Lifeboat Foundation

A research team at the University of Pittsburgh led by Alexander Star, a chemistry professor in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, has developed a fentanyl sensor that is six orders of magnitude more sensitive than any electrochemical sensor for the drug reported in the past five years. The portable sensor can also tell the difference between fentanyl and other opioids.

Human activities account for a substantial amount—anywhere from 20% to more than 60%—of toxic thallium that has entered the Baltic Sea over the past 80 years, according to new research by scientists affiliated with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and other institutions.

Precisely measuring the energy states of individual atoms has been a historical challenge for physicists due to atomic recoil. When an atom interacts with a photon, the atom “recoils” in the opposite direction, making it difficult to measure the position and momentum of the atom precisely. This recoil can have big implications for quantum sensing, which detects minute changes in parameters, for example, using changes in gravitational waves to determine the shape of the Earth or even detect dark matter.

A new study co-authored by Yale sociologist Nicholas A. Christakis demonstrates that tapping into the dynamics of friendship significantly improves the possibility that a community will adopt public health and other interventions aimed at improved human well-being.

Hvidovre Hospital has the world’s first prototype of a sensor capable of detecting errors in MRI scans using laser light and gas. The new sensor, developed by a young researcher at the University of Copenhagen and Hvidovre Hospital, can thereby do what is impossible for current electrical sensors—and hopefully pave the way for MRI scans that are better, cheaper and faster.

The work introduces a completely new way to create and study strange metals, whose electrons behave differently than those in a conventional metal like copper. “It is a potential new approach to designing these unusual materials,” says Joseph G. Checkelsky, lead principal investigator of the research and Associate Professor of Physics.

Linda Ye, MIT Ph.D. ‘21, is first author of a paper on the work published earlier this year in Nature Physics. “A new way of making strange metals will help us develop a unifying theory behind their behavior. That has been quite challenging to date, and could lead to a better understanding of other materials, including high-temperature superconductors,” says Ye, now an assistant professor at the California Institute of Technology.

The Nature Physics paper is accompanied by a News & Views article titled, “A strange way to get a strange metal.”

The following is a summary of “Comparative Effectiveness of Partial Gland Cryoablation Versus Robotic Radical Prostatectomy for Cancer Control,” published in the April 2024 issue of Urology by Zhu et al.

In this study, researchers address the notable gap in high-level evidence comparing oncologic endpoints for partial gland ablation, where most existing series rely on prostate-specific antigen (PSA) rather than biopsy endpoints. The objective was to conduct a comprehensive comparison of oncologic outcomes between partial gland cryoablation (PGC) and radical prostatectomy (RP) for the management of prostate cancer.

Through a retrospective, single-center analysis, investigators examined a cohort of subjects treated with either PGC (n = 98) or RP (n = 536) as primary treatment for intermediate-risk (Gleason grade group [GG] 2–3) prostate cancer between January 2017 and December 2022. Key oncologic endpoints included surveillance biopsies per protocol after PGC and serial PSA testing after RP. The primary outcome of interest was treatment failure, which is defined as the necessity for salvage treatment or metastatic disease development. The study group conducted treatment failure and survival analyses using Cox proportional-hazard regression and Kaplan-Meier survival curves. After carefully applying inclusion/exclusion criteria, they compared the PGC (n = 75) and RP (n = 298) groups.

Exoplanet, K2-18b, raised several eyebrows with both the scientific community and the public in 2023 when NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope found a molecule called dimethyl sulphide (DMS) in the atmosphere of this Hycean world. However, a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters consisting of a team of international researchers led by the University of California, Riverside (UC Riverside) use computer models to challenge these recent findings. This study holds the potential to help scientists better understand what data analysis methods are the most efficient in identifying potential biosignatures on exoplanets.

“What was icing on the cake, in terms of the search for life, is that last year these researchers reported a tentative detection of dimethyl sulfide, or DMS, in the atmosphere of that planet, which is produced by ocean phytoplankton on Earth,” said Dr. Shang-Min Tsai, who is a postdoctoral researcher at UC Riverside and lead author of the study.

For the study, the researchers used a variety of 2D and 3D computer models to ascertain the likelihood of detecting DMS within the data. in the end, they found that DMS could not be detected within the data but were quick to note that accumulation of DMS could result in it reaching amounts where it could be detected. To find DMS, JWST would need to use a more powerful instrument than what it used last year to identify DMS, which it hopes to use later this year.

MIT physicists have developed a technique that allows them to arrange atoms in much closer proximity, down to a mere 50 nanometers.

Proximity is key for many quantum phenomena, as interactions between atoms are stronger when the particles are close. In many quantum simulators, scientists arrange atoms as close together as possible to explore exotic states of matter and build new quantum materials.