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Blog – Page 99

Imagine waking up thirsty at night and having to reach for a glass of water in the dark. Without a clear view, your brain has to estimate where the glass is and where your hand is—a challenge that often leads to imprecise movements. The brain processes two key pieces of information: It needs to know where the hand is and where to move it. But what happens if this information is inaccurate?

Scientists from the Sensorimotor Research Group at the DPZ have investigated this problem of visual uncertainty during movement control in a study with . The research is published in the journal Nature Communications.

In the experiment, the monkeys moved a cursor on a screen by hand, using a kind of joystick. Two types of uncertainty were investigated. In target uncertainty, the target of the movement was represented by several scattered objects, so that it remained unclear where exactly the target was located. In the case of uncertainty, the cursor was replaced by several scattered, small objects so that it remained unclear exactly where the user’s own hand was located.

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Industrial farming practices often deplete the soil of important nutrients and minerals, leaving farmers to rely on artificial fertilizers to support plant growth. In fact, fertilizer use has more than quadrupled since the 1960s, but this comes with serious consequences. Fertilizer production consumes massive amounts of energy, and its use pollutes the water, air, and land.

Plant biologists at the Salk Institute are proposing a new solution to help kick this unsustainable fertilizer habit.

In a new study, the researchers identified a key molecule produced by plant roots, a small peptide called CLE16, that encourages plants and beneficial soil fungi to interact with each other. They say boosting this symbiotic relationship, in which the fungi provide mineral nutrients to the plants through CLE16 supplementation, could be a more natural and sustainable way to encourage crop growth without the use of harmful artificial fertilizers.

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Imagine if phones never got hot no matter how many apps were running. Picture a future where supercomputers use less energy, electric cars charge faster, and life-saving medical devices stay cooler and last longer.

In a study published in Nature Materials, a team of engineers at the University of Virginia and their collaborators revealed a radical new way to move heat, faster than ever before. Using a special kind of crystal called hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), they found a way to move heat like a beam of light, sidestepping the usual bottlenecks that make electronics overheat.

“We’re rethinking how we handle heat,” said Patrick Hopkins, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and Whitney Stone Professor of Engineering at UVA. “Instead of letting it slowly trickle away, we’re directing it.”

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Neutrinos are among the most enigmatic particles in the universe. They are omnipresent yet interact extremely rarely with matter.

In cosmology, they influence the formation of large-scale galaxy structures, while in , their minuscule mass serves as an indicator of previously unknown physical processes. Precisely measuring the neutrino mass is therefore essential for a complete understanding of the fundamental laws of nature.

This is precisely where the KATRIN experiment with its international partners comes into play. KATRIN utilizes the beta decay of tritium, an unstable hydrogen isotope, to assess the mass of neutrinos. The energy distribution of the electrons resulting from the decay enables a direct kinematic determination of the neutrino mass.

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Although air pollution is associated with worse cognitive performance, whether these relationships differ by cognitive domain and which sources of air pollution are particularly detrimental to cognition remains understudied. This study examined associations between cognitive scores across three domains in older adults and 8–10 years of exposure to air pollutants (NO2, total PM2.5, and PM2.5 from different emission sources).

Methods.

We used data from the 2018 Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol sub-study of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (N=1,127). Outdoor concentrations of each pollutant were estimated for 2008÷10−2017 and summarised using means and group-based trajectories. Linear regression models were used to assess long-term air pollution exposure relationships with memory, executive function, language, and global cognitive function after adjustment for key individual and neighbourhood-level confounders.

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Intriguing signs from CERN hint at a never-before-seen form of matter – one that could be the tiniest particle cluster ever detected. Top quarks, typically too short-lived to pair up, may have briefly bonded into a mysterious object known as toponium. This unexpected observation challenges assump

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New research has found that variations in rock composition within oceanic plates, caused by ancient tectonic processes, can significantly affect the path and speed of these plates as they sink into Earth’s mantle.

At depths between 410 and 660 kilometers lies the mantle transition zone (MTZ), a key boundary layer that regulates the movement of material into the planet’s deeper interior. When subducting plates, those that dive beneath others, encounter large concentrations of basalt within the MTZ, their descent can slow down or even stall, rather than continuing smoothly into the lower mantle. While basalt-rich regions in the MTZ have been observed before, their origins have remained uncertain until now.

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Neutrinos, the mysterious and nearly massless particles that barely interact with anything, are revealing new secrets through the KATRIN experiment.

Using tritium decay and advanced spectrometry, KATRIN has slashed the upper limit on neutrino mass, pushing our understanding of fundamental physics into new territory. With 250 days of data already analyzed and more to come, researchers are optimistic about uncovering even more surprises. Future upgrades aim to detect hypothetical sterile neutrinos, potential dark matter candidates, and possibly revolutionize our view of the universe’s invisible side.

Neutrinos: The Universe’s Ghost Particles.

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