome and an associate faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin. “In this study, we investigated the relationship between insightfulness and aspects of social reasoning, such as believing in fake news, overclaiming, and bullshit.”

The eerie new capabilities of artificial intelligence are about to show up inside a courtroom — in the form of an AI chatbot lawyer that will soon argue a case in traffic court.

That’s according to Joshua Browder, the founder of a consumer-empowerment startup who conceived of the scheme.

Continue reading “My lawyer, the robot” »