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Divalent samarium compounds are important reagents for reductive transformations in organic chemistry. However, currently, a high amount of this reagent is required in most reactions, and it also necessitates the use of harmful chemicals. To address this issue, researchers have developed a visible-light-antenna ligand that coordinates with stable trivalent samarium compounds, which, upon exposure to visible light, are reduced to divalent samarium, enabling milder conditions and smaller amounts of samarium for reactions.

Researchers have developed an innovative new method for identifying biomarkers in wastewater using origami-paper sensors, enabling the tracking of infectious diseases using the camera in a mobile phone. The new test device is low-cost and fast and could dramatically change how public health measures are directed in any future pandemics.

Hydrogen is in great demand due to its promising role as a sustainable resource in the energy transition. Researchers have made an important breakthrough in the efficient and cost-effective provision of isotopes. These are the three forms in which hydrogen occurs in nature -- as protium, deuterium or tritium. The team has taken a big step towards realizing its dream of separating hydrogen isotopes at room temperature at low cost.

Scientists are now able to directly compare the different kinds of injury that mechanical ventilation causes to cells in the lungs. In a new study, using a ventilator-on-a-chip model, researchers found that shear stress from the collapse and reopening of the air sacs is the most injurious type of damage.

Researchers have developed a groundbreaking soft cortical device that could revolutionize the treatment of epilepsy and other neurological disorders.

A research team has successfully recreated the structure of wrinkles in biological tissue in vitro, uncovering the mechanisms behind their formation.

Can an immunoassay be created and selectively detect a virus in under 5 minutes? In a new study, researchers report that it can be done using a low-power laser like a laser pointer with a little liquid sample like a sesame seed.

Modern integrated microelectronic devices are often poorly repairable and difficult to recycle. Debondable adhesives play a key role in the transition to a circular economy with sustainable resources, less waste, and intelligent repair/recycling strategies. A research team has now introduced a method for making adhesives that can be deactivated 'on command'.

Researchers have developed a Martian atmospheric evolution model to propose a new theory about Mars's past.

Thermoelectric devices are devices that can convert heat into electrical energy. Researchers have now developed a thermoelectric device composed of organic materials that can generate electricity from ambient temperature alone. The device is made from copper phthalocyanine and copper hexadecafluoro phthalocyanine as charge transfer materials and was combined with fullerenes and BCP as electron transport layers.

A new way of making ammonia by harnessing the unique power of liquid metal could lead to significant cuts in carbon emissions caused by production of the widely-used chemical. Ammonia is used in fertilizer to grow much of our food, but also plays a role in clean energy as a carrier to safely transport hydrogen.

A meta-analysis of 137 clinical trials finds triptan drugs are among the most effective for treating migraines, while newer ditan and gepant drugs were rated less highly

Most of the exoplanets we’ve discovered orbit red dwarf stars. This isn’t because red dwarfs are somehow special, simply that they are common. About 75% of the stars in the Milky Way are red dwarfs, so you would expect red dwarf planets to be the most abundant. This also means that most habitable worlds are going to orbit these small, cool stars, and that has some significant consequences for our search for life.

To begin with, any potentially habitable red dwarf world will need to orbit their star closely, just to be warm enough for things like liquid water. The TRAPPIST-1 system I talked about yesterday is a good example of this. The three potentially habitable planets of the system orbit at a small fraction of the distance between Mercury and the Sun. This means they are at risk of things such as stellar flares, but it also means they are almost certainly tidally locked.

Tidal locking occurs when a planet or moon is so close to its companion that tidal forces cause its rotation to sync with its orbital motion. When a planet is tidally locked, one side always faces its star while the other side is forever in darkness. As you might imagine, this would mean the warm side fries while the other freezes. That’s true unless the planet were to have a good atmosphere. With a water-rich Earth-like atmosphere heat could move between the day and night sides. Weather would be strange on such a world, but a tidally locked world could be habitable, with fairly even day-side and night-side temperatures.

How clouds could make a planet appear airless. Credit: Powell, et al

Observing the atmospheres of tidally locked planets is difficult, but astronomers have a trick to see whether an atmosphere exists. Rather than trying to capture an atmospheric spectra, they can simply measure the surface temperature of the planet on opposite sides. So, look at the star as the planet moves in front of it to determine the temperature of the dark side, and look at it again as the planet moves behind the star to get the light side temperature. If the dark and light sides have dramatically different temperatures, then it must not have an atmosphere. Easy-peasy. But a new study shows that isn’t necessarily true.

In this paper the authors argue that clouds on the dark side of a world could skew our data. To show this, they considered a tidally locked world with a thick atmosphere. Based on their models, the atmosphere would moderate global temperatures on the planet so that the day side is only a few dozen degrees warmer than the dark side. This is similar to the day and night extremes of a dry region on Earth. While moderate, the temperature shift would be enough to trigger the formation of thick clouds on the dark side.

In this scenario, the day side would be mostly cloudless and we would measure the warm temperature of the planet’s surface. But with a cloudy dark side we would measure temperature of the upper layer of clouds, which would be much colder. So even though surface temperatures of the planet are fairly uniform, it would appear to have an extreme temperature shift like an airless world. The authors go on to look at how observations from the JWST could distinguish between cloudy planets and those without an atmosphere, but it is clear that one simple trick in the search for habitable planets isn’t quite so simple.

Reference: Powell, Diana, Robin Wordsworth, and Karin Öberg. “Nightside Clouds on Tidally-locked Terrestrial Planets Mimic Atmosphere-Free Scenarios.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.07542 (2024).

The post Exoplanets Could be Hiding Their Atmospheres appeared first on Universe Today.

Back in April 2022, the CDF experiment, which operated at the long-ago-closed Tevatron particle collider. presented the world’s most precise measurement of the mass of the particle known as the “W boson“. Their result generated some excited commentary, because it disagreed by 0.1% with the prediction of the Standard Model of particle physics. Even though the mismatch was tiny, it was significant, because the CDF measurement was so exceptionally precise. Any disagreement of such high significance would imply that something has to give: either the Standard Model is missing something, or the CDF measurement is incorrect.

Like most of my colleagues, I was more than a little skeptical about CDF’s measurement. This was partly because it disagreed with the average of earlier, less precise measurements, but mainly because of the measurement’s extreme challenges. To quote a commentary that I wrote at the time,

• “A natural and persistent question has been: “How likely do you think it is that this W boson mass result is wrong?” Obviously I can’t put a number on it, but I’d say the chance that it’s wrong is substantial. Why? This measurement, which took several many years of work, is probably among the most difficult ever performed in particle physics. Only first-rate physicists with complete dedication to the task could attempt it, carry it out, convince their many colleagues on the CDF experiment that they’d done it right, and get it through external peer review into Science magazine. But even first-rate physicists can get a measurement like this one wrong. The tiniest of subtle mistakes will undo it.”

In the weeks following CDF’s announcement, I attended a detailed presentation about the measurement. The physicist who gave it tried to convince us that everything in the measurement had been checked, cross-checked, and understood. However, I did not find the presentation exceptionally persuasive, so my confidence in it did not increase.

But so what? It doesn’t matter what I think. All a theorist like me can do, seeing a measurement like this, is check to see if it is logically possible and conceptually reasonable for the W boson mass to shift slightly without messing up other existing measurements. And it is.

(In showing this is true, I took the opportunity to explain more about how the Standard Model works, and specifically how the W boson’s mass arises from simple math, before showing how the mass could be shifted upwards. Some of you may still find these technical details interesting, even though the original motivation for this series of articles is no longer what it was.)

Instead, what really matters is for other experimental physicists to make the same measurement, to see if they get the same answer as CDF or not. Because of the intricacy of the measurement, this was far easier said than done. But it has now happened.

In the past year, the ATLAS collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider [LHC] presented a new W boson mass measurement consistent with the Standard Model. But because their uncertainties were 60% larger than CDF’s result, it didn’t entirely settle the issue.

Now the CMS collaboration, ATLAS’s competitor at the LHC, has presented their measurement. They have managed to be almost as precise at that of CDF — a truly impressive achievement. And what do they find? Their result, in red below, is fully consistent with the Standard Model, shown as the vertical grey band, and with ATLAS, the bar line just above the red one. The CDF measurement is the bar outlying to the right; it is the only one in disagreement with the Standard Model.

Measurements of the W boson mass made by several different experiments, with names listed at left. In each case, the dot represents the measurement and the horizontal band represents its uncertainty. The vertical grey band represents the Standard Model prediction and its own uncertainty. The ATLAS and CMS measurements, shown at the bottom, agree with each other and with the Standard Model, while both disagree with the CDF measurement. Note that the uncertainty in the CMS measurement is about the same as in the CDF measurement.

Since the ATLAS and CMS results are both consistent with all other previous measurements as well as with the Standard Model, and since CMS has even reached the same level of uncertainty obtained by CDF, this makes CDF by far the outlier, as you can see above. The tentative but reasonable conclusion is that the CDF measurement is not correct.

Of course, the CDF experimentalists may argue that it is ATLAS and CMS that have made an error, not CDF. One shouldn’t instantly dismiss that out of hand. It’s worth remembering that ATLAS and CMS use the same accelerator to gather their data, and might have used similar logic in the design of their analysis, so it’s not completely impossible for them to have made correlated mistakes. Still, this is far from plausible, so the onus will be on CDF to directly pinpoint an error in their competitors’ work.

Even if the mistake is CDF’s, it’s worth noting that we still have no idea what exactly it might have been. A long chain of measurements and calibrations are required to determine the W boson mass at this level of precision (about one part in ten thousand). It would be great if the error within this chain could be tracked down, but no one may have the stamina to do that, and it is possible that we will never know what went wrong.

But the bottom line is that the discrepancy suggested by the CDF measurement was always a long shot. I don’t think many particle physicists are surprised to see its plausibility fading away.

African giant pouched rats proved adept at detecting four commonly trafficked products derived from endangered species including rhino horn and elephant ivory

On the SGU we recently talked about aphantasia, the condition in which some people have a decreased or entirely absent ability to imagine things. The term was coined recently, in 2015, by neurologist Adam Zeman, who described the condition of “congenital aphantasia,” that he described as being with mental imagery. After we discussed in on the show we received numerous e-mails from people with the condition, many of which were unaware that they were different from most other people. Here is one recent example:

“Your segment on aphantasia really struck a chord with me. At 49, I discovered that I have total multisensory aphantasia and Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM). It’s been a fascinating and eye-opening experience delving into the unique way my brain processes information.

Since making this discovery, I’ve been on a wild ride of self-exploration, and it’s been incredible. I’ve had conversations with artists, musicians, educators, and many others about how my experience differs from theirs, and it has been so enlightening.

I’ve learned to appreciate living in the moment because that’s where I thrive. It’s been a life-changing journey, and I’m incredibly grateful for the impact you’ve had on me.”

Perhaps more interesting than the condition itself, and what I want to talk about today, is that the e-mailer was entirely unaware that most of the rest of humanity have a very different experience of their own existence. This makes sense when you think about it – how would they know? How can you know the subjective experience happening inside one’s brain? We tend to assume that other people’s brains function similar to our own, and therefore their experience must be similar. This is partly a reasonable assumption, and partly projection. We do this psychologically as well. When we speculate about other people’s motivations, we generally are just projecting our own motivations onto them.

Projecting our neurological experience, however, is a little different. What the aphantasia experience demonstrates is a couple of things, beginning with the fact that whatever is normal for you is normal. We don’t know, for example, if we have a deficit because we cannot detect what is missing. We can only really know by sharing other people’s experiences.

For example, let’s consider color vision. Someone who is completely color blind, who sees only in shades of grey, would have no idea that they are not seeing color, or that color exists as a phenomenon, except for the fact that other people speak of the fact that they perceive this thing called color. Even then it may take time as they grow to realize that other people are experiencing something they are not. But if they lived in a world with color-blind people, they would never know what they are missing.

This also relates to the old question – is what I experience as “red” the same thing that you experience as “red”? Is there any way we can know? We can only infer from indirect evidence. It’s likely that people experience colors similarly since we tend to associate the same emotions and feelings to those colors, but of course that could also be learned. However, there is no reason to assume our color experiences are identical. There are likely differences in vibrancy, contrast, shading, and other details. Also there are many people who are partially color blind (like me – I have a deficit in red-green distinction). I would never ever know, however, that my color vision was different than most people were it not for those tests we were forced to take where we try to see the number in the circles.

Similarly, if  you cannot form visual mental representations in your mind, you might assume everyone is that way. Several people with aphantasia have told me that when other people talked about “seeing” things in their mind, they assumed it was a metaphor. They had no idea other people were literally seeing an image in their mind.

Sometimes even the objective lack of a sensory experience might be entirely unknown to the person. For example, people who are born with a decrease in sensation because of a disorder of their nerves do not know this. Whatever sensation they have is normal for them. So they don’t complain of numbness, even though on exam they have a profound decrease in sensation (that’s how we know its congenital and not acquired).

We should, I think, extrapolate from this experience. There are likely countless ways in which our brains differ from each other in how they construct our subjective experience of reality, our abstractions, our emotional worlds, and our sensory perceptions. These are all brain constructs, dependent on the particulars of networks and nodes in the brain, how they connect, and how they function. We cannot get outside of this – this is who and what we are.  This is why neuroscientists have moved toward the concept of “neurodiversity” – understanding the full diversity of how different human brains function. There may be a “typical” brain, in one or more aspects, but there is also lots of diversity. We also should not automatically pathologize this diversity and assume anything not typical is a “disorder” or even worse, a “disease.” Mostly biological diversity is a matter of different tradeoffs.

Even when we recognize that some forms of neurodiversity may quality as a “disorder”, meaning that there are demonstrable objective negative outcomes, sometimes this is very context dependent. They may only have negative outcomes because neurotypicals have designed society to best suit them.  They may be on the short end of the tradeoffs, but that is not an inherent reality, just a societal choice.

Even more fascinating to me is to think about the universal human neurological experience. In other words – what do humans lack, or in what ways is human experience of reality idiosyncratic? Just like those with aphantasia, we likely will never know – not until we encounter other intelligent species who experience reality differently. If we are even able to sufficiently communicate with them, we may find their realities are very different from our own. Until then we may not know what it truly means to be human.

The post Subjective Neurological Experience first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

We are finally untangling the ancient history of the cactus family, revealing some surprising forces that shaped these plants – ­­­­­­and prompting concern for their future

Exoplanets in binary star systems usually orbit both stars, but astronomers have now spotted three planets orbiting one or the other star in a pair

Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest planetary body in the Asteroid Belt. For a long time, scientists thought it was born in the outer solar system and then migrated to its present position. Some evidence for that origin lies in extensive surface deposits of ammonium-rich materials on the Cerean surface.

Some of those bright, white and whitish-yellow deposits are found in impact craters on Ceres. Researchers suspect they are the remnants of a brine that seeped to the surface from a liquid layer between the mantle and crust. When impacts whacked the planet, they altered its surface. They also dug up and splattered material from the brine layer. Images and observational data from NASA’s Dawn mission of an impact region called Consus Crater also show bright yellowish-white deposits. Now, thanks to a deeper analysis of Dawn data, their presence could point to Ceres’s origin in the Asteroid Belt.

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft captured this approximately true-color image of Ceres in 2015 as it approached the dwarf planet. Dawn showed that some polar craters on Ceres hold ancient ice, but new research suggests the ice is much younger. Image Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / Justin Cowart Peeping Inside Ceres

Ceres is classified as a dwarf planet and its rocky component is very similar to that of carbonaceous chondrite asteroids. At least a quarter of its mass is water ice. The surface is pretty complex, consisting of carbon-rich rocks and something called ammoniated phyllosilicates. Those are minerals that include such familiar substances as talc and mica. There’s also evidence of water ice in various surface regions.

This dwarf planet is an active world, with most of its activity driven by cryovolcanism. The surface has been gardened by impacts. The thick outer crust lies over a salt-rich liquid (that brine layer) and a muddy mantle. There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that the concentration of ammonium is greater in deeper layers of the crust. The few places on the surface of Ceres where those obvious yellowish-bright patches show up are in and near Consus Crater and also within other deep craters.

Planetary scientists have long wondered about exactly where Ceres formed. If it formed in the outer Solar system, then it must have migrated into position billions of years ago. If it formed in place, then that raises the question of how it could have become enriched with the icy ammonium-rich materials.

A cutaway showing the surface and interior of dwarf planet Ceres. Thick outer crust (ice, salts, hydrated minerals) Salt-rich liquid (brine), and rock “Mantle” (hydrated rock). Courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA Clues to Ceres’s Birthplace

Why the differing suggestions about where Ceres formed? Let’s look more deeply at those ammonium-rich deposits for an answer. They tend to form in very cold environments. That’s why people assumed that Ceres formed in the outer Solar System. That’s where frozen ammonium ice is most stable. In warmer environments (such as closer to the Sun), it evaporates. So, it makes sense to think that Ceres formed our where it was colder and then somehow migrated to the Asteroid Belt.

However, if the ice was part of a rocky planetesimal, the location might not matter so much. Inside the rock, the ice would be insulated from solar heating. Such world-forming materials exist closer to the Sun, and certainly out at the location of the Asteroid Belt. So, if they coalesced to form Ceres in situ, their encased ices would have contributed to the subsurface brine layer that today feeds the cryovolcanism. Impacts punching through the surface would release the brine, as well.

Connecting the Dots

A team led by Andres Nathues and Ranjan Sarkar (both Dawn mission scientists), zeroed in on materials sprayed across the surface in the area of Consus Crater. It lies in Ceres’s southern hemisphere and stretches across 64 kilometers (~39 miles). The crater walls are about 4.5 kilometers (~3 miles) high and parts of them are eroded. There’s a smaller crater inside on the eastern half of Consus. Its edges appear to be “painted” with speckles of bright yellowish material, which is also spattered out nearby.

Further analysis of the Dawn data ties the ammonium on the surface with the salty brine from Ceres’ interior. Cryovolcanic activity on this world brings the ammonium-rich brine up toward the Cerean surface. Once there, it seeps into the crust, according to Andreas Nathues, former lead investigator for the Dawn mission. “The minerals in Ceres’ crust possibly absorbed the ammonium over many billions of years like a kind of sponge,” said Nathues.

Nathues and others argue that the dwarf planet’s origin does not necessarily have to be in the outer Solar System simply based on the presence of those ammonium-rich deposits. As mentioned above, they could have been part of the planetesimals in the Asteroid Belt that coalesced to build Ceres. Once it formed, Ceres experienced impacts and cryovolcanism and those actions produced the surface deposits we see today.

Evidence from the Craters

Consus Crater itself was “dug out” between 400 and 500 million years ago by a huge impact. That event exposed material from the deep, particularly the ammonium-rich layers below Consus Crater. A later impact about 280 million years ago created the smaller crater inside. The yellowish-bright speckles to the east of the smaller crater are material ejected by the second event. If those materials always existed inside Ceres, then that supports the idea this dwarf planet formed where it is now, rather than out at the edge of the Solar System. That’s where the impacts become important, since that action exposed deeper layers, according to Dawn researcher Ranjan Sarkar.

“At 450 million years, Consus Crater is not particularly old by geological standards, but it is one of the oldest surviving structures on Ceres,” Sarkar said. “Due to its deep excavation, it gives us access to processes that took place in the interior of Ceres over many billions of years, and is thus a kind of window into the dwarf planet’s past.”

For More Information

Dwarf Planet Ceres: Origin in the Asteroid Belt?
Consus Crater on Ceres: Ammonium-enriched Brines Exchange with Phylosilicates?

The post Actually, Ceres Might Have Formed in the Asteroid Belt After All appeared first on Universe Today.

Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, has had a profound impact on the way we do business. There is scarcely any industry that has not been affected by the adoption of this technology, and that includes spaceflight. Companies like SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Aerojet Rocketdyne, and Relativity Space have all turned to 3D printing to manufacture engines, components, and entire rockets. NASA has also 3D-printed an aluminum thrust chamber for a rocket engine and an aluminum rocket nozzle, while the ESA fashioned a 3D-printed steel floor prototype for a future Lunar Habitat.

Similarly, the ESA and NASA have been experimenting with 3D printing in space, known as in-space manufacturing (ISM). Recently, the ESA achieved a major milestone when their Metal 3D Printer aboard the International Space Station (ISS) produced the first metal part ever created in space. This technology is poised to revolutionize operations in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) by ensuring that replacement parts can be manufactured in situ rather than relying on resupply missions. This process will reduce operational costs and enable long-duration missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond!

The Metal 3D Printer is a technology demonstrator built by an industrial team led by Airbus Defence and Space (SAS) in partnership with the ESA’s Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration. It was launched to the ISS in late January and installed in the European Drawer Rack aboard the ESA’s Columbus Laboratory Module by European astronaut Andreas Mogensen. The printer became operational by the following June, and the first 3D metal shape was produced by August. With the first metal component built, the ESA plans to create three more as part of the experiment.

These four samples will then be sent to Earth for quality analysis and testing. Two will be sent to the ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands, a third to the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), and the fourth to the ESA’s European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, where it will be integrated into the LUNA facility—a lunar analog environment designed for astronaut training. The availability of ISM will significantly reduce the challenges of resupplying spacecraft as they travel to the Moon, Mars, and other locations in deep space.

For long-duration missions on the lunar surface, the ability to print machine parts and ship them directly from LEO will reduce the number of launches needed to sustain operations there. As for Mars, the ability to manufacture replacement parts, repair equipment, and construct specific tools on demand will ensure a measure of autonomy for mission crews and reduce their reliance on resupply missions sent from Earth. This is especially important given the limited launch windows to Mars (every 26 months) and the time it takes to make a one-way transit (6 to 9 months).

NASA is also pursuing an ISM project aboard the ISS with the help of its commercial partners through the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), with additional support provided by the physics-based modeling group at NASA’s Ames Research Center. These efforts began in 2014 when NASA launched the first 3D printer (manufactured by Made In Space, Inc.) to the ISS. This technology demonstrator used the fused filament fabrication (FFF) process to create objects out of plastic and proved that 3D printing could work in a microgravity environment.

This was followed by the creation of the Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF), which can print using a variety of materials. These devices allowed for the creation of the first 3D-printed tools in space, including a plastic wrench, a rachet wrench, and more. In 2019, NASA added the ReFabricator experiment to the ISS, which was developed by Tethers Unlimited to create 3D-printed parts using recycled plastic materials. However, the ESA’s technology demonstrator is the first to successfully print a metal component in microgravity conditions.

Artist’s impression of Artemis astronauts conducting science operations on the Moon. Credit: NASA

The experiments will not stop there. In 2021, NASA sent another 3D printer to the ISS, the Redwire Regolith Print (RRP), designed to fashion construction materials out of lunar regolith. They are also investigating how Moon rover wheels can be 3D-printed on the lunar surface and how Martian rocks and minerals could be used to manufacture whatever future missions will need in situ. In collaboration with the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and Youngstown State University (YSU), NASA is also considering how batteries could be 3D printed using lunar or Martian resources.

The potential applications for this technology are almost limitless and are integral to all plans for human expansion beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

Further Reading: ESA

The post Metal Part 3D Printed in Space for the First Time appeared first on Universe Today.