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UNSW engineers have developed and built a special maser system that boosts microwave signals—such as those from deep space—but does not need to be super-cooled.

They say that diamonds are a girl’s best friend—but that might also soon be true for astronomers and astrophysicists following the new research. The team of quantum experts have developed a device known as a maser which uses a specially created purple diamond to amplify weak microwave signals, such as those which can come from deep space.

Most importantly, their maser works at room temperature, whereas previous such devices needed to be super-cooled, at great expense, down to about minus 269°C.

Queen Mary University of London physicist Professor Chris White, along with his twin brother Professor Martin White from the University of Adelaide, have discovered a surprising connection between the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the future of quantum computing.

For decades, scientists have been striving to build quantum computers that leverage the bizarre laws of quantum mechanics to achieve far greater processing power than traditional computers. A recently identified property—amusingly called “magic”—is critical for building these machines, but its generation and enhancement remain a mystery.

For any given quantum system, magic is a measure that tells us how hard it is to calculate on a non-quantum computer. The higher the magic, the more we need quantum computers to describe the behavior. Studying the magic properties of quantum systems generates profound insights into the development and use of quantum computers.

When two probes orbiting the sun aligned with one another, researchers harnessed the opportunity to track the sun’s magnetic field as it traveled into the solar system. They found that the sharply oscillating magnetic field smooths out to gentle waves while accelerating the surrounding solar wind, according to a University of Michigan-led study published in The Astrophysical Journal.

The sharp S-shaped bends of the magnetic fields streaming out of the sun, called magnetic switchbacks, have long been of interest to solar scientists. Switchbacks impact the solar wind —the charged particles, or plasma, that stream from the sun and influence space weather in ways that can disrupt Earth’s electrical grids, radio waves, radar and satellites.

The new understanding of magnetic switchback changes over time will help improve solar wind forecasts to better predict space weather and its potential impacts on Earth.

The magnetic moment of the muon is an important precision parameter for putting the Standard Model of particle physics to the test. After years of work, the research group led by Professor Hartmut Wittig of the PRISMA+ Cluster of Excellence at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has calculated this quantity using the so-called lattice quantum chromodynamics method (lattice QCD method).

Their result agrees with the latest experimental measurements, in contrast to earlier theoretical calculations.

After the experimental measurements had been pushed to ever higher precision in recent years, attention had increasingly turned to the theoretical prediction and the central question of whether it deviates significantly from the experimental results and thus provides evidence for the existence of new physics beyond the Standard Model.

Different types of cancer have distinct molecular “fingerprints” that can be identified in the early stages of the disease with remarkable accuracy. Small, portable scanners can detect these fingerprints within just a few hours, according to a study published today in Molecular Cell.

Researchers at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona made this breakthrough, paving the way for non-invasive diagnostic tests that could identify various types of cancer more quickly and at earlier stages than current methods allow.

The study centers around the ribosome, the protein factories of a cell. For decades, ribosomes were thought to have the same blueprint across the human body. However, researchers discovered a hidden layer of complexity – tiny chemical modifications which vary between different tissues, developmental stages, and diseases.

Altermagnetism, a newly imaged class of magnetism, offers potential for the development of faster and more efficient magnetic memory devices, increasing operation speeds by up to a thousand times.

Researchers from the University of Nottingham have demonstrated that this third class of magnetism, combining properties of ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism, could revolutionize computer memory and reduce environmental impact by decreasing reliance on rare elements.

Altermagnetism’s Unique Properties

Apptronik will combine its iterative design experience and Apollo humanoid in testing with Google DeepMind’s AI platforms.

Sharks differ from one another, so there are no other examples within the kingdom. Only this shark. All the same, researchers intend to analyze the Greenland shark’s DNA further and compare it to other sharks and fish to continue to unravel this mystery.

Scientists are exploring ways to prolong human life.

Continue reading “Greenland Shark’s 400-year life tied to unique DNA repair mechanisms” »

A new computer model can be used to detect and measure interior oceans on the ice covered moons of Uranus. The model works by analyzing orbital wobbles that would be visible from a passing spacecraft. The research gives engineers and scientists a slide-rule to help them design NASA’s upcoming Uranus Orbiter and Probe mission.

When NASA’s Voyager 2 flew by Uranus in 1986, it captured grainy photographs of large ice-covered moons. Now nearly 40 years later, NASA plans to send another spacecraft to Uranus, this time equipped to see if those icy moons are hiding liquid water oceans.

The mission is still in an early planning stage. But researchers at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) are preparing for it by building a new computer model that could be used to detect oceans beneath the ice using just the spacecraft’s cameras.