Lifeboat Foundation

The 2011 accident at the Fukushima-Daiichi plant in Japan inspired extensive research and analysis that elevated nuclear energy into a standard bearer for safety. It also inspired a number of studies at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory. Scientists want to look more closely at nuclear fuel materials to better understand how they will behave at extremely high temperatures.

Researchers have developed a new way to see organs within a body by rendering overlying tissues transparent to visible light. The counterintuitive process—a topical application of food-safe dye—was reversible in tests with animal subjects, and may ultimately apply to a wide range of medical diagnostics, from locating injuries to monitoring digestive disorders to identifying cancers.

In the case of NiPS₃, the researchers observed an intermediate symmetry breaking which leads to a vestigial order. Just as the term “vestigial” refers to the retention of certain traits during the process of evolution, the vestigial order here can also be viewed as the retention during the process of symmetry breaking.

This happens when the primary magnetic long-range order state melts or breaks down into a simpler form, in the NiPS₃ case, a 2D vestigial order state (known as Z₃ Potts-nematicity), as the material is thinned. Unlike conventional symmetry breaking, which involves the breaking of all symmetries, vestigial order only involves the breaking of some symmetries.

While there are numerous examples from a theoretical standpoint, experimental realizations of vestigial order have remained challenging. However, the investigation of this 2D magnetic material has shed the first light on this issue, demonstrating that such a phenomenon can be observed through dimension crossover.

A better understanding of the inner workings of neutron stars will lead to a greater knowledge of the dynamics that underpin the workings of the universe and also could help drive future technology, said the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign physics professor Nicolas Yunes. A new study led by Yunes details how new insights into how dissipative tidal forces within double—or binary—neutron star systems will inform our understanding of the universe.

Pain is a complex, multifaceted experience shaped by various factors beyond physical sensation, such as a person’s mindset and their expectations of pain. The placebo effect, the tendency for a person’s symptoms to improve in response to inactive treatment, is a well-known example of how expectations can significantly alter a person’s experience. Mindfulness meditation, which has been used for pain management in various cultures for centuries, has long been thought to work by activating the placebo response. However, scientists have now shown that this is not the case.

A new study, published in Biological Psychiatry, has revealed that mindfulness meditation engages distinct brain mechanisms to reduce pain compared to those of the placebo response. The study, conducted by researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, used advanced brain imaging techniques to compare the pain-reducing effects of mindfulness meditation, a placebo cream and a “sham” mindfulness meditation in healthy participants.

The study found that mindfulness meditation produced significant reductions in pain intensity and pain unpleasantness ratings, and also reduced brain activity patterns associated with pain and negative emotions. In contrast, the placebo cream only reduced the brain activity pattern associated with the placebo effect, without affecting the person’s underlying experience of pain.

A collaborative study by the University of Cologne revealed that magnetic excitations in BaCO2V2O8 crystals involve unusual repulsively bound states, a significant discovery made by irradiating the crystals with terahertz waves.

A team of solid-state physicists from the University of Cologne, along with international collaborators, studied BaCO2V2O8 crystals in a laboratory in Cologne. Their research revealed that the magnetic elementary excitations in the crystals are influenced by both attractive and repulsive interactions.

However, this results in a lower stability, making the observation of such repulsively bound states all the more surprising. The results of the study were recently published in Nature.

Analysis of lunar samples reveals that the Moon experienced volcanic activity until 120 million years ago, much later than previously thought.

This insight comes from examining glass beads in the samples, indicating localized volcanic activity fueled by radioactive elements.

Recent Lunar Volcanic Activity

🚀 LumenOrbit (YC S24) is building a network of megawatt-scale data centers in space, scalable to gigawatt capacity.

Why we should train AI in space.

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Across all species, critical skills are passed on from parents to offspring through communication. Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the Researchers at the University of Bonn showed that effective communication relies on how both the sender and receiver represent information. Their study reveals how this process underlies training efficacy and task performance. Their results have been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Communication—be it through sounds, smells or movements—is crucial for survival. Its social aspect is fundamental to cognition, as our task descriptions in the brain are shaped not only by sensory experiences, but also by the information communicated to us.

“We know from our everyday lives that social communication is essential to our learning abilities in the real world, which is summed up by the saying ‘teaching is learning for the second time,” says Prof. Tatjana Tchumatchenko, from the Institute of Experimental Epileptology and Cognition Research at the UKB and member of the Transdisciplinary Research Area (TRA) “Modelling” at the University of Bonn.