Using advanced computational modelling, a research team led by the University of Oxford, working in partnership with the Instituto Superior Técnico in the University of Lisbon, has achieved the first-ever real-time, three-dimensional simulations of how intense laser beams alter the ‘quantum vacuum’—a state once assumed to be empty, but which quantum physics predicts is full of virtual electron-positron pairs. Excitingly, these simulations recreate a bizarre phenomenon predicted by quantum physics, known as vacuum four-wave mixing. This states that the combined…

An international team of astronomers, including researchers from the University of Liège and collaborators in UK, Chile, the USA, and Europe, has discovered a giant planet orbiting the smallest known star to host such a companion The host star, TOI-6894, is a red dwarf with only 20% the mass of the Sun, typical of the most common stars in our galaxy. Until now, such low-mass stars were not thought capable of forming or retaining giant planets. But as published today…

The detection of atmospheric methane and silicon monoxide suggests that it originated in a region analogous to the Solar System’s domain of gas and ice giants. Observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have provided new clues about how the exoplanet WASP-121b has formed and where it might have originated in the disc of gas and dust around its star. These insights stem from the detection of multiple key molecules: water vapour, carbon monoxide, silicon monoxide, and methane. With…

MISTRAL is a new generation receiver installed on the Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT) and built by the Sapienza University of Rome for the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) as part of the upgrade of the radio telescope for the study of the Universe at high frequencies, funded by a PON (National Operational Program) project, concluded in 2023 and now providing its first significant scientific results. MISTRAL stands for “MIllimetric Sardinia radio Telescope Receiver based on Array of Lumped elements kids”….

A new quantum random number generator is almost 1000 times faster than other generators and much smaller, promising to change data management and cybersecurity in several industries including health, finance, and defense A joint team of researchers led by scientists at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) has reported the fastest quantum random number generator (QRNG) to date based on international benchmarks. The QRNG, which passed the required randomness…

Very secure and highly efficient: encryption and decryption with luminescent perovskites To guarantee high data security, encryption must be unbreakable while the data remains rapidly and easily readable. A novel strategy for optical encryption/decryption of information has now been introduced in the journal Angewandte Chemie by a Chinese research team. It is based on compounds with carefully modulated luminescent properties that change in response to external stimuli. The compounds are hybrid two-dimensional organic-inorganic metal-halide perovskites, whose structure consists of inorganic…

Could black holes help explain high-energy cosmic radiation? The universe is full of different types of radiation and particles that can be observed here on Earth. This includes photons across the entire range of the electromagnetic spectrum, from the lowest radio frequencies all the way to the highest-energy gamma rays. It also includes other particles such as neutrinos and cosmic rays, which race through the universe at close to the speed of light. Curiously, “cosmic rays” are not actually rays…

Laser Ion acceleration uses intense laser flashes to heat electrons of a solid to enormous temperatures and propel these charged particles to extreme speeds. These have recently gained traction for applications in selectively destroying cancerous tumor cells, in processing semiconductor materials, and due to their excellent properties – for imaging and fusion relevant conditions. Massive laser systems with several Joules of light energy are needed to irradiate solids for the purpose. This produces a flash of ions which are accelerated…

Turbulence on the Galactic Scales From the ocean’s rolling swells to the bumpy ride of a jetliner, turbulence is everywhere. It breaks large waves into smaller ones, cascading energy across scales. It is ubitquitous throughout our Galaxy and the broader Universe, shaping the behavior of plasma, stars, and magnetic fields. Yet despite its ubiquity, turbulence remains one of the greatest unsolved problems in physics. Now, by developing the world’s largest-ever simulations of magnetized turbulence, an international team of scientists has measured —…

An international team of researchers, including the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI), has used a mismatch between elementary particles and gamma rays from NGC 1068 to propose a new route by which neutrinos can be produced. Antarctic ice has eyes that can see elementary particles called neutrinos, and what they’ve observed is puzzling scientists: a remarkably strong neutrino signal accompanied by a surprisingly weak gamma ray emission in the galaxy NGC 1068,…

Can we do away with the troublesome singularity at the heart of black holes? A new paper in JCAP reimagines these extreme objects in light of current knowledge. “Hic sunt leones,” remarks Stefano Liberati, one of the authors of the paper and director of IFPU. The phrase refers to the hypothetical singularity predicted at the center of standard black holes — those described by solutions to Einstein’s field equations. To understand what this means, a brief historical recap is helpful….

Digital Evolution Index from The Fletcher School at Tufts University provide in-depth look at technology adoption and the state of AI around the world Digital Planet, published by The Fletcher School at Tufts University has unveiled the Digital Evolution Index, charting the progress of 125 economies around the world have made in advancing their digital economies, developing artificial intelligence (AI), and integrating connectivity into the lives of billions. This latest edition of the index, developed in collaboration with Mastercard, illustrates…

Researchers at the University of Utah’s Department of Psychiatry and Huntsman Mental Health Institute today published a paper introducing RiskPath, an open source software toolkit that uses Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) to predict whether individuals will develop progressive and chronic diseases years before symptoms appear, potentially transforming how preventive healthcare is delivered. XAI is an artificial intelligence system that can explain complex decisions in ways humans can understand. The new technology represents a significant advancement in disease prediction and prevention…

The XRISM science team, including members of Nagoya University, has explained how galaxy clusters maintain their heat despite emitting X-rays, which typically have a cooling effect on the hot gas. By observation of the Centaurus cluster of galaxies, the XRISM team discovered the existence of a fast-moving, high-temperature gas flow in the center of the cluster. Their findings, published by Nature, may solve the ‘cooling flow problem’, explaining why clusters of galaxies look like they do. Galaxy clusters are made…

First Light! The spectro-polarimeter of the world’s largest solar telescope in Hawaii looks at the Sun for the first time. The instrument was developed in Germany With a primary mirror diameter of four meters, the Inouye Solar Telescope is the largest in the world. Thanks to the optimal observational conditions on the Hawaiian volcano Haleakala and the use of sophisticated methods of image stabilization and reconstruction, the Inouye Solar Telescope has been providing breathtakingly detailed views of our star since…

Researchers train AI to predict if and why proteins form sticky clumps, a mechanism linked to 50 human diseases affecting half a billion people An AI tool has made a step forward in translating the language proteins use to dictate whether they form sticky clumps similar to those linked to Alzheimer’s Disease and around fifty other types of human disease. In a departure from typical “black-box” AI models, the new tool, CANYA, was designed to be able to explain its…