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Chess960’s random setups still favor white, new study reveals

Chess is a relatively simple game to learn but a very difficult one to master. Because the starting positions of the pieces are fixed, top players have relied on memorizing the “best” opening moves, which can sometimes result in boring, predictable games. To encourage more creative play and move away from pure memory, former world champion Bobby Fischer proposed Chess960 in the 1990s.

This variant of the game is so called because there are exactly 960 starting positions. It randomizes where the pieces at the back of the board (such as the knights, bishops and the queen) are placed at the start while keeping the rest of the rules the same. Although it was thought that this would make starting the game equally fair and complex for both players, new research suggests otherwise.

Sudden breakups of monogamous quantum couples surprise researchers

Quantum particles have a social life, of a sort. They interact and form relationships with each other, and one of the most important features of a quantum particle is whether it is an introvert—a fermion—or an extrovert—a boson.

Extroverted bosons are happy to crowd into a shared quantum state, producing dramatic phenomena like superconductivity and superfluidity. In contrast, introverted fermions will not share their quantum state under any condition—enabling all the structures of solid matter to form.

But the social lives of quantum particles go beyond whether they are fermions or bosons. Particles interact in complex ways to produce everything we know, and interactions between quantum particles are key to understanding why materials have their particular properties. For instance, electrons are sometimes tightly locked into a relationship with a specific atom in a material, making it an insulator. Other times, electrons are independent and roam freely—the hallmark of a conductor.

Peering inside perovskite: 3D imaging reveals how passivation boosts solar cell efficiency

Perovskite solar cells have garnered widespread attention as a low-cost, high-efficiency alternative to conventional silicon photovoltaics. However, defects in perovskite films impede charge transport, resulting in energy loss and compromised operational stability.

One solution to this problem is “passivation treatment”—a process that adds chemicals such as simple salts or organic molecules to the film. These small molecules or ions latch onto defects in the perovskite material, preventing the defects from interfering with electrical flow. Unfortunately, verifying the internal efficacy of various passivation treatments remains challenging since most characterization techniques only probe the surface or provide averaged macroscopic information.

Now, however, researchers at the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have made an important breakthrough by developing a three-dimensional (3D) electrical imaging technique that directly reveals how defect passivation treatments work in perovskite films. The study was published in Newton on December 31.

On-demand hydrogen fuel production goes dark-mode

Hydrogen, the lightest element on the periodic table, is a master of escaping almost any container it’s stored in. Its extremely small size allows it to squeeze through atomic-scale gaps in the storage materials, which is one of the major issues hindering hydrogen energy from becoming mainstream.

A team of Chinese researchers has solved the issue of containment with on-demand hydrogen production. They developed a simple chemical system containing commercial ammonium metatungstate (W12) and graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) in a liquid suspension. This system captures solar energy and, rather than converting it into electricity, uses it to produce hydrogen fuel on demand—even in darkness.

The new system provided twofold benefits: it made solar energy available even when the sun isn’t shining, and it eliminated the need to transport hydrogen in dangerous, high-pressure tanks.

Creating cells that help the brain keep its cool

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have created a method that makes it possible to transform the brain’s support cells into parvalbumin-positive cells. These cells act as the brain’s rapid-braking system and are significantly involved in schizophrenia, epilepsy and other neurological conditions.

Parvalbumin cells play a central role in keeping brain activity in equilibrium. They control nerve cell signaling, reduce overactivity and make sure that the brain is working to a rhythm. Researchers sometimes describe them as the cells that “make the brain sound right.”

When these cells malfunction or decrease in number, the balance of the brain is disrupted. Previous studies suggest that damaged parvalbumin cells may contribute to disorders such as schizophrenia and epilepsy.

Quantum spins team up to create stable, long-lived microwave signals

When quantum particles work together, they can produce signals far stronger than any one particle could generate alone. This collective phenomenon, called superradiance, is a powerful example of cooperation at the quantum level. Until now, superradiance was mostly known for making quantum systems lose their energy too quickly, posing challenges for quantum technologies.

But a new study published in Nature Physics turns this idea on its head—revealing that collective superradiant effects can instead produce self-sustained, long-lived microwave signals with exciting potential for future quantum devices.

“What’s remarkable is that the seemingly messy interactions between spins actually fuel the emission,” explains Dr. Wenzel Kersten, first author of the study. “The system organizes itself, producing an extremely coherent microwave signal from the very disorder that usually destroys it.”

Study unveils the dual nature of a young stellar object

Astronomers from the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES) in India and elsewhere have conducted a long-term photometric and spectroscopic study of a young stellar object known as V1180 Cassiopeiae. Results of the study, published December 23 on the arXiv preprint server, unveil the dual nature of this object.

Young stellar objects (YSOs) are stars in the early stages of evolution; in particular, protostars and pre-main sequence (PMS) stars. They are usually observed embedded in dense molecular clumps, environments containing plenty of molecular gas and interstellar dust.

Given that episodic accretion processes occur in YSOs, these objects may experience accretion-driven outbursts. Astronomers usually divide such events into EX Lup (also known as EXors) and FU Ori outbursts (or FUors). EXors are a few magnitudes in amplitude, and last from a few months to one or two years. FUors are more extreme and rare as they can be up to 5–6 magnitudes in amplitude and last from decades to even centuries.

A 30-Year Physics Mystery Takes a Sharp Turn: This Bizarre Particle Doesn’t Actually Exist

New results from the MicroBooNE experiment rule out the existence of a sterile neutrino, reshaping how scientists think about long-standing neutrino anomalies. After many years of investigation, researchers working on the Micro Booster Neutrino Experiment (MicroBooNE) have concluded that a propos

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