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The use of virtual reality haptic simulators can enhance skill acquisition and reduce stress among dental students during preclinical endodontic training, according to a new study published in the International Endodontic Journal. The study was based on collaboration between the University of Eastern Finland, the University of Health Sciences and the University of Ondokuz Mayıs in Turkey as well as Grande Rio University in Brazil.

The study aimed to evaluate the influence of virtual reality (VR) haptic simulators on skill acquisition and stress reduction in endodontic preclinical education of dental students.

During preclinical training, dental students develop manual dexterity, psychomotor skills and confidence essential in clinical practice. VR and haptic technology are increasingly used alongside conventional methods, enabling more repetition and standardised feedback, among other things.

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Neuropathic pain caused by nerve damage results in neuronal pathway changes and immune cell engagement. In this Review, Malcangio and Sideris-Lampretsas discuss how microglia respond to and modulate neuronal activity and suggest that microglia–neuron pathways offer novel approaches for the attenuation of neuropathic pain.

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TAMPA, Fla. — British in-orbit manufacturing venture Space Forge has appointed technology veteran Atul Kumar to set up a semiconductor business in the United States, aiming to bolster domestic chip production as efforts to reduce reliance on foreign suppliers gather pace.

Kumar, a materials scientist with more than two decades of experience in the sector, is tasked with developing manufacturing operations under Space Forge’s U.S. subsidiary to support the terrestrial and in-space growth of semiconductor substrates, the company announced April 10.

The move comes as the U.S. ramps up efforts to reduce its dependence on chips from abroad, driven by supply chain disruptions, national security concerns and mounting trade tensions — particularly with China.

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COLORADO SPRINGS – Military space leaders continue looking for ways to inject commercial technologies into their architectures. For strategic communications and positioning, navigation and timing, though, true commercial alternatives may not exist.

That was one takeaway from an April 8 press briefing with Space Systems Command (SSC) officials.

“We will continue to leverage more and more commercial wherever possible,” said Charlotte Gerhart, deputy director of SSC’s Military Communications and Positioning, Navigation & Timing Directorate. “That doesn’t mean everything that commercial has fits every single need.”

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COLORADO SPRINGS — The head of the U.S. Space Force sought to clear up confusion about the Trump administration’s ambitious missile defense initiative known as Golden Dome, emphasizing that it represents a complex network of systems rather than a single procurement program.

“It’s not a system. There’s not going to be a ‘Golden Dome delivered,’” Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations, said April 9 at a news conference during the Space Symposium. “It’s a system of systems that has to work together. And so there won’t be a single contract vehicle. There will be multiple programs that are brought to bear to solve that mission against the threats.”

The Golden Dome initiative, established through a White House executive order, aims to create a comprehensive shield protecting the United States against an array of missile threats, including ballistic, hypersonic and advanced cruise missiles.

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Researchers from the University of Waterloo have proposed a new method to measure the Hubble constant that could help resolve one of modern cosmology’s pressing puzzles: the Hubble tension.

The study published in Physical Review Letters aims to resolve the Hubble tension, a discrepancy between the value of the Hubble constant (H0) from the local (distance ladder) method and the (CMB) method.

Phys.org spoke to the first author of the study, Dr. Alex Krolewski, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Waterloo.

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Scientists trying to discover the elusive mass of neutrinos, tiny “ghost particles” that could solve some of the universe’s biggest mysteries, announced a new limit on Thursday for how much they could weigh, halving the previous estimate.

Since the existence of was proposed nearly a century ago, scientists around the world have struggled to learn much about them—particularly their mass.

This is important because the neutrino, as the most abundant particle in the universe, “weaves a thread that connects the infinitely small and the infinitely large,” Thierry Lasserre, a physicist at France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, told AFP.

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A team of biomaterial engineers, environmental resource specialists and industrial design researchers affiliated with a host of institutions across Japan has developed a biodegradable material that is clear and can hold boiling water—and it degrades in less than a year after settling on the ocean floor. Their work is published in the journal Science Advances.

Prior research has shown that millions of tons of plastics are piling up in the environment, including on the . Because of this, scientists have been looking for better, biodegradable replacements. In this new effort, the research team has developed a paper-based, clear, that can stand up to liquids for several hours, even those that have been heated, allowing them to replace plastic cups, straws, and other everyday objects.

The research team made the material by starting with a standard cellulose hydrogel. After drying, the material was treated with an aqueous lithium bromide solution which forced the cellulose to solidify into desired shapes. The researchers note that end-products could be as thin as plastic cup walls, or as thick as desired. They describe the material as tPB, a transparent 3D material made solely of cellulose.

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During the latter part of the 20th century, string theory was put forward as a unifying theory of physics foundations. String theory has not, however, fulfilled expectations. That is why we are of the view that the scientific community needs to reconsider what comprises elementary forces and particles.

Since the early days of general relativity, leading physicists, like Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger, have tried to unify the theory of gravitation and electromagnetism. Many attempts were made during the 20th century, including by Hermann Weyl.

Finally, it seems that we have found a unified framework to accommodate the theory of electricity and magnetism within a purely geometric theory. This means that electromagnetic and are both manifestations of ripples and curvatures in .

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Are we alone in the universe? The answer to one of humanity’s biggest questions is complicated by a basic reality: If there is life on other worlds, it may not look familiar. A sample of rocks from Mars or another planet almost certainly won’t have recognizable fossils or another similarly obvious sign of living organisms, said Mikhail Tikhonov, an assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis who studies microbial communities.

But just because we might not recognize signs of life on a distant moon or planet doesn’t mean it’s actually lifeless. “There could be life forms out there that defy our imagination,” Tikhonov said.

Searching for life that we don’t understand may seem like an impossible mission. In a paper published in Nature Communications, Tikhonov and co-author Akshit Goyal of the International Centre for Theoretical Science in Bengaluru, India, propose a new idea. Instead of looking for particular molecules or compounds associated with life as we know it, scientists can look for telltale patterns of energy.

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