Ever since its discovery in 2004, graphene has been revolutionizing the field of materials science and beyond. Graphene comprises two-dimensional sheets of carbon atoms, bonded into a thin hexagonal shape with a thickness of one atom layer. This gives it remarkable physical and chemical properties.
Operating at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) since 2022, the FASER experiment is designed to search for extremely weakly interacting particles. Such particles are predicted by many theories beyond the Standard Model that are attempting to solve outstanding problems in physics such as the nature of dark matter and the matter-antimatter imbalance in the universe.
University of Copenhagen team contributes to an Antarctic large-scale experiment striving to find out if gravity also exists at the quantum level; An extraordinary particle able to travel undisturbed through space seems to hold the answer.
Several thousand sensors distributed over a square kilometer near the South Pole are tasked with answering one of the large outstanding questions in physics: does quantum gravity exist? The sensors monitor neutrinos – particles with no electrical charge and almost without mass – arriving at the Earth from outer space. A team from the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI), University of Copenhagen, has contributed to developing the method that exploits neutrino data to reveal if quantum gravity exists.
“If as we believe, quantum gravity does indeed exist, this will contribute to unite the current two worlds in physics. Today, classical physics describes the phenomena in our normal surroundings such as gravity, while the atomic world can only be described using quantum mechanics. The unification of quantum theory and gravitation remains one of the most outstanding challenges in fundamental physics. It would be very satisfying if we could contribute to that end,” says Tom Stuttard, Assistant Professor at NBI.
BREAD’s innovative approach to dark matter detection uses a coaxial “dish” antenna to scan for mysterious particles.
One of the great mysteries of modern science is dark matter. We know dark matter exists thanks to its effects on other objects in the cosmos, but we have never been able to directly see it. And it’s no minor thing—currently, scientists think it makes up about 85% of all the mass in the universe.
A new experiment by a collaboration led by the University of Chicago and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, known as the Broadband Reflector Experiment for Axion Detection or BREAD, has released its first results in the search for dark matter in a study published in Physical Review Letters. Though they did not find dark matter, they narrowed the constraints for where it might be and demonstrated a unique approach that may speed up the search for the mysterious substance, at relatively little space and cost.
A challenge to space scientists to better understand our hazardous near-Earth space environment has been set in a new study led by the University of Birmingham.
The research represents the first step towards new theories and methods that will help scientists predict and analyse the behaviour of particles in space.
It has implications for theoretical research, as well as for practical applications such as space weather forecasting.
A newly developed AI method can calculate a fundamental problem in quantum chemistry: Schrödinger’s Equation. The technique could calculate the ground state of the Schrödinger equation in quantum chemistry.
Predicting molecules’ chemical and physical properties by relying on their atoms’ arrangement in space is the main goal of quantum chemistry. This can be achieved by solving the Schrödinger equation, but in practice, this is extremely difficult.
This experiment, which was published in the journal Nature, opens new avenues for the search for gravitons in laboratory settings.
The graviton, if it exists, is theorized to be massless and capable of traveling at the speed of light, embodying the force of gravity. Yet, its direct observation has eluded scientists until now, if the team’s research holds up. The recent findings stem from an excitation phenomenon discovered in 2019 when Du was a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University. This phenomenon led theoretical physicists to speculate about the potential detection of gravitons.
The experiment’s success was the result of an international effort. High-quality semiconductor samples were prepared by researchers at Princeton University, while the experiment itself was conducted in a unique facility built over three years by Du and his team. This facility enabled the team to work at temperatures of minus 273.1 degrees Celsius and capture particle excitations as weak as 10 gigahertz, determining their spin.
Diagram of Neuron and Microtubules Reference video:
I would like to dedicate this video on Hodgkin and Huxley model of Neurons. That basically explains Neurons as electric circuits with the organization and movement of positive and negative charge. The positive and negative is in the form of ion atoms. The neuron membrane acts as a boundary separating charge with ionic gates embedded in the cell membrane forming the potential for the build-up and movement of ion charge. This process can form signals along the neurons with the potential difference across the cell membrane forming what is called an action potential.
The big question is how can this process of electrical activity form consciousness?
To answer this question we have to look deeper into the process.
When we do this, we find that the movement or action of charged particles like ions emit photon ∆E=hf energy.
Our everyday electronic devices, such as living room lights, washing machines, and televisions, operate thanks to electrical currents. Similarly, the functioning of computers is based on the manipulation of information by small charge carriers known as electrons. Spintronics, on the other hand, introduces a unique approach to this process.
Instead of the charge of electrons, the spintronic approach is to exploit their magnetic moment, in other words, their spin, to store and process information – aiming to make the computers of the future more compact, fast, and sustainable. One way of processing information based on this approach is to use the magnetic vortices called skyrmions or, alternatively, their still little understood and rarer cousins called ‘merons’. Both are collective topological structures formed of numerous individual spins. Merons have to date only been observed in natural antiferromagnets, where they are difficult to both analyze and manipulate.
Abstract: By harnessing the power of composite polymer particles adorned with gold nanoparticles, a group of researchers have delivered a more accurate means of testing for infectious diseases.
Details of their research was published in the journal Langmuir.
The COVID-19 pandemic reinforced the need for fast and reliable infectious disease testing in large numbers. Most testing done today involves antigen-antibody reactions. Fluorescence, absorptions, or color particle probes are attached to antibodies. When the antibodies stick to the virus, these probes visualize the virus’s presence. In particular, the use of color nanoparticles is renowned for its excellent visuality, along with its simplicity to implement, with little scientific equipment needed to perform lateral flow tests.
