Lifeboat Foundation

Candle flames and airplane engines produce tiny soot particles from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) as their precursors, both of which are harmful to humans and the environment. These carbon-based particles are also common in space, making up 10–12% of interstellar matter, and are becoming valuable for use in electronic devices and sustainable energy. However, the fingerprint signals of soot and PAHs have very short lifespans in flames—lasting only a few billionths to millionths of a second. This brief existence requires very fast cameras to capture their behavior in both space and time.

Astronomers from the Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in Russia and elsewhere report the discovery of a new cataclysmic variable system, designated SRGe J194401.8+284452, which is located some 1,350 light years away. The finding was detailed in a research paper published August 26 on the pre-print server arXiv.

The world’s most powerful supercomputer is helping resolve conflicting research results that have puzzled scientists for more than a decade, which could also shine new light inside collapsing stars.

Mimicking animals is a proven strategy in robot design. Take, for example, Haibo Dong’s seminal studies on how fins propel fish by churning the water in a vortex.

Researchers from Skoltech, Universitat Politècnica de València, Institute of Spectroscopy of RAS, University of Warsaw, and University of Iceland have demonstrated the spontaneous formation and synchronization of multiple quantum vortices in optically excited semiconductor microcavities.

Upon ultrafast photoexcitation, an all-dielectric nonlocal metasurface enables giant dichroism and birefringence modulations, working as a quarter-waveplate actively reconfigurable over picoseconds.

Thousands of light particles can merge into a type of “super photon” under certain conditions. Researchers at the University of Bonn have now been able to use “tiny nano molds” to influence the design of this so-called Bose-Einstein condensate. This enables them to shape the speck of light into a simple lattice structure consisting of four points of light arranged in quadratic form. Such structures could potentially be used in the future to make the exchange of information between multiple participants tap-proof.

The results have now been published in the journal Physical Review Letters (“Bose-Einstein Condensation of Photons in a Four-Site Quantum Ring”).

By creating indents on the reflective surfaces (shown on the left in an exaggerated form; the reflective surfaceis facing upwards), the researchers were able to imprint a structure ontothe photon condensate (right). (Image: IAP, Universität Bonn)

Advances in generative AI mean fake images, videos, audio and bots are now everywhere. But studies have revealed the best ways to tell if something is real.

By Jeremy Hsu

Diamonds are forever 💎 A team of scientists from UniMelb, RMIT University and The City College of New York were able to observe lightning in a diamond ⚡️ Diamond chips can potentially be used in electronics and are more powerful than silicon. Tap to learn more ➡️

We also don’t yet fully understand how charges flow inside diamond, and how unavoidable impurities and defects affect these electrical properties.

In a recent study with colleagues from the University of Melbourne, RMIT University and the City College of New York, we sought to combine electrical measurements of a diamond optoelectronic device with 3D optical microscopy.

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