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Ultrasound creates a tube that guides matter through the air
A small stream of liquid flows quietly in midair, horizontally, as if inside an invisible tube. Nothing touches it. About 5 centimeters (2 inches) away, a cylinder lined with hundreds of tiny speakers surrounds the stream, yet there is no sound. The liquid simply keeps flowing.
“Of all the experimental setups I have seen, I would say this is the closest thing to magic,” says Ari Salmi, professor of electronics at the University of Helsinki, who led the development of the massless tube.
It is not magic, however, but ultrasound. The University of Helsinki’s Electronics Research Laboratory has a long tradition of ultrasound research. The stream of liquid is held in place by ultrasonic waves at a frequency of about 40 kilohertz. The waves are emitted by 256 small speakers surrounding the stream.
How to Be a Futurist [Without Predicting the Future]
In 2021, a client asked me for a virtual keynote on #futurism. Pandemic rules: no live audience, no room to feed off, just me and a camera in a studio I rented for the occasion.
I rewatched it this week. I cringed. The delivery, the pacing, the energy you can only get from real people in front of you. There are a million things I’d change today, and most of them I already have.
The argument, though, I’d give again tomorrow.
The first thing people ask when they learn I’m a #futurist is what comes next. I’ve come to think it’s the wrong question. The weather doesn’t care what the forecast says. The future does, and that changes everything about how we should approach it.
Five years on, most #AI labs, investors, and pundits are selling certainty about where we’re headed. That makes this rough little COVID-era talk feel more relevant now than when I recorded it.
Isaac Newton, quantum physics, Wayne Gretzky, a 100-foot wave and Frank Herbert all show up. So does the question I think we should be asking instead.
Putting Momentum Under the Microscope
A new method lets quantum gas microscopes measure not only where atoms are but also how they move.
A Quantum Cyclotron for Antimatter
A device that stores a single positron and controls its quantum states could measure its magnetic moment with unprecedented precision, testing a symmetry principle central to quantum field theory.
Nearly 80 years ago, the discovery of an anomaly in the magnetic moment of the electron played a key role in the birth of quantum electrodynamics (QED). The electron magnetic moment has since become one of the most precisely measured properties of an elementary particle, providing stringent tests of the standard model of particle physics. The demonstration of an apparatus for measuring the magnetic moment of the electron’s antiparticle—the positron—could enable new and exceptionally precise fundamental tests. Now a team led by Gerald Gabrielse of Northwestern University in Illinois has realized the first one-positron quantum cyclotron, which can store an individual positron while manipulating its quantized cyclotron and spin states [1]. This achievement opens a path toward a 30-fold improvement in the measurement precision for the positron magnetic moment.
AI designs functional enzyme components that could help expand drug discovery
New active ingredients for drugs to treat infections, cancer or other serious diseases are often based on substances originally discovered in microorganisms, plants or other living organisms. Producing or improving such active ingredients in a targeted manner using microorganisms is often challenging because the underlying biological processes are extremely complex.
Researchers at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) have now shown that artificial intelligence can help with this task. Using AI, they developed novel protein building blocks for biological production systems. The researchers published their findings in the journal Nature Communications.
‘Invisible’ tweak could help make protein shakes less clumpy
Scientists from RMIT University and Riga Technical University in Latvia have shown that static charge left on surfaces can be controlled, which may have big benefits for companies needing to avoid the little zap in production of common household goods. The discovery could even one day help stop powders such as protein, chocolate malt powders and coffee from clumping.
Static electricity is usually treated as a hazard to prevent. To reduce it, industry often adds expensive conductive additives as a one-size-fits-all fix. The cost of static discharge is about US$5 billion in the electronics industry alone.
The new study findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, offer a potential solution to this challenge, pointing to surfaces with static charge formation that could be programmed to suit application requirements.
Physicists trap and tame single particle of antimatter for months
For the first time, Northwestern University physicists have coaxed a single positron—the antimatter counterpart of an electron—into an exquisitely controlled quantum state.
After capturing the fast-moving particle from radioactive decay, the scientists cooled it to nearly absolute zero. Then, they suspended the particle in a near-perfect vacuum, preventing it from touching ordinary matter—an encounter that would cause it to vanish.
By trapping and cooling a positron this way, the scientists created what they call a “one-positron quantum cyclotron.” In this state, the positron essentially behaves much like an artificial atom with quantum energy levels scientists can precisely control and observe.
New optogenetic tool inhibits activity in neurons and heart muscle cells
Researchers from Ruhr University Bochum have partnered with colleagues in Göttingen, Berlin, Paris and Essen to develop new optogenetic tools that can selectively inhibit cellular activity through light. These tools could help investigate diseases in which the balance between excitation and inhibition is disrupted, such as cardiac arrhythmias.
The team working alongside Dr. Brix Mücher, Dr. Ida Siveke and professor Stefan Herlitze from the Department of General Zoology and Neurobiology at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, reports its findings in the journal Science Signaling on Oct. 20, 2026.
Optogenetic tools can be used to activate and deactivate nerve cells via light. In their present study, the researchers coupled a light-sensitive receptor named Opn4L to a modified potassium channel named GIRK1, which activates a G-protein-coupled signaling pathway.
Atomic memory keeps distant ions entangled for about 10 seconds
Quantum networks, systems that connect devices and allow them to exchange information encoded in the quantum states of particles, could enable more secure communications. To build these networks, physicists need to devise strategies that allow distant particles to share quantum states, preserving them long enough to perform calculations or enable communication between devices.
Researchers at the University of Oxford recently realized a quantum network with four qubits (i.e., units of quantum information) encoded in trapped ions distributed between two locations linked by optical fibers. This network, outlined in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, relied on electrically charged atoms held in place by electromagnetic fields, also known as trapped ions.
“The work grew out of our efforts to build a quantum network in which each node can do more than create an entangled link to another node,” Dr. Gabriel Araneda, co-senior author of the paper, told Phys.org.