Science & TechnologyS


Info

Quantum discovery offers glimpse into other-worldly realm

Gavin Pugh and Minna Tiainen
Aalto University Finland
Tue, 29 Aug 2023 07:18 UTC
Experiments promote a curious flipside of decaying monopoles: a reality where particle physics is quite literally turned on its head.
Alice ring
© Heikka Valja/Aalto UniversityArtistic illustration of an Alice ring, which researchers have just observed for the first time in nature.
The field of quantum physics is rife with paths leading to tantalising new areas of study, but one rabbit hole offers a unique vantage point into a world where particles behave differently — through the proverbial looking glass.

Dubbed the 'Alice ring' after Lewis Carroll's world-renowned stories on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the appearance of this object verifies a decades-old theory on how monopoles decay. Specifically, that they decay into a ring-like vortex, where any other monopoles passing through its centre are flipped into their opposite magnetic charges.

Published in Nature Communications on August 29, these findings mark the latest discovery in a string of work that has spanned the collaborative careers of Aalto University Professor Mikko Möttönen and Amherst College Professor David Hall.

'This was the first time our collaboration was able to create Alice rings in nature, which was a monumental achievement,' Möttönen said.

'This fundamental research opens new doors into understanding how these structures and their analogues in particle physics function in the universe,' Hall added.

The long-standing relationship, titled the Monopole Collaboration, initially proved the existence of a quantum analogue of the magnetic monopole in 2014, isolated quantum monopoles in 2015, and eventually observed one decay into the other in 2017.

Monopoles remain an elusive concept in the arena of quantum physics. As the name suggests, monopoles are the solitary counterpart of dipoles, which carry a positive charge at their north pole and a negative charge at the south. In contrast, a monopole carries only either a positive or negative charge.

While the concept sounds simple, realising a true monopole has proven to be a career-defining task. Here's how the Monopole Collaboration has done it: they manipulated a gas of rubidium atoms prepared in a nonmagnetic state near absolute zero temperature. Under these extreme conditions, they were then able to create a monopole by steering a zero point of a three-dimensional magnetic field into the quantum gas.
Read More...
Info

How plants pass down genetic memories

Jennifer Michalowski
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Mon, 28 Aug 2023 01:11 UTC
Arabidopsis thaliana
© Cold Spring Harbor LaboratoryArabidopsis thaliana is a plant species widely used to make fundamental biological discoveries. With the help of this versatile test subject, CSHL scientists have now dug up the secrets of a process that helps control inheritance.
When organisms pass their genes on to future generations, they include more than the code spelled out in DNA. Some also pass along chemical markers that instruct cells how to use that code. The passage of these markers to future generations is known as epigenetic inheritance. It's particularly common in plants. So, significant findings here may have implications for agriculture, food supplies, and the environment.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Professors and HHMI Investigators Rob Martienssen and Leemor Joshua-Tor have been researching how plants pass along the markers that keep transposons inactive. Transposons are also known as jumping genes. When switched on, they can move around and disrupt other genes. To silence them and protect the genome, cells add regulatory marks to specific DNA sites. This process is called methylation.

Martienssen and Joshua-Tor have now shown how protein DDM1 makes way for the enzyme that places these marks on new DNA strands. Plant cells need DDM1 because their DNA is tightly packaged. To keep their genomes compact and orderly, cells wrap their DNA around packing proteins called histones. "But that blocks access to the DNA for all sorts of important enzymes," Martienssen explains. Before methylation can occur, "you have to remove or slide the histones out of the way."
Read More...
Galaxy

Quantum 'yin-yang' holographic image shows two photons being entangled in real-time

Ben Turner
LIve Science
Thu, 24 Aug 2023 17:53 UTC
holograph photon entanglement yin yang
© Nature Photonics, Zia et al.The reconstruction of a holographic image of two entangled photons
The stunning experiment, which reconstructs the properties of entangled photons from a 2D interference pattern, could be used to design faster quantum computers.

Scientists have used a first-of-its-kind technique to visualize two entangled light particles in real time — making them appear as a stunning quantum "yin-yang" symbol.

The new method, called biphoton digital holography, uses an ultra high-precision camera and could be used to massively speed up future quantum measurements.

The researchers published their findings Aug. 14 in the journal Nature Photonics.
Read More...
Brain

Brain-reading devices allow paralysed people to talk using their thoughts

Miryam Naddaf
Nature
Wed, 23 Aug 2023 00:01 UTC
brain-reading device
© Noah BergerA brain-computer interface translates the study participant’s brain signals into the speech and facial movements of an animated avatar.
Two studies report considerable improvements in technologies designed to help people with facial paralysis to communicate.

Brain-reading implants enhanced using artificial intelligence (AI) have enabled two people with paralysis to communicate with unprecedented accuracy and speed.

In separate studies, both published on 23 August in Nature1,2, two teams of researchers describe brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) that translate neural signals into text or words spoken by a synthetic voice. The BCIs can decode speech at 62 words per minute and 78 words per minute, respectively. Natural conversation happens at around 160 words per minute, but the new technologies are both faster than any previous attempts.
Read More...
X

Royal Society Lockdown Report authors understand that by ignoring high quality evidence they reach the politically acceptable conclusion

Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson
The Daily Sceptic
Fri, 25 Aug 2023 18:54 UTC
mark walport
Mark Walport
This week saw the publication of a suite of systematic reviews by the Royal Society (RS) on the effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions in the pandemic.

Politico headlined with 'Top review says Covid lockdowns and masks worked, period'. The Guardian led with 'Lockdowns and face masks "unequivocally" cut the spread of Covid, report finds', and the i newspaper stated: 'Masks and social distancing did reduce Covid infections, new report shows, proving lockdown sceptics wrong.'

So there you have it, a slam dunk, sceptics, you were all wrong. You should have masked up and stayed in lockdown.

Even more so when you listen to the Chair of the report's group, Mark Walport, who said: "There is sufficient evidence to conclude that early, stringent implementation of packages of complementary NPIs was unequivocally effective in limiting SARS-CoV-2 infections."

Four systematic reviews informed the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions in the Covid pandemic. However, here is some of what these reviews report.
Read More...
Info

Researchers fully sequence the Y chromosome for the first time


NIST
Wed, 23 Aug 2023 16:55 UTC
Chromosome Sequence
© N. Hanacek/NIST
What was once the final frontier of the human genome — the Y chromosome — has just been mapped out in its entirety.

Led by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), a team of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and many other organizations used advanced sequencing technologies to read out the full DNA sequence of the Y chromosome — a region of the genome that typically drives male reproductive development. The results of a study published in Nature demonstrate that this advance improves DNA sequencing accuracy for the chromosome, which could help identify certain genetic disorders and potentially uncover the genetic roots of others.

DNA sequencing isn't as simple as reading genetic material from a genome's beginning to its end. DNA gets chopped up when it is extracted from cells, plus even the best sequencing equipment can only handle relatively small bits of DNA at a time. So, researchers and clinicians rely on special software to piece together fragments of sequenced code in the correct order like a puzzle.

A reference genome is a separate, already pieced-together genome that serves as a guide, similar to the pictures on the front of puzzle boxes. And because 99.9% of our species' genetic code is shared, any human genome would closely match a reference.

Last year, a team from the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) consortium, which is made up of experts from dozens of organizations such as NIST, generated the most complete reference genome at the time by using new sequencing technologies to crack previously indecipherable regions of the genome. But cells used in that work did not contain the most puzzling of all, the Y chromosome.
Read More...
Cow Skull

Noncoding DNA explains a majority of the heritability of dairy cattle traits, like milk production and fertility

Cell Press
Phys.org
Wed, 23 Aug 2023 20:41 UTC
cows grazing methane cattle farming
© George Pachantouris/Moment/Getty Images
Regulatory genes — genes that control how other genes are used — are responsible for 69% of the heritability of dairy cattle traits such as milk production and fertility, according to a study published August 23 in the journal Cell Genomics.

This contribution is 44% more than expected and much higher than previous studies of regulatory genes in humans. The findings, reported by a team of animal and human geneticists, could improve the efficiency of agricultural breeding programs. The study also helps solve the longstanding mystery of why mammalian genomes contain so much noncoding DNA.

"We suspect that our large sample size is one of the major reasons why we see that mutations affecting gene expression and RNA splicing are playing a major role in shaping traits," says computational scientist and first author Ruidong Xiang of the University of Melbourne, Agriculture Victoria, and the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute. "Biomedical science is heavily invested in human genomics, so I think it's a good thing to show that similar and valuable work is happening in other species as well."
Read More...
Info

Mississippi mud reveals secrets of Antarctica's ancient expansion


University of Birmingham
Tue, 22 Aug 2023 17:39 UTC
Study of microscopic fossils taken from Mississippi sediment cores reveals climate feedback that acted as temporary brake on an ancient cooling event.
Iceberg
© University of Birmingham
Clues about the formation of major ice sheets on Antarctica have been found in mud cores drilled in Mississippi, providing an important lesson about a major climate cooling event, sometimes known as the Grande Coupure or great cut.

In a paper published in Nature Communications, an international team of scientists led by the University of Birmingham have studied material taken from cores drilled near Jackson, Mississippi in the USA.

Material found in layers of the cores suggest that there was a major transfer of carbon from plant remains in coastal environments into the atmosphere, driven by sea level falls of around 40 metres as Antarctic ice caps formed.

While the initial formation of those ice caps, and the beginning of the modern, colder climate of the past 34 million years was due to long-term burial, or sequestering of carbon in sediments; the team found that the falling sea levels led to a 300,000 year brake on climate cooling.

Falling seas exposed coastal regions and their soft sediments to intense erosion by rain and rivers. Organic carbon, such as plant material, that was once bound up in these sediments and environments - think of today's tropical mangrove swamps - was then exposed to oxygen in the air and was available for bacteria to eat and convert back into carbon dioxide that can be released to the atmosphere.
Read More...
Moon

India becomes 1st to land probe on moon's south pole, Chandrayaan-3 beating Russia whose recent attempt crashed

Sharmila Kuthunur
Space
Wed, 23 Aug 2023 13:36 UTC
Chandrayaan-3
© ISROMission controllers applaud after the landing of Chandrayaan-3 near the lunar south pole, with inset graphic of spacecraft on moon from the Indian Space Research Organisation's broadcast.
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft touched down softly near the moon's south pole today (Aug. 23), notching a huge milestone for the nation. India is now the fourth country to stick a lunar landing, after the United States, the former Soviet Union and China.

The historic touchdown occurred at 8:33 am ET (1233 GMT or 6:03 p.m. India Standard Time), according to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). "We have achieved soft landing on the moon! India is on the moon!" ISRO chairman Sreedhara Somanath announced after the landing.

"This success belongs to all of humanity and it will help moon missions by other countries in the future," India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a speech following the landing. "I'm confident that all countries in the world, including those from the global south, are capable of capturing success. We can all aspire to the moon and beyond."

Comment: See also: Moon mystery: China, Japan scientists have no answers for space gear disappearances



Read More...
Microscope 1

Superhumans with 'Yeti blood': The high-altitude ethnic groups able to withstand extreme conditions, and science might finally know how

Vikram Sharma
RT
Tue, 22 Aug 2023 22:25 UTC
Himalayan sherpas illustration
The famed Himalayan sherpas
A new Indian study has uncovered the secret of the Sherpa people's genes that allows them to survive in the most extreme conditions

As he climbed Mount Everest's Lhotse ice wall, Sameer Nicholas Patham struggled to breathe despite his supplementary oxygen. Here, where temperatures drop to -30° Celsius and the ambient oxygen is 70% lower than we breathe at sea level, every step was torture.

But his Sherpa friends calmly and easily climbed past, carrying an average weight of 16kg. "They are superhumans," recalls Sameer, who experienced firsthand what he describes as the incredible feats of the Sherpas, a Tibetan ethnic group globally known for their natural mountaineering skills.

Yet if the same Sherpas were to visit Varanasi and fall sick, the hospital's doctors would find that they had high blood pressure and low hemoglobin compared to average plains dwellers. Often such Sherpas were prescribed unnecessary medication. And though Chinese and American scientists had isolated the gene that allowed high-altitude adaptation, a biochemical analysis was always lacking - until a recent deep study by a team of Indian scientists investigated how Himalayans have survived in their challenging habitat for centuries.
Read More...