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Research led by University of Texas at Dallas physicists has altered the understanding of the fundamental properties of perovskite crystals, a class of materials with great potential as solar cells and light emitters.

Published in July in Nature Communications, the study presents evidence that questions existing models of the behavior of perovskites on the .

“Our enhanced understanding of the physics of perovskites will help determine how they are best used,” said Dr. Anton Malko, associate professor of physics in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and a corresponding author of the paper.

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Researchers from the University of Maryland, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL) and the University of Oxford have observed a rare phenomenon called re-entrant superconductivity in the material uranium ditelluride. The discovery furthers the case for uranium ditelluride as a promising material for use in quantum computers.

Nicknamed “Lazarus ” after the biblical character who rose from the dead, the phenomenon occurs when a arises, breaks down, then re-emerges in a material due to a change in a specific parameter—in this case, the application of a very strong magnetic field. The researchers published their results on October 7, 2019, in the journal Nature Physics.

Once dismissed by physicists for its apparent lack of interesting physical properties, uranium ditelluride is having its own Lazarus moment. The current study is the second in as many months (both published by members of the same research team) to demonstrate unusual and surprising superconductivity states in the material.

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The complex interplay of various processes and mechanisms that contribute to aging means it’s unlikely we’ll discover a single “magic bullet” to prevent age-related diseases. But new research led by University College London and the Max Planck Institute for Biology and Ageing is potentially as close as anything we’ve seen. The scientists have been able to extend the lifespan of fruit flies by 48 percent using a triple drug combination made up of drugs already used in people.

“As life expectancies increase, we are also seeing an increase of age-related diseases so there is an urgent need to find ways to improve health in old age,” says study co-lead author, Dr Jorge Castillo-Quan. “Here, by studying fruit flies which age much more rapidly than people, we have found that a combination drug treatment targeting different cellular processes may be an effective way to slow down the aging process.”

The three drugs making up the combo include lithium, which is used as a mood stabilizer, trametinib, a cancer drug that inhibits MEK1 and MEK2 enzymes, and rapamycin, an immune system regulator produced by bacteria that was first found in a soil sample from Easter Island and has been found to improve learning and memory in mice.

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The standard model of physics remains incomplete. Could supersymmetry fill the gaps? From whether supersymmetric particles could fix the mass of the Higgs Boson to what this would mean for string theory, the world’s leading thinkers explain all.

John Ellis is a British theoretical physicist who is currently Clerk Maxwell Professor of Theoretical Physics at King’s College London. He was Division Leader for the CERN theory division, a founding member of the LEPC and of the LHCC at CERN and currently chair of the committee to investigate physics opportunities for future proton accelerators.

Catherine Heymans is a Professor of Astrophysics and European Research Council Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. She is also the Director of the German Centre for Cosmological Lensing at the Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany.

Ben Allanach is a member of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics High Energy Physics research group and The Cambridge SUSY Working Group based at the Cavendish Laboratory.

Continue reading “On Supersymmetry | John Ellis, Catherine Heymans, Ben Allanach, Subir Sakar, Cumrun Vafa” | >