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Physicists observed a strange new type of behaviour in a magnetic material when it’s heated up. The magnetic spins ‘freeze’ into a static pattern when the temperature rises, a phenomenon that normally occurs when the temperature decreases. They publish their findings in Nature Physics on July 4th.

The researchers discovered the phenomenon in the material neodymium, an element that they described several years ago as a ‘self-induced spin glass’. Spin glasses are typically alloys where iron atoms for example are randomly mixed into a grid of copper atoms. Each iron atom behaves like a small magnet, or a spin. These randomly placed spins point in all kinds of directions.

Unlike conventional spin glasses, where there is random mixing of magnetic materials, neodymium is an element and without significant amounts of any other material, shows glassy behavior in its crystalline form. The spins form patterns that whirl like a helix, and this whirling is random and constantly changes.

The future is now!

Technology continues to move forward at incredible speeds and it seems like every week we learn about a new breakthrough that changes our minds about what is possible.

Researchers in Toronto used a photonic quantum computer chip to solve a sampling problem that went way beyond the fastest computers and algorithms.

Continue reading “Quantum Processor Completes 9,000 Years of Work in 36 Microseconds” »

A bumpy ride through expanding gas is powering up fast-moving particles in the Manatee Nebula.

Kiona Smith

1 hour ago.

A molecule based on the venom of a funnel-web spider could keep cells from dying after a heart attack, having been previously shown to have similar potential after strokes.

A galaxy just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang is rotating way more slowly than our own Milky Way.

A successful trial that tested a vaccine against bladder cancer in dogs could help develop a similar one for humans.

In a trio of studies published on June 27 in the journal Nature Microbiology 0, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered “fingerprints” of mysterious viruses hidden in an ancient group of microbes that may include the ancestors of all complex life on Earth: from fungi to plants to humans.

Ths discovery is significant; it explores the hypothesis that viruses were imperative to the evolution of humans and other complex life forms.

These microbes – known as Asgard archaea after the abode of the gods in Norse mythology – are usually found in the frigid sediments deep in the ocean and in boiling springs, and existed on Earth before the first eukaryotic cells, which carry their DNA inside a nucleus.

A decade of Higgs Boson research has passed since the god particle was first discovered on July 4th, 2012. In the last ten years, scientists have extracted large amounts of data from the Large Hadron Collider.

“The construction of the storage went well, especially considering that the solution is completely new,” said Polar Night co-founder and chief technology officer Markku Ylönen in a statement.

“We managed to get everything in order despite some challenges and a short delay.”

Continue reading “First ‘sand battery’ developed to heat homes or balance renewable energy for grid” »