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The collective motion of bacteria—from stable swirling patterns to chaotic turbulent flows—has intrigued scientists for decades. When a bacterial swarm is confined in small circular space, stable rotating vortices are formed. However, as the radius of this confined space increases, the organized swirling pattern breaks down into a turbulent state.

This transition from ordered to chaotic flow has remained a long-standing mystery. It represents a fundamental question not only in the study of bacterial behavior but also in classical fluid dynamics, where understanding the emergence of turbulence is crucial for both controlling and utilizing complex flows.

In a recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on March 14, 2025, a research team led by Associate Professor Daiki Nishiguchi from the Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan, has revealed in detail how bacterial swarms transition from organized movement to chaotic flow. Combining large-scale experiments, computer modeling, and , the team observed and explained previously unknown intermediate states that emerge between order and turbulence.

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In a comprehensive experimental study, an international team of researchers has confirmed the calculations of a leading turbulence simulation code to an unprecedented degree. This marks a major breakthrough in understanding turbulent transport processes in nuclear fusion devices.

The study has now been published in the journal Nature Communications and lays a crucial foundation for predicting the performance of fusion power plants.

Future fusion power plants aim to generate efficiently by fusing light atomic nuclei. The most advanced approach—magnetic confinement fusion—confines a , a gas heated to millions of degrees Celsius, within a magnetic field. This plasma is suspended without wall contact inside a donut-shaped vacuum chamber.

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Researchers have uncovered a surprising phenomenon in the material BiNiO3: when subjected to high pressure at low temperatures, its well-arranged electrical charges are disrupted, leading to a disordered “charge glass” state.

The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

This discovery offers new insights into how materials respond to , potentially paving the way for new advanced materials with unique and useful properties.

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New theoretical physics research introduces a simulation method of machine-learning-based effective Hamiltonian for super-large-scale atomic structures. This effective Hamiltonian method could simulate much larger structures than the methods based on quantum mechanisms and classical mechanics.

The findings are published in npj Computational Materials under the title, “Active learning of effective Hamiltonian for super-large-scale .” The paper was authored by an international team of physicists, including the University of Arkansas, Nanjing University, and the University of Luxembourg.

In ferroelectrics and dielectrics, there is one kind of structure—mesoscopic structure, which usually has atoms more than millions.

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The heliosphere, a cosmic bubble formed by the Sun, protects our solar system from interstellar threats and influences life’s evolution. Despite its vital role, its true shape remains a puzzle, with data from Voyager missions hinting at its complexities. Upcoming interstellar probes aim to uncover more about this mysterious region.

The Sun does more than just warm the Earth, making it habitable for people and animals. It also shapes a vast region of space. This region, known as the heliosphere, extends more than a hundred times the distance between the Sun and Earth, influencing everything within it.

As a star, the Sun constantly emits a flow of charged particles called the solar wind, a stream of energized plasma.

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A Swarm of Dwarf Galaxies Buzz Around Our Milky WayThe Milky Way is the galaxy that contains our Solar System and is part of the Local Group of galaxies. It is a barred spiral galaxy that contains an estimated 100–400 billion stars and has a diameter between 150,000 and 200,000 light-years. The name “Milky Way” comes from the appearance of the galaxy from Earth as a faint band of light that stretches across the night sky, resembling spilled milk. tabindex=0 Milky Way’s Twin.

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A research team led by Prof. Zhengtian Lu and Researcher Tian Xia from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) has successfully created a quantum state with a lifetime on the scale of minutes using optically trapped cold atoms. This breakthrough significantly improves the sensitivity of quantum metrology measurements. Their findings were published in Nature Photonics

<em> Nature Photonics </em> is a prestigious, peer-reviewed scientific journal that is published by the Nature Publishing Group. Launched in January 2007, the journal focuses on the field of photonics, which includes research into the science and technology of light generation, manipulation, and detection. Its content ranges from fundamental research to applied science, covering topics such as lasers, optical devices, photonics materials, and photonics for energy. In addition to research papers, <em> Nature Photonics </em> also publishes reviews, news, and commentary on significant developments in the photonics field. It is a highly respected publication and is widely read by researchers, academics, and professionals in the photonics and related fields.

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