Lifeboat Foundation

Owners of thoroughbred stallions carefully breed prizewinning horses over generations to eke out fractions of a second in million-dollar races. Materials scientists have taken a page from that playbook, turning to the power of evolution and artificial selection to develop superconductors that can transmit electric current as efficiently as possible.

Perhaps counterintuitively, most applied superconductors can operate at high magnetic fields because they contain defects. The number, size, shape and position of the defects within a superconductor work together to enhance the electric current carrying capacity in the presence of a magnetic field. Too many defects, however, can lead to blocking the electric current pathway or a breakdown of the superconducting material, so scientists need to be selective in how they incorporate defects into a material.

In a new study from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, researchers used the power of artificial intelligence and high-performance supercomputers to introduce and assess the impact of different configurations of defects on the performance of a superconductor.

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The electronic Barnett effect, first observed by Samuel Barnett in 1915, is the magnetization of an uncharged body as it is spun on its long axis. This is caused by a coupling between the angular momentum of the electronic spins and the rotation of the rod.

Using a different method from that employed by Barnett, two researchers at NYU observed an alternative version of this effect called the nuclear Barnett effect, which results from the magnetization of protons rather than electrons. Their study, published in Physical Review Letters (PRL), led to the first experimental observation of this effect.

“I was a graduate student at NYU where a group of colleagues were involved in a project related to brain imaging,” Mohsen Arabgol, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. The fundamental idea behind the project was polarizing the brain molecules by inducing rotation using the Barnett effect and then applying the MRI-type imaging. I became interested and decided to work on the detection of the nuclear Barnett effect as my Ph.D. dissertation.”

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SpaceX just successfully let loose 60 of its tiny Starlink satellites, intended to bring internet broadband connectivity to people across the globe. While it’s a good start, the Elon Musk-led space company still has its work cut out to truly bring internet to all.

“In a year and a half, maybe two years, if things go well, SpaceX will probably have more satellites in orbit than all other satellites combined — a majority of the satellites in orbit will be SpaceX,” Musk said during a conference call last week, as quoted by Space.com.

Successful deployment of 60 Starlink satellites confirmed! pic.twitter.com/eYrLocCiws

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The European Union has partially approved the shape of its next giant research-spending programme, but it faces political tensions.

A recent study has outlined the relationship between B cells, atherosclerosis, and the transcription factor c-Myb. While this factor is necessary for hematopoiesis, the formation of new blood cells, it has been shown to affect B cells, a type of lymphocyte, in a way that makes atherosclerosis more severe.

A new look at inflammaging

Inflammation can have beneficial effects in the short term, but chronic, long-term inflammation is known to exacerbate serious diseases. With age, the immune system falters and constantly reacts to things that it sees as threats, thus leading to the rise in chronic inflammation known as inflammaging. In the case of atherosclerosis, the relationship between cholesterol and immune cells plays a major role in making things worse [1].

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A technique to stabilise alkali metal vapour density using gold nanoparticles, so electrons can be accessed for applications including quantum computing, atom cooling and precision measurements, has been patented by scientists at the University of Bath.

Alkali metal vapours, including lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium and caesium, allow scientists to access individual electrons, due to the presence of a single electron in the outer ‘shell’ of alkali metals.

This has great potential for a range of applications, including logic operations, storage and sensing in quantum computing, as well as in ultra-precise time measurements with atomic clocks, or in medical diagnostics including cardiograms and encephalograms.

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Using ground-penetrating radar, scientists detected a massive reservoir of frozen water sandwiched by layers of sand beneath the northern polar ice cap on Mars. This reservoir contains so much ice that, if melted and brought to the surface, it would submerge the entire planet.

“This was a surprise even for us,” Stefano Nerozzi, the lead author of the new paper and a PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin, told Gizmodo in an email.

A USC team won the collegiate space race by sending a rocket above the Kármán line, the imaginary boundary that marks the end of Earth’s atmosphere.

Biologists don’t call them “the hidden kingdom” for nothing. With an estimated 5 million species, only a mere 100,000 fungi are known to scientists. This kingdom, which includes molds, yeasts, rusts and mushrooms, receives far less attention than plants or animals. This is particularly true for fossils of fungi, most of which are discovered while hunting for more charismatic, at least to the eyes of some, plant fossils.

Fungi were key partners of plants during their colonization of land approximately 500 million years ago – an important and well-documented evolutionary transition. Therefore, it is unsurprising that the earliest fungal fossils, found in 450 million-year-old rocks, resemble modern species associated with the roots of plants. But that conflicts with DNA-based estimates, which suggest that fungi originated much earlier – a billion or more years ago. It’s a riddle in the tree of life that evolutionary biologists like me have long been puzzled about.

Fossils Versus DNA

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