Project 8 marks a major milestone in its quest to measure neutrino mass. The humble neutrino, an elusive subatomic particle that passes effortlessly through normal matter, plays an outsized role among the particles that comprise our universe. To fully explain how our universe came to be, we need to know its mass. But, like so many of us, it avoids being weighed. Now, an international team of researchers from the United States and Germany leading an ambitious quest called Project…

A team of scientists from Ames National Laboratory developed a new machine learning model for discovering critical-element-free permanent magnet materials. The model predicts the Curie temperature of new material combinations. It is an important first step in using artificial intelligence to predict new permanent magnet materials. This model adds to the team’s recently developed capability for discovering thermodynamically stable rare earth materials. High performance magnets are essential for technologies such as wind energy, data storage, electric vehicles, and magnetic refrigeration….

ERC Starting Grant for Daniel Keefer. Whether solar cells or photosynthesis in plants: The interaction of light with molecules often plays a crucial role in chemical and physical processes. In many cases, however, the exact quantum mechanical processes are not sufficiently understood. It is difficult to investigate them experimentally, because some signals emitted by the molecules are hidden by signals that are superimposed on them. Daniel Keefer, group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, has now obtained…

CISPA researcher Dr. Rebekka Burkholz receives ERC Starting Grant. Rebekka Burkholz wants to democratize machine learning. Her starting point: Making artificial neural networks smaller and at the same time more efficient, so that they can eventually be developed on all devices and be available to more users. The European Research Council (ERC) is now funding her research project, called SPARSE-ML, for five years with an ERC Starting Grant totaling 1.5 million euros. Machine learning is a rapidly growing area of…

… begins its transfer to the US for the scheduled 2024 launch. To observe the space environment landing on the low-latitude Reiner Gamma region on the near side of the Moon. The Ministry of Science and ICT (Minister Jong-Ho Lee, hereinafter referred to as ‘MSIT’) and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (Director Young-Deuk Park, hereinafter referred to as ‘KASI’) announced the beginning of the transfer of the lunar space environment monitor, ‘LUSEM'(Lunar Space Environment Monitor) that will be…

National University of Singapore (NUS) scientists demonstrated a conceptual breakthrough by fabricating atomically precise quantum antidots (QAD) using self-assembled single vacancies (SVs) in a two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD). Quantum dot confines electrons on a nanoscale level. In contrast, an antidot refers to a region characterised by a potential hill that repels electrons. By strategically introducing antidot patterns (“voids”) into carefully designed antidot lattices, intriguing artificial structures emerge. These structures exhibit periodic potential modulation to change 2D electron behaviour,…

Stampede2 simulations help capture helium gas clouds escaping distant planet. A planet about 950 light years from Earth could be the Looney Tunes’ Yosemite Sam equivalent of planets, blowing its atmospheric ‘top’ in spectacular fashion. The planet called HAT-P-32b is losing so much of its atmospheric helium that the trailing gas tails are among the largest structures yet known of an exoplanet, a planet outside our solar system, according to observations by astronomers. Three-dimensional (3D) simulations on the Stampede2 supercomputer of the Texas Advanced Computing Center…

Auburn scientists receive a Department of Energy award to accelerate fusion energy research by developing a Findable, Interoperable, Accessible, and Reusable (FAIR) data platform and training a diverse workforce. Fusion is the process of combining two light atomic nuclei to form a single heavier one while releasing massive amounts of energy. The Sun and all stars are powered through fusion, which makes it the universe’s preferred method of producing energy. Recent breakthroughs in fusion research have led to the US…

… moves to public phase of researching, testing. A wireless tower at Iowa State University’s Ag Engineering/Agronomy Farm west of Ames is loaded with hardware sending radio waves across the countryside, creating wireless internet connections for rural users. There are more poles, antennas and cabinets full of electronics on the roof of the Economic Development Core Facility at the Iowa State University Research Park. And bolted to the top of Wilson Hall, a 10-story residence hall. And hanging from the…

Quantum random number generation based on a perovskite light emitting diode. Digital information exchange can be safer, cheaper and more environmentally friendly with the help of a new type of random number generator for encryption developed at Linköping University, Sweden. The researchers behind the study believe that the new technology paves the way for a new type of quantum communication. In an increasingly connected world, cybersecurity is becoming increasingly important to protect not just the individual, but also, for example,…

… being developed at University of Houston. With an increasing number of severe accidents in the global oil and gas industry caused by damaged pipelines, University of Houston researchers are developing an autonomous robot to identify potential pipeline leaks and structural failures during subsea inspections. The transformative technology will make the inspection process far safer and more cost effective, while also protecting subsea environments from disaster. Thousands of oil spills occur in U.S. waters each year for a variety of…

The fusion of 2D semiconductors and ferroelectric materials could lead to joint digital and analog information processing, with significant improvement in energy consumption, electronic device performance, and lead to novel functionalities. We live in an analog world of continuous information flow that is both processed and stored by our brains at the same time, but our devices process information digitally in the form of discrete binary code, breaking the information into little bits (or bites). Researchers at EPFL have revealed a pioneering technology that combines…

Higher-order topological insulators are unusual materials that can support topologically protected states. Recently discovered disclination states also belong to the class of higher-order topological states but are bound to the boundary of the disclination defect of the higher-order topological insulator and can be predicted using the bulk-disclination correspondence principle. So far, topological disclination states were observed only in the linear regime, while the interplay between nonlinearity and topology in the systems with disclinations has never been studied experimentally. In a…

Coming to a tight spot near you: CLARI, the little, squishable robot that can passively change its shape to squeeze through narrow gaps—with a bit of inspiration from the world of bugs. CLARI, which stands for Compliant Legged Articulated Robotic Insect, comes from a team of engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder. It also has the potential to aid first responders after major disasters in an entirely new way. Several of these robots can easily fit in the palm…

Researchers at Mainz University, TU Darmstadt, and Wuhan University overcome fundamental obstacles for writing and drawing lines, letters, and complex patterns within the bulk of a liquid. Writing is an age-old cultural technique. Thousands of years ago, humans were already carving signs and symbols into stone slabs. Scripts have become far more sophisticated since then but one aspect remains the same: Whether the writer is using cuneiform or a modern alphabet, a solid substrate, such as clay or paper, is…

In a milestone for artificial intelligence (AI), the AI system “Swift”, designed by UZH researchers, has beaten the world champions in drone racing – a result that seemed unattainable just a few years ago. The AI-piloted drone was trained in a simulated environment. Real-world applications include environmental monitoring or disaster response. Remember when IBM’s Deep Blue won against Gary Kasparov at chess in 1996, or Google’s AlphaGo crushed the top champion Lee Sedol at Go, a much more complex game,…