Ultracold triatomic molecules herald a new frontier for the three-body problem

16 Feb 2022

Power of three: Schematic image showing ultracold triatomic molecules forming by associating diatomic molecules and atoms. (Courtesy: Bo Zhao/USTC)

Researchers in China have found strong evidence of ultracold triatomic molecules forming within a mixture of ultracold atoms and diatomic molecules. The result, if confirmed, would provide an ideal pathway to studying chemical reactions on an atomic scale, and could even allow physicists to perform quantum-mechanical simulations of the notoriously difficult three-body problem.

 

Study underlines AI’s clinical potential in breast cancer screening

18 Feb 2022

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AuntMinnieEurope.com

Artificial intelligence (AI) can help radiologists lessen their workload when reading digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) images by nearly 40%, according to research published in Radiology.

A team led by Yoel Shoshan and Ran Bakalo from the University of Haifa in Israel developed an AI model that they say can filter out cancer-free cases and keep up with radiologists in terms of accuracy.

New technique amplifies weak optical signals while reducing noise

21 Feb 2022

More signal, less noise: Benjamin Crockett at Quebec’s National Institute of Scientific Research. (Courtesy: Yang Liu/INRS)

A technique that can amplify weak optical signals, while simultaneously reducing noise has been developed by researchers in Canada. By exploiting the Talbot effect, the team showed how arbitrarily-shaped signals can be reliably detected, even when buried in background noise. The research was led by José Azaña and Benjamin Crockett at Quebec’s National Institute of Scientific Research.

 

NASA probe captures optical images of Venus’ surface

10 Feb 2022 Margaret Harris

Dark highlands, bright lowlands: Images captured by the Parker Solar Probe's WISPR instrument during a flyby of Venus, strung into a video and showing the nightside surface of the planet. (Courtesy: NASA/APL/NRL)

New images from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe offer a rare glimpse of the surface of Venus as the human eye might see it. Recorded as the probe flew past the fiery, cloud-shrouded planet on its mission to the Sun, the visible-light images of Venus’ plains and plateaus are the first to be taken from space, and the first to emerge from the Venusian surface since the early 1980s, when the last in a pioneering series of Soviet probes succumbed to the harsh environment within an hour of landing. By analysing the images, mission scientists hope to better understand how Venus formed, and why conditions on its surface are so different from those that prevail on the Earth and Mars.

 

Ancient binary stars could give birth to planets, study suggests

08 Feb 2022

Older parents: Artist’s impression of a protoplanetary disc that has just formed around a binary star (left). The image on the right shows a large cavity that has been removed from the disc by a large planet. (Courtesy: N Stecki)

Even as they are dying, ancient stars in some binary systems may be forming planets, an international team of astronomers has found. Through infrared observations of old binary pairs, researchers led by Jacques Kluska at KU Leuven in Belgium discovered 10 cases in which giant planets have likely carved out empty cavities in protoplanetary discs. If more evidence is found for such systems, it could result in a rethink of current ideas about how planets form.

 

Classical computers race to catch up with quantum advantage

22 Feb 2022 Ieva Čepaitė

Going faster: In the race for computational advantage, classical machines are less far behind than previously thought. (Courtesy: istock/UroshPetrovic)

For quantum computers to be considered viable, they need to successfully and verifiably perform tasks that are hard to reproduce on any classical computer – a situation known as “quantum advantage”. As both quantum computers and classical methods improve, however, it becomes difficult to draw the line beyond which quantum machines have the upper hand.

AI keeps fusion plasma in check

18 Feb 2022

Under control: Plasma inside the Variable-Configuration Tokamak at EPFL. (Courtesy: Curdin Wüthrich/SPC/EPFL)

A collaboration of physicists and computer scientists has shown that artificial intelligence (AI) can help control the delicate process of confining an ultra-hot plasma within a fusion reactor. Members of the team say that their demonstration, which exploits a technique known as reinforcement learning to operate the magnetic coils in a tokamak, could enable more speedy development of reactors with novel geometries.

 

Start-up simulates quantum photonics devices, a physicist’s experience of the mental-health system

24 Feb 2022 Hamish Johnston

In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast, we speak to Mirella Koleva and Gaby Slavcheva, who are the co-founders of the UK-based company Quantopticon. The firm develops software for simulating quantum photonics devices and Koleva and Slavcheva explain why there is a need to understand the fundamental physics behind the devices that underpin the latest quantum technologies. They also talk about the importance of start-up accelerators for companies like Quantopticon.

 

‘Speed limit’ on changes in non-equilibrium systems confirmed by new experiment

22 Feb 2022

New uncertainty: A relationship between time and dissipation rate has been established in the laboratory. (Courtesy: iStock Greyfebruary)

A “speed limit” on changes in non-equilibrium systems that was first predicted in 2020 has been confirmed by a new experiment done in China. By carefully controlling the electronic states of a single trapped ion, a team led by Mang Feng at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan, showed that the rate at which entropy was created during electronic transitions was intrinsically linked to the speed at which the transition occurred.

Machine learning and advanced imaging improve prediction of heart attacks

22 Feb 2022

Hybrid imaging: A 70-year-old patient presented with diffused largely non-calcified disease (centre panel in red) in the left anterior descending (LAD) artery and demonstrated increased 18F-NaF uptake (right panel) in the low-attenuation plaque on PET. (Courtesy: Journal of Nuclear Medicine)

A machine learning model that combines data from two advanced imaging techniques can predict a patient’s risk of a future heart attack better than conventional clinical assessment. Writing in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, the model’s developers report that contrast-enhanced CT angiography (CTA) and PET using the radiotracer 18F-sodium fluoride (18F-NaF) are complementary predictors of heart attack risk in patients with established coronary artery disease.

 

Trapped ions share a wired connection

21 Feb 2022 Oliver Stockdale

Current connection: Schematic diagram of the ion-wire-ion system. Two ions are trapped at either end of an electrically floating wire that is at room temperature. (Courtesy: Da An)

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have persuaded two trapped ions to interact over a distance of 620 µm – much larger than would be possible via their intrinsic interaction – by connecting them with a room-temperature wire. This proof-of-principle experiment provides a pathway to more precise measurements of fundamental physics based on long-distance interactions between trapped particles.

 

Engineered spinal cord implants restore movement to paralysed mice

23 Feb 2022

Tissue engineering expert: Study leader Tal Dvir and colleagues have engineered 3D human spinal cord tissues and implanted them in mice with long-term paralysis. (Courtesy: Sagol Center for Regenerative Biotechnology)

Researchers in Israel have engineered functional human spinal cord implants that they say could be used to help those with spinal injuries walk again. The technique transforms human tissue from elsewhere in the body using a process that mimics the embryonic development of the spinal cord. The implants enabled 80% of mice with chronic paralysis to walk again.

 

Light therapy fast-tracks healing of radiotherapy skin damage

15 Feb 2022 Tami Freeman

Helping wounds heal: Research led by Praveen Arany found that light therapy promotes healing by activating a protein that controls cell growth and division. (Courtesy: Photographer: Douglas Levere)

Brachytherapy is a cancer treatment in which a seed containing an ionizing radiation source is implanted directly within the tumour. The localized nature of brachytherapy enables delivery of high radiation doses to the target lesion while minimizing exposure of surrounding healthy tissues, reducing the risk of side effects. The treatment can, however, cause localized skin damage such as radiodermatitis and radionecrosis.

 

Ultracold triatomic molecules herald a new frontier for the three-body problem

16 Feb 2022

Power of three: Schematic image showing ultracold triatomic molecules forming by associating diatomic molecules and atoms. (Courtesy: Bo Zhao/USTC)

Researchers in China have found strong evidence of ultracold triatomic molecules forming within a mixture of ultracold atoms and diatomic molecules. The result, if confirmed, would provide an ideal pathway to studying chemical reactions on an atomic scale, and could even allow physicists to perform quantum-mechanical simulations of the notoriously difficult three-body problem.

 

Σαλάτα-Θαύμα, Που Καθαρίζει Το Έντερο & Αυξάνει Το Ανοσοποιητικό!

Ακαδημία Υγείας15/02/2022

Πολύ πιθανόν να έχετε ακούσει ότι το παντζάρι είναι ένα από τα καλύτερα τρόφιμα.

Το παντζάρι βελτιώνει την λειτουργία του εντέρου και του πεπτικού συστήματος, επιδρά θετικά στο καρδιαγγειακό σύστημα και αυξάνει το ανοσοποιητικό – όπου αυτό έχει ως αποτέλεσμα την προστασία του οργανισμού από ιογενείς παθήσεις.

 

Self-healing ice, AI beats humans at Gran Turismo, aerogel insulation turns a profit in Zurich

11 Feb 2022 Hamish Johnston

Lighter than a feather: aerogels are the lightest known solids and make very good thermal insulation. (Courtesy: Empa)

If you put two ice cubes side-by-side in a freezer you will find that after a while they will fuse together. This effect fascinated the great 19th century physicist Michael Faraday, who proposed that ice has a thin layer on water on its surface that causes the cubes to freeze together.

 

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope releases first unaligned images

14 Feb 2022 Michael Banks

First images from the James Webb Space Telescope’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) were taken early this month (Courtesy: NASA).

NASA has released the first unaligned image from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Taken early this month from the observatory’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), the picture is a crucial step towards the instrument coming online in June. It will then begin collecting light from celestial objects.

 

Device can transform into four components for artificial intelligence systems

15 Feb 2022

Plastic fantastic: this perovskite-based device can be reconfigured and could play an important role in artificial intelligence systems. (Courtesy: Purdue University/Rebecca McElhoe)

Researchers in the US have developed a perovskite-based device that could be used to create a high-plasticity architecture for artificial intelligence. The team, led by Shriram Ramanathan at Purdue University, has showed that the material’s electronic properties can be easily reconfigured, allowing the devices to function like artificial neurons and other components. Their results could lead to more flexible artificial-intelligence hardware that could learn much like the brain.

 

International Year of Glass gets cracking in Geneva

11 Feb 2022 James Dacey

Something to celebrate: glass optical fibres have revolutionized communications. (Courtesy: iStock/yurok)

The International Year of Glass (IYoG2022) kicked off yesterday with a two-day opening ceremony at the Palace of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. IYoG2022 will celebrate this versatile material that underpins many technologies that have transformed the modern world. Events throughout the year will also highlight why glass is critical in achieving the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Hairy nanoparticles could reduce chemotherapy side effects

14 Feb 2022 Isabelle Dumé

In the lab. Courtesy: Pennsylvania State University

A new class of nanomaterials engineered to “capture” wayward chemotherapy drugs before they damage healthy tissue could reduce the side effects of cancer drugs during and after treatment. The nanomaterials are based on “hairy” cellulose nanocrystals, and members of the team that developed them say that one gram of these crystals can capture more than 6000 mg of a widely used chemotherapy drug, doxorubicin (DOX), making them 320 times as effective as alternative DNA-based materials.

 

Reservoir computing in noisy real-world systems: network inference and dynamical. by Sarthak Chandra

NEUROSCIENCE, DATA SCIENCE AND DYNAMICS (ONLINE) ORGANIZERS: Amit Apte (IISER-Pune, India), Neelima Gupte (IIT-Madras, India) and Ramakrishna Ramaswamy (IIT-Delhi, India) DATE : 07 February 2022 to 10 February 2022 VENUE: Online

 

New laser technique could give electron microscopes a boost

18 Jan 2022 Hamish Johnston

Best of the bunch: the new technique can be used to split the electron beam into a train of phase-coherent pulses. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/Anteromite)

A new technique allowing lasers to manipulate the energy and phase of electrons in electron microscopes has been unveiled by researchers in Germany and Switzerland. The technique opens up new potential applications in electron spectroscopy and could be used in the future to generate electron-photon entanglement.

 

Radio telescope image reveals Milky Way’s centre in stunning detail

27 Jan 2022 Michael Banks

The image was created from a mosaic of 20 separate observations using over 200 hours of telescope time. (Courtesy: I Heywood, SARAO)

The MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa has taken an image that shows the centre of the Milky Way in unprecedented detail.

 

Ultracold atoms move closer to simulating the early universe

05 Feb 2022

Two phases: this graph shows the momentum distribution of the shaken quantum gas during the phase transition. The central peak on the left corresponds the initial Mott insulator while the two peaks on the right indicate the distinct staggered order of the superfluid phase. Shown upper right is a schematic of the ball-and-hillside representation of false vacuum decay. (Courtesy: University of Cambridge)

Physicists could soon be able to do simulations of the quantum phase transition that is believed to have occurred in the early universe, thanks to ultracold atom experiments done by Bo Song and colleagues at the University of Cambridge. By shaking an optical lattice of atoms, the team created metastable states associated with discontinuous phase transitions and a process called false vacuum decay.

 

Uncrushable beetle reveals its strengths to scientists

23 Oct 2020

Under pressure: the diabolical ironclad beetle’s exoskeleton has inspired researchers to create crush-resistant components and architectures. (Courtesy: David Kisailus/UCI)

The toughening mechanisms that make the diabolical ironclad beetle extremely resistant to crushing have been uncovered by researchers in the US and Japan.

 

Liquid metal experiment sheds light on solar corona conundrum

10 Feb 2022 Isabelle Dumé

A plasma ejection during a solar flare. (Courtesy: NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams)

The centre of the Sun is incredibly hot, at 15 million degrees Celsius. Its surface is much cooler, at 6000 degrees. Then, in the outer reaches of its atmosphere, it becomes hotter again, with temperatures in the solar corona reaching several million degrees. This “corona heating”, as it is known, is one of greatest mysteries of solar physics.

 

Universal scaling law describes how metallic glasses flow

09 Feb 2022

Go with the flow: will these modern windows be thicker at the bottom hundreds of years in the future? (Courtesy: Ansgar Koreng/CC BY 3.0 DE)

Glasses have long fascinated materials scientists because they are classed as extremely high-viscosity liquids, yet their macroscopic material properties mostly resemble solids. Now researchers in the US and China have studied how metallic glasses flow by measuring their shear stresses to strain rates over nine orders of magnitude.

 

Ion-based quantum computers could boost battery performance, how fuel cells are decarbonizing energy

10 Feb 2022 Hamish Johnston

In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast, we chat about applications for quantum computers with Jungsang Kim, who is co-founder and chief technology officer of IonQ. The US-based company uses trapped ions as qubits in its quantum processors and Kim explains the advantages that this brings. He also talks about a recent agreement between IonQ and the carmaker Hyundai.

 

Fusion energy record smashed by Joint European Torus facility

09 Feb 2022 Michael Banks

Hotter than the Sun: researchers on the Joint European Torus nuclear-fusion experiment have used a deuterium–tritium fuel mix for the first time since 1997. (Courtesy: UKAEA)

The Joint European Torus (JET) nuclear-fusion experiment based in Oxfordshire, UK, has more than doubled the amount of fusion energy produced in a single “shot” – smashing a previous record that JET has held since 1997. Officials today announced that during an experiment in late 2021, JET achieved 59 megajoules (MJ) of fusion energy, beating the previous record of 22 MJ.

 

Independent QA: catching, understanding and correcting errors before radiotherapy begins

07 Feb 2022 Sponsored by Sun Nuclear Corporation

Independent QA not only ensures delivery of intended therapeutic dose, it drives continuous improvement in patient safety by rooting out systematic machine and workflow errors

QA efficiency: The benefits of the SRS MapCHECK include film equivalence, the ability to measure in the true composite geometry (including vertex couch rotations) and proven small-field absolute dose accuracy. (Courtesy: Sun Nuclear Corporation)

Independence is everything. For Sun Nuclear Corporation, a US-based manufacturer of QA solutions for radiotherapy and diagnostic imaging practices, independence is also non-negotiable, informing a product development roadmap that’s focused on relentless improvement in pursuit of patient safety, treatment outcomes and workflow efficiencies in the radiation oncology clinic.

 

Routine eye scans could provide cost-effective screening for heart disease

08 Feb 2022 Tami Freeman

A window into heart disease: Illustration showing how an eye scan can provide information on the health of the heart. (Courtesy: University of Leeds)

Retinal imaging is routinely performed by opticians to diagnose and monitor eye diseases and disorders. But retinal scans can reveal a lot more: retinal microvascular abnormalities may be indicative of broader vascular disease, including problems with the heart.

 

Can pencil-beam scanning enable gantry-free proton therapy?

11 Feb 2022

Compact treatment room: Model of a gantry-less proton therapy system, with a patient positioning chair and imaging system at the centre. (Courtesy: Fernando Hueso-González)

The ability to deliver proton therapy without the use of a gantry could help it become a more affordable radiotherapy option for cancer patients. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have investigated the feasibility of using pencil-beam scanning (PBS) with robotic positioning and immobilization devices to do just that.

 

Quantum sensor shrinks dark matter’s parameter space

07 Feb 2022

Frequency difference: Time-varying magnetic field helps place new limits on axion-like particles (Courtesy: iStock/piranka)

Physicists in Israel have extended the search for dark matter by using a new kind of quantum sensor to place stricter limits on so-called axion-like particles. They did so by monitoring the precession of xenon atoms and exploiting what are known as Floquet states to probe a greater mass range than was previously possible.

 

Reservoir computing in noisy real-world systems: network inference and dynamical. by Sarthak Chandra

NEUROSCIENCE, DATA SCIENCE AND DYNAMICS (ONLINE) ORGANIZERS: Amit Apte (IISER-Pune, India), Neelima Gupte (IIT-Madras, India) and Ramakrishna Ramaswamy (IIT-Delhi, India) DATE : 07 February 2022 to 10 February 2022 VENUE: Online

 

Neural Encoding of Odours in a Turbulent Environment by Collins Assisi

NEUROSCIENCE, DATA SCIENCE AND DYNAMICS (ONLINE) ORGANIZERS: Amit Apte (IISER-Pune, India), Neelima Gupte (IIT-Madras, India) and Ramakrishna Ramaswamy (IIT-Delhi, India) DATE : 07 February 2022 to 10 February 2022 VENUE: Online This discussion meeting on Neuroscience, Dynamics and Data Science, will be accompanied by Turing lectures on a topic that unites all three themes, viz. the Physics of Birdsong. The Turing lectures will be delivered by Prof. Gabriel Mindlin, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, who is an acknowledged expert in the field and also the winner of the Arthur Taylor Winfree award from the ICTP Trieste for his work on the subject.

 

Data-driven and data-augmented modeling of chaotic spatiotemporal dynamical system by Jaideep Pathak

NEUROSCIENCE, DATA SCIENCE AND DYNAMICS (ONLINE) ORGANIZERS: Amit Apte (IISER-Pune, India), Neelima Gupte (IIT-Madras, India) and Ramakrishna Ramaswamy (IIT-Delhi, India)

 

Magic-angle graphene switches from superconductor to ferromagnet

04 Feb 2022 Isabelle Dumé

Spin-orbit coupling in graphene layers gives rise to surprising physics, including ferromagnetism. (Courtesy: Li Lab / Brown University)

Magnetism and superconductivity are usually at opposite ends of the spectrum in condensed-matter physics. For them to appear in the same material is exceedingly rare. Yet that is exactly what Jia Li and colleagues at Brown University in the US found when they interfaced so-called “magic-angle” graphene with a second two-dimensional material, tungsten diselenide.

 

Hybrid device acts as both solar cell and battery

20 Jan 2022 Isabelle Dumé

The new device consists of a thin film of a layered material (tungsten diselenide, green) deposited on strontium titanium oxide (STO, grey). (Courtesy: Y Jiang et al.)

A photoelectric system that converts light into charge and then stores the charge like a battery – a first for a single device – has been developed by researchers in China and Singapore. Made from layers of a 2D semiconductor and a transparent conductor held together by weak van der Waals interactions, the new device converts 93.8% of incident photons into electric current – far higher than the 50% typical for so-called “high performance” photoelectric devices – and can store charge for up to a week, making it suitable for applications in energy generation, photodetectors or light-based memory.

 

The first electron counts – how anaerobic microbes ‘breathe’ iron

02 Feb 2022 Simon Lichtinger

The researchers: Sébastien Giroud and Meret Aeppli in front of their glovebox. (Courtesy: Meret Aeppli)

Life has a way of adapting to challenging environments. While humans – as well as animals and plants in general – rely on oxygen to burn their nutrients, some microbes in low-oxygen habitats have learnt to rely on iron-containing minerals as a substitute.

 

Multimodal MRI reveals brain areas that can still ‘see’ after a stroke

03 Feb 2022 Poulami Somanya Ganguly

Anatomical imaging: Stroke lesions in the brain of one of the study participants. (Courtesy: CC BY 4.0/Front. Neurosci. 10.3389/fnins.2021.737215)

Scientists in the UK have used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to map the brain’s responses to visual stimuli after a stroke. In stroke survivors with vision loss, brain imaging revealed responsive areas that were inaccessible to current vision tests. The researchers’ findings could help clinicians better understand vision loss in stroke, and design tailored rehabilitation programmes for survivors. The researchers, from the University of Nottingham, describe their work in Frontiers in Neuroscience.

 

In vitro platform enables realistic studies of neurological disorders

04 Feb 2022 Tami Freeman

Electrophysiological measurements: 3D neuronal cultures grown in a neuro-MPS, with neurons extending neurites through tunnels in the capped microelectrodes. (Courtesy: Biofabrication 10.1088/1758-5090/ac463b)

Pre-clinical research into neurological disorders is limited by the complexity of the brain, as well as the lack of adequate models to assess potential drugs, as demonstrated by the discouraging failure of drug candidates in late stages of clinical trials. Two-dimensional cell cultures can mimic some aspects of neuronal dysfunction, but lack complex morphology.

 

Mysterious X particle spotted in quark–gluon plasma at CERN

02 Feb 2022

X marks the spot: the CMS experiment at CERN undergoing an upgrade. (Courtesy: Maximilien Brice/CERN)

A mysterious “X” particle comprising four quarks and first seen in 2003, has been found in the quark–gluon plasma produced in heavy ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The observation was made by physicists working on CERN’s Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment and if confirmed, it could help researchers understand the structure of the exotic particle.

 

Bullying and harassment in physics affects us all

03 Feb 2022

Taken from the February 2022 issue of Physics World. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app.

Marie Hemingway and Mark Geoghegan say that physics can only be more inclusive and welcoming if agreements that stop people speaking out about harassment and bullying in the workplace are banned

Cost of silence Non-disclosure agreements mean that people who harass their colleagues continue their careers and their damaging behaviour. (Courtesy: iStock/jxfzsy)

Do you ever think about the make-up of our workplaces? What makes us effective in our teams? Do you ever wonder what environment creates colleagues that are happier and more productive? Do you ask yourself what changes could be implemented to foster a cheerier workplace?

‘Bogolons’ make graphene superconducting

04 Aug 2021 Isabelle Dumé

The hybrid system studied. (Credit: Institute for Basic Science)

Graphene can be made to superconduct by placing it next to a Bose–Einstein condensate – a form of matter in which all the atoms are in the same quantum state. According to the theorists who discovered it, this new type of superconductivity stems from interactions between the electrons in graphene and quasiparticles called “bogolons” in the condensate. If demonstrated experimentally, the work could make it possible to develop new types of hybrid superconducting devices for applications in quantum sensing and quantum computing.