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This bedtime snack swap could rewire your gut and help prevent diabetes

Eating pistachios every night for 12 weeks altered bacteria in the gut, according to new study. A new study reveals that swapping a typical nighttime carbohydrate snack for pistachios may beneficially alter gut bacteria in people with prediabetes. Conducted by Penn State researchers, the 12-week clinical trial found that pistachio consumption increased beneficial gut microbes like Roseburia and reduced harmful ones such as Blautia hydrogenotrophica. These microbiome changes could potentially support metabolic health and slow the progression to Type 2 diabetes. While more research is needed to confirm health outcomes, this study positions pistachios as a promising late-night snack with microbiome-boosting potential.

Prediabetes affects a third of people in the United States and most of them will develop Type 2 diabetes, yet effective dietary intervention strategies remain limited. Pistachios have shown promise in improving markers of diet quality, yet little is known about how they influence the gut microbiome — a key player in glucose regulation and inflammation.

A new study led by Kristina Petersen, associate professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State, determined that nighttime pistachio consumption affects gut bacteria in adults with prediabetes. Though the potential therapeutic implications of the findings remain unclear, according to Petersen, they may prove significant for people who are working to improve their metabolic health.

‘Neglected’ particles that could rescue quantum computing

One of the most promising approaches to overcoming this challenge is topological quantum computing, which aims to protect quantum information by encoding it in the geometric properties of exotic particles called anyons. These particles, predicted to exist in certain two-dimensional materials, are expected to be far more resistant to noise and interference than conventional qubits.

“Among the leading candidates for building such a computer are Ising anyons, which are already being intensely investigated in condensed matter labs due to their potential realization in exotic systems like the fractional quantum Hall state and topological superconductors,” said Aaron Lauda, professor of mathematics, physics and astronomy at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and the study’s senior author. “On their own, Ising anyons can’t perform all the operations needed for a general-purpose quantum computer. The computations they support rely on ‘braiding,’ physically moving anyons around one another to carry out quantum logic. For Ising anyons, this braiding only enables a limited set of operations known as Clifford gates, which fall short of the full power required for universal quantum computing.”

But in a new study published in Nature Communications, a team of mathematicians and physicists led by USC researchers has demonstrated a surprising workaround. By adding a single new type of anyon, which was previously discarded in traditional approaches to topological quantum computation, the team shows that Ising anyons can be made universal, capable of performing any quantum computation through braiding alone. The team dubbed these rescued particles “neglectons,” a name that reflects both their overlooked status and their newfound importance. This new anyon emerges naturally from a broader mathematical framework and provides exactly the missing ingredient needed to complete the computational toolkit.

Research examines how ripples affect nanoscopic materials

When materials are created on a nanometer scale — just a handful of atoms thick — even the thermal energy present at room temperature can cause structural ripples. How these ripples affect the mechanical properties of these thin materials can limit their use in electronics and other key systems.

New research validates theoretical models about how elasticity is scale-dependent — in other words, the elastic properties of a material are not constant, but vary with the size of the piece of material.

Assistant Professor Jian Zhou, PhD ’18, collaborated with researchers from Argonne National Laboratory, Harvard University, Princeton University and Penn State University for a recently published paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Using a semiconductor manufacturing process, the team created alumina structures 28 nanometers thick (more than 1,000 times thinner than the diameter of a human hair) on the silicon wafer with thermal-like static ripples, then tested them with lasers to measure their behavior. To remove possible stress to the material that could affect the results, cantilevers held the wafers during testing.

Understanding how thin materials behave is key to electronics and other technology.

New transmitter could make wireless devices more energy-efficient

Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have designed a novel transmitter chip that significantly improves the energy efficiency of wireless communications, which could boost the range and battery life of a connected device.

Their approach employs a unique modulation scheme to encode digital data into a wireless signal, which reduces the amount of error in the transmission and leads to more reliable communications.

JWST observations shed more light on the nature of a distant galaxy

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team of astronomers has observed a distant faint galaxy designated JADES-GS-z14-1. Results of the observational campaign, published July 30 on the arXiv preprint server, provide more insights into the nature and properties of this galaxy.

Launched into space in 2021, JWST is designed to find and investigate the most distant galaxies, providing insights into the . It enables the detection of galaxies within the first 500 million years after the Big Bang.

One of such early galaxies is JADES-GS-z14-1—the faintest spectroscopically confirmed galaxy, at a redshift of about 14.0. The galaxy has an absolute ultraviolet magnitude of-19.0 and is relatively compact as its half-light radius is estimated to not exceed 520 light years. Previous observations of JADES-GS-z14-1 have found that it has a mass of some 100 million , and a (SFR) at a level of about two solar masses per year.

Searching for Artificial Memory Systems in ancient humans with spatial statistics

Université de Bordeaux-led research reports that spatial statistics can discriminate potential Paleolithic Artificial Memory Systems from butchery and art, aligning prehistoric marked objects with memory devices in Africa and Europe.

Humans are highly symbolic creatures, uniquely combining symbolic reference, complex language, physical representations, active intentional teaching, and large-scale cultural learning.

Artificial Memory Systems (AMS) encompass devices that record, store, transmit, and retrieve coded information beyond the brain, via external representations. AMS can be anything from the notches on a gunslinger’s pistol, tracking past success, to the symbols on and data encoded within the Voyager spacecraft’s golden record, detailing a snapshot of Earthling knowledge and culture.

Study finds Alaska early warning system offers crucial seconds before strong shaking

For a wide variety of earthquake scenarios in Alaska, an earthquake early warning (EEW) system could provide at least 10 seconds of warning time for hazardous shaking, according to a new report.

Increasing the density and improving the spacing of seismic stations around the state could add 5 to 15 seconds to these estimated warning times, write Alexander Fozkos and Michael West at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Alaska experiences tens of thousands of earthquakes each year, and has been the site of some of the world’s largest and most destructive seismic events.

The study’s findings, published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, could help lay the groundwork for the expansion of the U.S. ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system, which now covers California, Oregon and Washington state.

Heavy fermions entangled: Discovery of Planckian time limit opens doors to novel quantum technologies

A joint research team from Japan has observed “heavy fermions,” electrons with dramatically enhanced mass, exhibiting quantum entanglement governed by the Planckian time—the fundamental unit of time in quantum mechanics. This discovery opens up exciting possibilities for harnessing this phenomenon in solid-state materials to develop a new type of quantum computer. The findings are published in npj Quantum Materials.

Heavy fermions arise when conduction electrons in a solid interact strongly with localized magnetic electrons, effectively increasing their mass. This phenomenon leads to unusual properties like unconventional superconductivity and is a central theme in condensed matter physics. Cerium-rhodium-tin (CeRhSn), the material studied in this research, belongs to a class of heavy fermion systems with a quasi-kagome lattice structure, known for its geometrical frustration effects.

Researchers investigated the electronic state of CeRhSn, known for exhibiting non-Fermi liquid behavior at relatively high temperatures. Precise measurements of CeRhSn’s reflectance spectra revealed non-Fermi liquid behavior persisting up to near room temperature, with heavy electron lifetimes approaching the Planckian limit. The observed spectral behavior, describable by a single function, strongly indicates that heavy electrons in CeRhSn are quantum entangled.

Scientists find ‘speed limit’ for innovation networks to prevent system collapse

Research shows that while connections between innovations speed discovery, they also sharply increase the risk of total system collapse—with the sweet spot for sustainable innovation proving surprisingly narrow.

Innovation is a central currency of global power. Whether in the race for leadership in , the development of clean energy technologies, or the search for medical breakthroughs, major players like China, the United States, and the European Union are investing billions in research and development to secure the next technological leap—and with it, economic and strategic advantage.

Yet, as a new study from the Complexity Science Hub (CSH), published in Physical Review Research, indicates, long-term innovation is only sustainable under specific structural conditions. First, the study finds that innovation can only endure over time if it is balanced with “exnovation”—the loss or forgetting of older possibilities.

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