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Liquid-crystal-like magnetism explains puzzling properties in a rare-earth compound

In some materials, physical properties don’t emerge from their individual particles, but from the collective behavior of their quantum spins. Now, researchers led by Pengcheng Dai at Rice University in the U.S. have discovered that in one compound containing the rare-earth element ytterbium, these spins can behave much like the molecules in a liquid crystal: favoring a certain direction without lining up to create magnetism on larger scales.

Their research has been published in Physical Review X.

Harmless amoeba’s tight-space crawling offers clues to how its deadly relative invades the brain

Tiny, shapeless invaders can find their way from ponds to the human brain and cause an infection so severe that it has a 95% fatality rate. The amoeba Naegleria fowleri naturally lives in ponds, feasting on bacteria, but once it enters the human body, it makes a run for the brain tissue, traversing complex, tight spaces to reach its destination.

A recent study set out to crack the secret of how a tiny amoeba steers itself through unfamiliar terrain without any guide.

Researchers built a microscopic obstacle course for the amoebas and filmed their every move, tracking how they squeeze through tight spaces and tackle different environments. They identified a few core mechanisms behind their navigational success. First, a love for tight spaces.

Tracking down cellular gene functions with AI and microscopy

A new technology promises to enable more comprehensive investigations into how individual genes determine the appearance and behavior of cells. Researchers led by professor Veit Hornung at LMU’s Gene Center and professor Matthias Mann at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, together with professor Fabian Theis at Helmholtz Munich, have developed SPARCS, a technology that combines artificial intelligence with microscopy and genetic screening.

It enables researchers to screen millions of genetically modified cells for complex visual features and then selectively isolate individual cells of interest. Using SPARCS, cellular effects can thus be linked to the genetic changes that cause them. The findings have now been published in the journal Cell.

Electronic stripes linked to unusual vortex states in a superconductor

Superconductors, materials that can carry electric current with an electrical resistance of zero, have proved to be promising for the development of various technologies, including medical devices, particle accelerators and quantum computers. Studying these materials could help researchers uncover new physical states that could be useful for specific applications.

Magnetic fields can enter some superconductors, known as type-II superconductors, via regions called vortices. Each of these vortices carries a fixed amount of magnetic flux (i.e., a measure of the magnetic field passing through an area), with electrical currents circulating around its center.

Researchers at Tsinghua University, Southern University of Science and Technology, Boston College and other institutions investigated electronic states trapped near magnetic vortex centers in an iron-based superconductor.

Layered semiconductor unlocks magnetic control of light emitted by quantum condensates

Quantum technologies are considered key technologies of the future. However, research in this field requires not only scientific expertise but sometimes also highly specialized laboratory conditions. Bose–Einstein condensates are a remarkable example, in which atoms move in lockstep, making quantum-mechanical effects visible not only at the level of individual atoms but also on a macroscopic scale. The first Bose–Einstein condensates were observed in ultracold atomic gases at temperatures close to absolute zero. The cooling required to achieve this was technically demanding, costly and restricted to specialized laboratories.

Today, quantum research is increasingly focusing on Bose–Einstein condensates in solid-state materials, which can also exist at moderate temperatures. Typically, electron-hole pairs in a semiconductor, known as excitons, are used for this purpose and can be selectively generated using laser pulses.

Excitons, however, are too sluggish, so to speak, to move in lockstep and are therefore coupled to the light field of an optical resonator to reduce their effective mass. The result is a hybrid state of matter and light known as exciton–polaritons. They offer the best of both worlds: They can be controlled using laser pulses and, because they are significantly lighter, can more easily be brought into a collective quantum-mechanical state.

PhoneBot gives old smartphones a new job on two legs

Smartphones combine cameras, motion sensors and powerful processors in devices that fit inside a pocket. These features could also make them useful components for robots, reducing the need to buy and connect separate sensors, processors or other electronics.

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, recently developed PhoneBot, a small humanoid robot that relies on an Android smartphone to sense its surroundings and control its movements. Their proposed system, introduced in a preprint posted to arXiv, could make robotics experiments more accessible for students and researchers worldwide.

Your favorite music could help reduce the pain of small medical procedures

If you hate needles, music might make you feel better during a cannula insertion—but it has to be the right kind of music. Although different musical interventions have repeatedly been reported to help with pain and stress, the evidence varies widely for different types of music, and it’s hard to figure out what works best. To investigate, scientists played different kinds of music for patients about to undergo an intravenous cannula insertion before an MRI—either Mozart, relaxation music or the patients’ own favorite tunes. They found that playing patients’ favorite music worked best.

“Although a needle puncture is a minor procedure, the level of pain can vary significantly from person to person,” said Dr. Andrei Cristinel Dragnea of University Hospital Zürich, lead author of the article in Frontiers in Pain Research. “In modern medicine, the goal of treating physicians is not only to provide a successful diagnosis and therapy, but also to ensure that the procedure causes as little discomfort as possible.”

“I would recommend listening to music to patients, especially patients who like music in general,” said Dr. Meritxell Garcia Alzamora of University Hospital Zürich, senior author of the article. “In view of our results, we will increase the application of music in venous punctures performed for radiological procedures, especially in anxious or claustrophobic patients.”

What pig hearts and a little noise can teach us about designing better soft valves

Some of the best engineers and inventors are copycats. They look at how the natural world solves complex problems and use those mechanisms as the basis for innovations. But Mother Nature doesn’t always give up her secrets easily.

One of those secrets is how heart valves and other biological valves work. They keep fluids moving in one direction while preventing backflow, all without needing any active motors or powered controls to drive them. To find out how, Mengfei He of Harvard University and colleagues studied pig mitral valves.

They wanted to set up a system to see how the valve leaflets, the thin flaps of tissue that act as doors, react when fluid pushes back against them.

Nonchaotic model reveals how predictability can emerge from seemingly unpredictable dynamics

Predicting a system’s final outcome from its initial state is the ultimate goal for many physicists. In certain complex systems, however, this goal is thwarted by chaos, where even the subtlest tweaks to the initial state can lead to completely different fates, making the system almost impossible to predict.

In research published in Nature Communications, Illinois physicists developed a model showing that unpredictability can also arise in nonchaotic systems. Despite being fully deterministic, the team’s model resists computational attempts to predict its final state based on its initial configuration.

Remarkably, however, the scientists found that the model’s dynamics give rise to topological structure that can eventually be used as a reliable predictor of final fate, demonstrating that predictability itself can emerge over time.

How information is written in ferroelectric memory at the nanoscale

What happens at the nanoscale when information is written to memory? Researchers at KAIST have shown how tiny regions with a new polarization direction form while previously formed regions continue to expand in a promising ferroelectric material. By linking these nanoscale changes to electrical measurements, the team developed a model that captures both processes, offering a basis for designing faster and more stable memory.

A team led by Professor Seungbum Hong from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering has identified how information is recorded in hafnium zirconium oxide (HZO), a promising material for next-generation memory.

The study, published in the journal Nano Letters, was conducted in collaboration with Professor Byung Jin Cho’s team at KAIST’s School of Electrical Engineering and researchers at NaMLab/TU Dresden in Germany.

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