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A population of photosynthetic algae has been shown to exhibit a highly nonlinear response to light, forming dynamic structures in light-intensity gradients.

Many photosynthetic microbes move in response to light. For example, the single-celled green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii swims toward moderate light to photosynthesize and away from intense light to avoid damage. Two longstanding questions about this light response regard how light-seeking cells move in a light-intensity gradient and whether this motion depends on cell concentration. Now, Aina Ramamonjy and colleagues at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the University of Paris have answered these questions [1]. The results could improve our understanding of how groups of photosynthetic organisms arrange themselves into dynamic patterns to control the amount of light that they receive.

In 1911, the botanist Harold Wager reported a seminal study [2] that launched the field of bioconvection, a collective phenomenon that results in self-organized structures and emergent flow patterns in suspensions of swimming microbes. The overall picture is that dense collections of microbes that are heavier than surrounding water but can swim against gravity self-organize into passively descending, cell-packed plumes flanked by actively ascending, cell-sparse populations.

A new kind of NTLM relay attack dubbed DFSCoerce has been uncovered that could let attackers takeover a Windows domain.

A camera system developed by Carnegie Mellon University researchers can see sound vibrations with such precision and detail that it can reconstruct the music of a single instrument in a band or orchestra.

A camera system developed by Carnegie Mellon University researchers can see sound vibrations with such precision and detail that it can reconstruct the music of a single instrument in a band or orchestra.

Even the most high-powered and directed microphones can’t eliminate nearby sounds, ambient noise and the effect of acoustics when they capture audio. The novel system developed in the School of Computer Science’s Robotics Institute (RI) uses two cameras and a laser to sense high-speed, low-amplitude surface vibrations. These vibrations can be used to reconstruct sound, capturing isolated audio without inference or a microphone.

Continue reading “Newly developed optical microphone sees sound like never before” »

Deep Follow-up of GW151226 — an ordinary binary or a low-mass ratio merger?

Now that we’ve been detecting gravitational waves.

Continue reading “Gravitational Wave Events With Split Personalities” »

The US Transportation Command, or USTRANSCOM, are a Pentagon office tasked with transporting cargo to American global military assets, announced that it was partnering with SpaceX to examine the feasibility of quickly blasting supplies into space and back to Earth rather than flying them through the air.

SpaceX is already functionally a defense contractor and has launched American military satellites and recently bolstered Ukrainian communication links with Starlink.

Practical uses

Continue reading “Pentagon considers using SpaceX for fleet of militarized Starships” »

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Physicists have long sought to marry general relativity and quantum mechanics – now some reckon experiments that probe the way each theory treats time could finally make it happen.

Humans are unrivaled in the area of cognition. After all, no other species has sent probes to other planets, produced lifesaving vaccines, or created poetry. How information is processed in the human brain to make this possible is a question that has drawn endless fascination, yet no definitive answers.

Our understanding of brain function has changed over the years. But current theoretical models describe the brain as a “distributed information-processing system.” This means it has distinct components that are tightly networked through the brain’s wiring. To interact with each other, regions exchange information though a system of input and output signals.

However, this is only a small part of a more complex picture. In a study published last week in Nature Neuroscience, using evidence from different species and multiple neuroscientific disciplines, we show that there isn’t just one type of information processing in the brain. How information is processed also differs between humans and other primates, which may explain why our species’ cognitive abilities are so superior.

https://tinyurl.com/comahbp

TNX to hard work of Coma Science Group and collaborators from Milano and Paris within Human Brain Project!

A group of drugs commonly used to treat erectile dysfunction may be able to boost the effect of chemotherapy in esophageal cancer, according to new research funded by Cancer Research UK and the Medical Research Council.