Secrets

Satellite image of Pine Island Glacier captured on January 24, 1973, by the Multispectral Scanner on Landsat 1.Satellite image of Pine Island Glacier captured on December 15, 2001, by the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus on Landsat 7.New research shows that while some Antarctic ice shelves have been thinning since at least the 1970s, widespread thinning accelerated in the 1990s.For many ice shelves around Antarctica, the 1970s was a bumpy decade. Fast forward, and satellite images show that many of the bumps once prominently…

Highly precise optical absorption spectra of diamond reveal ultra-fine splitting. Credit: KyotoU/Nobuko NakaHighly precise optical absorption spectra of diamond reveal ultra-fine splitting.Besides being “a girl’s best friend,” diamonds have broad industrial applications, such as in solid-state electronics. New technologies aim to produce high-purity synthetic crystals that become excellent semiconductors when doped with impurities as electron donors or acceptors of other elements.The Science of DopingThese extra electrons…

Positronium cooling. The AEgIS collaboration at CERN has experimentally demonstrated the laser cooling of positronium using an alexandrite-based laser system. Credit: CERN – Politecnico di MilanoResearchers successfully cooled positronium atoms, significantly impacting antimatter research and enabling new experiments in quantum electrodynamics and the potential for an antimatter Bose-Einstein condensate.The international AEgIS (Antimatter Experiment: gravity, Interferometry, Spectroscopy) collaboration at CERN, in which…

An international research team has discovered that the piezoelectric properties of Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 capacitors can be dynamically altered by external electrical cycling, leading to the inversion of the piezoelectric effect’s sign. This revelation, supported by density functional theory, suggests the possibility of creating non-piezoelectric ferroelectric compounds, opening new avenues for the development of advanced ferroelectric HfO2-based devices. Credit: SciTechDaily.comHafnium oxide thin films are a fascinating class of…

If you’ve been in the job market long enough, chances are you’ve encountered a situation where you lost out on a job just because the other candidate had better connections than you. At times like these, it’s easy to feel helpless in the absurdity of the system that you can do nothing about.But, as one Redditor shared, every once in a while, the tables turn. After not passing the first round due to lack of experience, the person found out that out of the two remaining candidates, one didn’t have any experience and was…

Water molecules and electron density corresponding to the exciton state resulting from photon absorption. Credit: Krystian Tambur (background)/Alexey Tal (water molecules)Researchers at EPFL have achieved a significant breakthrough in understanding the electronic properties of water, a fundamental component of life and the environment.There is no doubt that water is significant. Without it, life would never have begun, let alone continue today – not to mention its role in the environment itself, with oceans covering over…

Advances in Alzheimer’s research have introduced groundbreaking diagnostic methods and treatments aimed at slowing disease progression. Early detection through biomarkers and blood tests offers a new horizon for effective intervention and personalized care strategies.Groundbreaking progress in Alzheimer’s treatment and diagnostics, including biomarkers and blood tests, heralds a new era of early intervention and personalized care in dementia research.Until recently, a diagnosis of dementia might help explain cognitive…

Scientists have devised a method of using fish scales to convey encrypted messages. Not only would the technology divert seafood industry waste from landfills, it should also be less costly than existing options such as special inks.The technique was developed by researchers at the National University of Singapore, led by Prof. Sow Chorng Haur. Potential applications include the production of authenticity-verifying tags on product packaging, which would be hard for counterfeiters to read and even more difficult for them…

This Hubble Space Telescope image features NGC 1841, a globular cluster within the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Globular clusters like NGC 1841, characterized by their density and ancient stars, serve as cosmic fossils, revealing the complexities of early galactic development. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Sarajedini, F. NiederhoferNGC 1841 in the Large Magellanic Cloud showcases the early universe’s star formation, highlighting the role of globular clusters as cosmic fossils within satellite galaxies of the Milky…

Collisions of heavy ions generate an immensely strong electromagnetic field. Scientists investigate traces of this powerful electromagnetic field in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), a state where quarks and gluons are liberated from the colliding protons and neutrons. Credit: Tiffany Bowman and Jen Abramowitz/Brookhaven National LaboratoryData from heavy ion collisions give new insight into electromagnetic properties of quark-gluon plasma.A new analysis by the STAR collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC),…