Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 94

A specialized model used by researchers is becoming a valuable tool for studying human brain development, diseases and potential treatments, according to a team of scientists at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

Known as chimeric brain models, these laboratory tools provide a unique way to understand human brain functions in a living environment, which may lead to new and better therapies for , researchers said in a review article in Neuron.

Scientists create models by transplanting human brain cells culled from into the brains of animals such as mice, thereby creating a mix of human and animal brain cells in the same brain. This environment is closer to the complexity of a living human brain than what can be simulated in a petri dish study.

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Imagine having to find your way with only a compass and the stars and being handed a GPS. This is what David Marpaung and colleagues have just done for designers of light-based chips. Through their discovery of steering light with sound, the UT researchers have made available a powerful new tool to expand the scope and performance of this up-and-coming technology that’s quickly moving beyond its traditional use in .

Detailed in Science Advances, Marpaung has essentially molded the precision and versatility of a well-known physical phenomenon called Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) into a form that’s ready for mass manufacturing.

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A theoretical study by RIKEN physicists, published in Physics Letters B, has accurately determined the interaction between a charmonium and a proton or neutron for the first time.

From two galaxies colliding to an electron jettisoned from a nucleus, all interactions in the universe can be described in terms of just four fundamental forces.

Gravity and the are the two we are familiar with in everyday life, while the weak and strong forces operate over minuscule distances—roughly the size of an atomic nucleus or smaller.

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Scientists have long been trying to determine how elements heavier than iron, including gold and platinum, were first created and scattered through the Universe, and new research may give us another part of the answer: magnetars.

Rare, giant flares erupting from these highly magnetized neutron stars could contribute to the production of the heavy elements, based on a fresh analysis of a magnetar burst captured in 2004.

The full story of that burst wasn’t understood at the time. The latest work, from an international team of scientists, suggests the flash of gamma ray light captured back then originated from heavy elements being shot out into space.

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Tiny pieces of plastic are an increasingly big problem. Known as microplastics, they originate from clothing, kitchen utensils, personal care products, and countless other everyday objects. Their durability makes them persistent in the environment – including in human bodies.

Not only are many people on Earth already contaminated by microplastics, but we’re also still being exposed every day, as there is minimal regulation of these insidious specks.

According to a new literature review, a significant portion of our microplastic exposure may come from drinking water, as wastewater treatment plants are still not effectively removing microplastics.

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Converting sunlight into electricity is the task of photovoltaic solar cells, but nearly half the light that reaches a flat silicon solar cell surface is lost to reflection. While traditional antireflective coatings help, they only work within a narrow range of light frequency and incidence angles. A new study may have overcome this limit.

As reported in Advanced Photonics Nexus, researchers have proposed a new type of antireflective coating using a single, ultrathin layer of polycrystalline silicon nanostructures (a.k.a. a metasurface). Achieving minimal reflection across certain wavelengths and angles, the metasurface was reportedly developed by combining forward and inverse design techniques, enhanced by (AI).

The result is a coating that sharply reduces reflection across a wide range of wavelengths and angles, setting a new benchmark for performance with minimal material complexity.

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