The cup will scoop up and examine the solar wind as the probe passes closer to the sun than any previous manmade object. Justin Kasper, University of Michigan associate professor of climate and space sciences and engineering, is principal investigator for Parker’s Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons (SWEAP) investigation. In order to confirm the cup will survive the extreme heat and light of the sun’s corona, researchers previously tortured a model of the Faraday cup at temperatures exceeding 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,650 degrees Celsius), courtesy of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Plasma Arc Lamp....

Reports of harmful algal blooms—like the ones that shut down Toledo’s water supply in 2014 or led to states of emergency being declared in Florida in 2016 and 2018—are growing. These aquatic phenomena are harmful either because of the intensity of their growth, or because they include populations of toxin-producing phytoplankton. But before this research effort, it was unclear whether the problem was truly getting worse on a global scale....

Backed by five high-performance computing (HPC) clusters and years of expertise in vaccine and countermeasure development, a COVID-19 response team of LLNL researchers from various disciplines has used modeling and simulation, along with machine learning, to identify about 20 initial, yet promising, antibody designs from a nearly infinite set of potentials and to examine millions of small molecules that could have anti-viral properties. The candidates will need to be synthesized and experimentally tested — which Lab researchers cautioned could take time — but progress is being made....

At specific wavelengths, LEDs can inactivate the virus; A group of researchers has developed a way to achieve these wavelengths more efficiently. LEDs are commonly used for sterilization — you may be using one to clean your electric toothbrush, for example. In the continued effort to combat the coronavirus pandemic, LEDs can also help inactivate SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. During the AIP Publishing Horizons — Energy Storage and Conversion virtual conference, which was held August 4-6, 2021, Tariq Jamil, Muhammad Usman, Habibullah Jamal, and Sibghatullah Khan, from the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology in Pakistan, discussed the development of an ultraviolet LED for potential disinfection of the coronavirus....

A large study at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden has found a link between ADHD and dementia across generations. The study, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, shows that parents and grandparents of individuals with ADHD were at higher risk of dementia than those with children and grandchildren without ADHD. “The findings suggest that there are common genetic and/or environmental contributions to the association between ADHD and dementia....

Earth’s magnetic field is a complex and dynamic bubble that keeps us safe from harmful cosmic radiation and charged particles carried by powerful solar winds flowing from the Sun. When these particles collide with atoms and molecules – mainly oxygen and nitrogen – in the upper atmosphere, some of the energy in the collisions is transformed into the green-blue light that is typical of the aurora borealis. These “northern lights” can sometimes be seen from high-northern latitudes....

In the fall and winter, water levels on the Mississippi River normally decline, but not by nearly as much as they did in October 2022. Recent weeks of dry weather in the Ohio River Valley and Upper Mississippi River Valley have caused river water to drop to levels that have not been seen in more than a decade along key parts of the river. Besides for slowing barge traffic, the low water levels are raising concerns that saltwater intrusions in the Lower Mississippi could affect water supplies....

The space high above Earth may seem empty, but it’s a carnival packed with magnetic field lines and high-energy particles. This region is known as the magnetosphere and, every day, charged particles put on a show as they dart and dive through it. Like tiny tightrope walkers, the high-energy electrons follow the magnetic field lines. Sometimes, such as during an event called magnetic reconnection where the lines explosively collide, the particles are shot off their trajectories, as if they were fired from a cannon....

A NASA spacecraft is providing new evidence of a wet underground environment on Mars that adds to an increasingly complex picture of the Red Planet’s early evolution. The new information comes from researchers analyzing spectrometer data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which looked down on the floor of McLaughlin Crater. The Martian crater is 57 miles (92 kilometers) in diameter and 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometers) deep. McLaughlin’s depth apparently once allowed underground water, which otherwise would have stayed hidden, to flow into the crater’s interior....

aLIGO records (part of) the inspiral, merger, and ring-down of the orbiting black holes—as shown in Figure 1 (above). aLIGO can only record these events if they occur within its operating lifetime—that means that the progenitor stars must collapse to black holes before they merge, and the subsequent orbiting black holes must spiral in towards each other and merge within the age of the Universe. For that to happen, the black holes must be big and close together; however, progenitor stars big enough and close enough to produce a binary black hole (BBH) system that would spiral in and eventually merge within the age of the universe, and that could generate gravitational waves detectable by aLIGO, would be too big and too close; so these progenitor stars merge first and then collapse into black holes....

Massive sponge gardens thrive on top of seamounts in the Central Arctic Ocean, one of the most oligotrophic seas on Earth. They appear to feed on the remnants of an extinct fauna. Microorganisms support the sponges in exploiting this fluffy material as a source of food and energy. Scientists from Bremen, Bremerhaven and Kiel and their international partners discovered this unique hotspot of life during a POLARSTERN expedition and now report their findings in the journal Nature Communications....

Experts at Newcastle University found that individuals who ate a Mediterranean-like diet had up to 23% lower risk for dementia than those who did not. This research, published on March 14, 2023, in the journal BMC Medicine, is one of the biggest studies of its kind as previous studies have typically been limited to small sample sizes and low numbers of dementia cases. Priority for researchers Scientists analyzed data from 60,298 individuals from the UK Biobank, a large cohort including individuals from across the UK, who had completed a dietary assessment....

In the vast garden of the universe, the heaviest black holes grew from seeds. Nourished by the gas and dust they consumed, or by merging with other dense objects, these seeds grew in size and heft to form the centers of galaxies, such as our own Milky Way. But unlike in the realm of plants, the seeds of giant black holes must have been black holes, too. And no one has ever found these seeds — yet....

In large parts of the developing world, people have abundant heat from the sun during the day, but most cooking takes place later in the evening when the sun is down, using fuel — such as wood, brush, or dung — that is collected with significant time and effort. Now, a new chemical composite developed by researchers at MIT could provide an alternative. It could be used to store heat from the sun or any other source during the day in a kind of thermal battery, and it could release the heat when needed, for example for cooking or heating after dark....

The largest quantum computers available today are only equipped with a few hundred “qubits,” the quantum equivalents of digital bits. Now, researchers at MIT have proposed a new approach to making qubits and controlling them to read and write data. The method, which is theoretical at this stage, is based on measuring and controlling the spins of atomic nuclei, using beams of light from two lasers of slightly different colors....

Enter 2D materials — delicate, two-dimensional sheets of perfect crystals that are as thin as a single atom. At the scale of nanometers, 2D materials can conduct electrons far more efficiently than silicon. The search for next-generation transistor materials therefore has focused on 2D materials as potential successors to silicon. But before the electronics industry can transition to 2D materials, scientists have to first find a way to engineer the materials on industry-standard silicon wafers while preserving their perfect crystalline form....

In a new, two-dimensional magnetic substance, MIT scientists have now discovered a different kind of hybrid particle. They discovered that the hybrid particle is a combination of an electron and a phonon (a quasiparticle created by the vibrating atoms of a substance). They discovered that the glue, or bond, between the electron and phonon was 10 times stronger than any previous electron-phonon hybrid up to that point. The particle’s exceptional bond suggests that its electron and phonon might be tuned in tandem; for instance, any change to the electron should affect the phonon, and vice versa....

Explanation methods that help users understand and trust machine-learning models often describe how much certain features used in the model contribute to its prediction. For example, if a model predicts a patient’s risk of developing cardiac disease, a physician might want to know how strongly the patient’s heart rate data influences that prediction. But if those features are so complex or convoluted that the user can’t understand them, does the explanation method do any good?...

The population of threatened southern sea otters in Elkhorn Slough, an estuary in Central California, has made a significant comeback as a result of Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sea Otter Program. A newly-published study in Oryx—The International Journal of Conservation documents 15 years of research showing how the program helped restore the population in the coastal estuary, with surrogate-reared otters and their descendants accounting for more than 50 percent of observed population growth during that period....

Many of us are waiting for the day when we no longer need to wear masks in public and can go to a concert or simply hug our loved ones. And as more people are vaccinated against COVID-19, there is growing optimism for a happier and healthier future. But experts warn that life will not return to normal like the flip of a switch, and expect many health precautions and restrictions implemented during the pandemic to stick around for the foreseeable future....