Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 4

Get the latest international news and world events from around the world.

Log in for authorized contributors

New type of DNA damage discovered in our cells’ mitochondria

A previously unknown type of DNA damage in the mitochondria, the tiny power plants inside our cells, could shed light on how our bodies sense and respond to stress. The findings of the UC Riverside-led study are published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and have potential implications for a range of mitochondrial dysfunction-associated diseases, including cancer and diabetes.

Mitochondria have their own genetic material, known as mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is essential for producing the energy that powers our bodies and sending signals within and outside cells. While it has long been known that mtDNA is prone to damage, scientists didn’t fully understand the biological processes. The new research identifies a culprit: glutathionylated DNA (GSH-DNA) adducts.

An adduct is a bulky chemical tag formed when a chemical, such as a carcinogen, attaches directly to DNA. If the damage isn’t repaired, it can lead to DNA mutations and increase the risk of disease.

Study maps the time and energy patterns of electron pairs in ultrafast pulses

The ability to precisely study and manipulate electrons in electron microscopes could open new possibilities for the development of both ultrafast imaging techniques and quantum technologies.

Over the past few years, physicists have developed new experimental tools for studying the behavior of electrons not bounded to any material by utilizing the so-called nanoscale field emitters, tiny metallic tips that release electrons when exposed to strong electric fields.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences recently carried out a study aimed at shedding new light on how pairs of emitted electrons relate to each other and how their behavior unfolds over time.

The hidden rule behind ignition: An analytic law governing multi-shock implosions for ultrahigh compression

Physicists at the University of Osaka have unveiled a breakthrough theoretical framework that uncovers the hidden physical rule behind one of the most powerful compression methods in laser fusion science—the stacked-shock implosion.

While multi-shock ignition has recently proven its effectiveness in major laser facilities worldwide, this new study identifies the underlying law that governs such implosions, expressed in an elegant and compact analytic form.

A team led by Professor Masakatsu Murakami has developed a framework called Stacked Converging Shocks (SCS), which extends the classical Guderley solution—a 1942 cornerstone of implosion theory—into the modern high-energy-density regime.

When superfluids collide, physicists find a mix of old and new behavior

Physics is often about recognizing patterns, sometimes repeated across vastly different scales. For instance, moons orbit planets in the same way planets orbit stars, which in turn orbit the center of a galaxy.

When researchers first studied the structure of atoms, they were tempted to extend this pattern down to smaller scales and describe electrons as orbiting the nuclei of atoms. This is true to an extent, but the quirks of quantum physics mean that the pattern breaks in significant ways. An electron remains in a defined orbital area around the nucleus, but unlike a classical orbit, an electron will be found at a random location in the area instead of proceeding along a precisely predictable path.

That electron orbits bear any similarity to the orbits of moons or planets is because all of these orbital systems feature attractive forces that pull the objects together. But a discrepancy arises for electrons because of their .

Surface-only superconductor is the strangest of its kind

Something strange goes on inside the material platinum-bismuth-two (PtBi₂). A new study by researchers at IFW Dresden and the Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat demonstrates that while PtBi₂ may look like a typical shiny gray crystal, electrons moving through it do some things never seen before.

In 2024, the research team demonstrated that the top and bottom surfaces of the material superconduct, meaning pair up and move without resistance.

Now, they reveal that this pairing works differently from any superconductor we have seen before. Enticingly, the edges around the superconducting surfaces hold long-sought-after Majorana particles, which may be used as fault-tolerant quantum bits (qubits) in quantum computers.

Acoustic waves could be the key to orbitronic devices

Electronics traditionally rely on harnessing the electron’s charge, but researchers are now exploring the possibility of harnessing its other intrinsic properties. In a Nature Communications study, scientists from Japan demonstrated that sound waves in certain solids can generate orbital currents—flow of electron orbital angular momentum.

Their findings establish a foundation for realizing next-generation “orbitronic” devices using existing acoustic technology.

Since the discovery of electricity, countless advancements in technology have relied on harnessing the electron’s charge, which is the fundamental principle behind most traditional electronics.

JUNO experiment delivers first physics results two months after completion

The Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has successfully completed the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) and released its first physics results.

After more than a decade of design, construction, and international collaboration, JUNO has become the world’s first next-generation, large-scale, high-precision neutrino detector to begin operation.

Early data show that the detector’s key performance indicators fully meet or surpass design expectations, confirming that JUNO is ready to deliver frontier measurements in neutrino physics.

Lockheed Martin, Google team up on generative AI

Lockheed Martin is partnering with Google Public Sector to integrate Google’s generative AI technologies, including the Gemini models, into its AI Factory.

Google’s AI tools will be introduced within Lockheed Martin’s secure, on-premises, air-gapped environments, making them accessible to personnel throughout the company.

/* */