Lifeboat Foundation

Laser-wakefield accelerators have led to the development of compact, ultrashort X-ray or gamma-ray sources to deliver peak brilliance, similar to conventional synchrotron sources. However, such sources are withheld by low efficiencies and limited to 10^7–8 photons per shot in the kiloelectron volt (KeV) to megaelectron volt (MeV) range. In a new report now published on Science Advances, Xing-Long Zhu and a research team in physics and astronomy in China and the U.K., presented a new approach to efficiently produce collimated, ultrabright gamma (γ)-ray beams. The resulting photon energies were tunable for up to gigaelectron volts by focussing a multi-petawatt laser pulse into a 2-stage wakefield accelerator. The high-intensity laser allowed them to efficiently generate a multi-gigaelectron volt electron beam with a high density and charge during the first stage of the experiment. The laser and electron beams entered a high-density plasma region in the second stage thereafter. Using numerical simulations, they demonstrated the production of more than 10¹² gamma ray photons per shot with energy conversion efficiency above 10 percent for photons above 1 megaelectron volt (MeV) and achieved a peak brilliance above 10²⁶ photons S^-1 mm^-2 mrad^-2 per 0.1 percent bandwidth at 1 MeV. This research outcome will offer new avenues in both fundamental and applied physics and engineering.

Bright sources of high-energy gamma rays are versatile for broad areas of applications, including fundamental research in astrophysics, particle and nuclear physics, as well as high-resolution imaging. Researchers can improve such applications with compact gamma ray sources with low divergence, short pulse duration, high energy, and high peak brilliance. While widely used synchrotrons and X-ray free electron lasers (XFELS) can deliver X-ray pulses with peak brilliance, they are limited to low photon energies. The size and cost of such research structures can also limit their regular applications. Researchers have therefore rapidly developed compact laser-wakefield accelerators (LWFAs) in the past two decades to offer a radically different approach to drive the acceleration and radiation of high-energy particles on a much smaller scale. Continuous advancements in the field of ultrahigh-power laser technology will enable brilliant high-energy gamma sources.

Independent.co.uk

Cheese contains a chemical found in addictive drugs, scientists have found.

The team behind the study set out to pin-point why certain foods are more addictive than others.

Continue reading “Cheese Triggers the Same Part of Brain as Hard Drugs” »

Being able to put someone in a state of suspended animation may be a step closer after scientists found the trigger in mammal brains that can induce hibernation.

Researchers from the University of Tsukuba and Harvard Medical School identified the ‘snooze button’ in mice that triggered naturally occurring temporary hibernation.

Continue reading “Scientists discover ‘snooze button’ that could induce ‘hibernation’” »

Paris (AFP) — Scientists have developed a human embryo “blueprint” using human stem cells, in a breakthrough that could provide vital insight into the early stages of infant development, new research showed Thursday.

Teams from the University of Cambridge and the Netherlands-based Hubrecht Institute said their model will allow them to observe never-before-seen processes underlying the formation of the human body.

The layout of humans — known as the body plan — happens through a process known as gastrulation, where three distinct layers of cells are formed in the embryo that will later give rise to the body’s three main systems: nervous, musculoskeletal and digestive.

Paris (AFP) — Scientists have observed the fifth state of matter in space for the first time, offering unprecedented insight that could help solve some of the quantum universe’s most intractable conundrums, research showed Thursday.

Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) — the existence of which was predicted by Albert Einstein and Indian mathematician Satyendra Nath Bose almost a century ago — are formed when atoms of certain elements are cooled to near absolute zero (0 Kelvin, minus 273.15 Celsius).

At this point, the atoms become a single entity with quantum properties, wherein each particle also functions as a wave of matter.

This motorcycle can transform into a hoverbike.

“The operation is believed to be the first of its kind in the U.S. The patient, a woman in her 20s, had been healthy, but the coronavirus devastated her lungs.”

A young woman whose lungs were destroyed by the coronavirus received a double lung transplant last week at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, the hospital reported on Thursday, the first known lung transplant in the United States for Covid-19.

The 10-hour surgery was more difficult and took several hours longer than most lung transplants because inflammation from the disease had left the woman’s lungs “completely plastered to tissue around them, the heart, the chest wall and diaphragm,” said Dr. Ankit Bharat, the chief of thoracic surgery and surgical director of the lung transplant program at Northwestern Medicine, which includes Northwestern Memorial Hospital, in an interview.

Continue reading “Covid-19 Patient Gets Double Lung Transplant, Offering Hope for Others” »

The job market of tomorrow will require people to develop their technical capacity in tandem with human-only skills.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals announced Thursday that it’s started the first clinical trial of its experimental coronavirus antibody drug.

The antibody cocktail is being tested in four human populations. Two groups of people will receive the drug to test its effectiveness as a treatment for Covid-19; the other two will receive it as a possible prevention.

“We’ll be hopefully to quickly test the safety and then start understanding the efficacy for four major different settings of this virus challenge,” Regeneron’s chief scientific officer, Dr. George Yancopoulos, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” Yancopoulos said he thinks that, “if all goes well,” the company could have “definitive data” within a few months on the effectiveness of the antibody cocktail.

Continue reading “Regeneron sees ‘a lot of reason for hope’ as human testing of its coronavirus drug begins” »