Science

Lithium-air batteries have the potential to outstrip conventional lithium-ion batteries by storing significantly more energy at the same weight. However, their high-performance values have thus far remained theoretical, and their lifespan remains too short. A team has now proposed addition of a soluble catalyst to the electrolyte. It acts as a redox mediator that facilitates charge transport and counteracts passivation of the electrodes.

The world of quantum physics is experiencing a second revolution, which will drive an exponential leap in the progress of computing, the internet, telecommunications, cybersecurity and biomedicine. Quantum technologies are attracting more and more students who want to learn about concepts from the subatomic world -- such as quantum entanglement or quantum superposition -- to explore the innovative potential of quantum science. In fact, understanding the non-intuitive nature of quantum technology concepts and recognizing their relevance to technological progress is one of the challenges of 2025, declared the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology by UNESCO.

The world of quantum physics is experiencing a second revolution, which will drive an exponential leap in the progress of computing, the internet, telecommunications, cybersecurity and biomedicine. Quantum technologies are attracting more and more students who want to learn about concepts from the subatomic world -- such as quantum entanglement or quantum superposition -- to explore the innovative potential of quantum science. In fact, understanding the non-intuitive nature of quantum technology concepts and recognizing their relevance to technological progress is one of the challenges of 2025, declared the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology by UNESCO.

An international team of scientists has discovered a way to store and release volatile hydrogen using lignin-based jet fuel that could open new pathways for sustainable energy production. In a new study scientists demonstrated that a type of lignin-based jet fuel they developed can chemically bind hydrogen in a stable liquid form. The research has many potential applications in fuels and transportation and could ultimately make it easier to harness hydrogen's potential as a high energy and zero emissions fuel source.

Effective management of phosphorus is needed to curb the rise of harmful algal blooms. Few studies have explored how algal biomass, especially blue-green algae, can be used to create materials that remove phosphate from water. Researchers have filled that gap by transforming cyanobacterial biomass into materials that can pull harmful phosphorus out of water. Materials treated in the study removed more than 99% of phosphorus. With further refinement and scalability, this method could become a key tool for managing nutrient pollution.

A new study has found that drug screening practices may be inconsistent with potential downstream effects in reporting to the RMV.

Researchers have pioneered an innovative method using helioseismology to measure the solar radiative opacity under extreme conditions. This groundbreaking work not only reveals gaps in our understanding of atomic physics but also confirms recent experimental results, thereby opening new perspectives in astrophysics and nuclear physics.

Researchers have pioneered an innovative method using helioseismology to measure the solar radiative opacity under extreme conditions. This groundbreaking work not only reveals gaps in our understanding of atomic physics but also confirms recent experimental results, thereby opening new perspectives in astrophysics and nuclear physics.

Researchers have developed a new chemical tool that could help lower the cost of prescription medications. The tool, called AshPhos, is a ligand, or molecule, that makes it easier to create special carbon-nitrogen bonds. These bonds are the backbone of more than half of all medicines on the market today.

Scientists have performed laboratory experiments to better understand how Saturn's moon Titan can maintain its unique nitrogen-rich atmosphere. Titan is the second largest moon in our solar system and the only one that has a significant atmosphere.

A research team has introduced a new concept for designing ultra-thin absorbers that enables absorbing layers with a record-high bandwidth-to-thickness ratio, potentially several times greater than that of absorbers designed using conventional approaches.

A research team has introduced a new concept for designing ultra-thin absorbers that enables absorbing layers with a record-high bandwidth-to-thickness ratio, potentially several times greater than that of absorbers designed using conventional approaches.

The structure of the cosmos is rooted in symmetry. As first demonstrated by Emmy Noether in 1918, for every physical law of conservation in the Universe, there is a corresponding physical symmetry. For example, all other things being equal, a baseball hit by a bat today will behave exactly the same as it did yesterday. This symmetry of time means that energy is conserved. Empty space is the same everywhere and in all directions. This symmetry of space means that there is conservation of linear and rotational momentum. On and on. This deep connection is now known as Noether’s Theorem, and it is central to all of modern physics.

Where Noether’s Theorem really shows its power is in particle physics. Although the mathematics of particle physics is complex, the underlying symmetries govern what can happen when particles collide. So, conservation of charge means that when a particle collision creates a shower of new particles, the total charge of all the particles must equal the total charge of the particles before the collision. Another basic symmetry is parity, also known as mirror symmetry. If you stand in front of a mirror and raise your right hand, your mirror image will raise its left. If you spin a ball toward your left, the mirror ball will spin to the right. Since elementary particles have an inherent rotation or spin, this means that particle showers should appear in rotational pairs.

One way to test the laws of physics is to see where certain symmetries are broken. In particle physics, an important symmetry is the combination of charge and parity, known as charge-parity, or CP symmetry. CP symmetry is what requires that for every matter particle, there must be a corresponding antimatter particle. For a long time, it was thought that CP symmetry was conserved, which was a problem for cosmologists since our Universe is made almost entirely of matter, not a mix of matter and antimatter. But in the last half of the 20th century, we found examples of CP violations, which led to a revolution in our understanding of the standard model of particle physics.

Examples of symmetry in physics. Credit: Flip Tanedo

Although it isn’t mentioned as much, the same symmetries apply to general relativity. In fact, Einstein’s equations can be derived by applying the physical symmetries seen in Newtonian physics while dropping the requirement that space be Euclidean. Technically, the principle of equivalence Einstein used to derive relativity is a consequence of symmetries, not the other way around. So what if we used these symmetries to test relativity the way we do in particle physics? One way to do this would be to look at the mergers of black holes, which is the point of a recent study in Physical Review Letters.

In this work, the team looked at the gravitational waves generated by the mergers of stellar black holes. Specifically, they focused on the polarization of the gravitational waves. Since gravitational wave polarization is connected to the rotation of the merging black holes, this allowed the team to test parity conservation. Under the standard model of general relativity, parity should be conserved, and this is precisely what the team found. To the limits of observation, black holes don’t violate parity. That said, we should note that the observational limit is pretty weak. We simply haven’t observed enough mergers to conclusively prove black holes obey parity, though we expect that they do.

Symmetry in black hole collisions. Credit: Calderón Bustillo, et al

The team also looked at the recoil effect of black holes in a second paper. When two black holes merge, the resulting black hole can get a gravitational kick that sends it flying off from its point of origin. If spatial symmetry holds, then the recoil of black holes shouldn’t show any bias, such as having more of them speed away from us than toward us. Again, the team saw no violation of symmetry, in agreement with general relativity.

Neither of these results are strong enough to be conclusive, and since both results are what we expect, there’s nothing surprising in this work. But studies such as this are worth doing as we continue to gather data. We know that somehow general relativity and quantum theory must combine into a general theory of quantum gravity, and we know that quantum theory violates some of the symmetries of general relativity. A big question is whether quantum gravity violates any symmetry as well. In time, studies such as these could give us the answer.

Reference: Calderón Bustillo, Juan, et al. “Testing mirror symmetry in the Universe with LIGO-Virgo black-hole mergers.” Physical Review Letters 134.3 (2025): 031402.

Reference: Leong, Samson HW, et al. “Gravitational-wave signatures of mirror (a) symmetry in binary black hole mergers: measurability and correlation to gravitational-wave recoil.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.11663 (2025).

The post Black Hole Mergers Will Tell Us if the Universe Obeys Symmetry appeared first on Universe Today.

One of my gripes with ‘The Martian’ movie was the depiction of the winds on Mars. The lower air density means that the sort of high speed winds we might experience on Earth carry far less of an impact on Mars. During its 72 flights in the Martian air, NASA’s ingenuity helicopter took meticulous records of the conditions. A new paper has been released and reports upon the wind speeds on the red planet at various altitudes. Previous models suggested wind speeds would not exceed 15 m/s but Ingeniuty saw speeds as high as 25 m/s.

Of all the planets in our Solar System, Mars is perhaps the most similar to Earth, similar but with stark differences. The weather on Mars is harsh and extreme, characterised by cold temperatures, a rarefied atmosphere and dust storms. The average temperature is around -60°C but it can reach a toasty 20°C in summer near the equator. It’s atmosphere is composed mostly of carbon dioxide and is about 100 times thinner than Earth’s so it offers little insulation or protection from solar radiation. On occasion, the winds on Mars whip up global dust storms that obscures the planet’s surface from view. 

Mars seen before, left, and during, right, a global dust storm in 2001. Credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS

Our model of the Martian atmosphere was believed to be fairly accurate, that is until Ingenuity arrived and completed more than 70 successful flights. As part of the Mars 2020 mission and the first aerial vehicle to successfully complete powered flight on another world, Ingenuity revealed some surprising conditions. Surprisingly too perhaps, the first attempt at powered flight was supposed to be a technology demonstration but instead, it provided high resolution images to help direct the ground based rover and collected data from the atmosphere and became a key part of Mars 2020. 

The Ingenuity helicopter photographed by the Perseverance rover. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

One of the outcomes from Ingenuity’s flights was a better understanding of Martian winds. In a paper written by Brian Jackson and team in the Planetary Society Journal, the team explained their rather ingenious approach. Knowing that the payload was severely limited on board, the decision was taken to use Ingenuity itself to confirm windspeeds. Previous studies had shown that the tilt of a stably hovering drone can be used to calculate speeds. Drones produce forward thrust by tilting in the direction they need to move, if they are stable and in a hover yet the wind is blowing, the drone will drift. Instead and to counteract the drift, the drone tilts flying into wind to maintain position relative to the ground, tilting more in a stronger headwind. 

Measuring the tilt is relatively straightforward thanks to a collection of engineering sensors, cameras and accelerometers. With all of the information gathered by these onboard pieces of equipment and returned to Earth, the analysis and calculation of the drone at different altitudes has enabled the wind speeds to be accurately calculated.

Part of the Ingenuity rotorcraft

The results were a surprise, showing that the winds on Mars were generally higher than anticipated. Speeds were measured at altitudes from 3 to 24 metres and were found to be blowing at anything up to 25 m/s. This perhaps is a result of Ingenuity’s unique capability of being able to measure speeds at different altitudes over a period of time. Previous measurements have been achieved from probes as they have descent through the atmosphere or from probes on the ground. Taking the success of Ingenuity forward, mission specialists working upon the Dragonfly rotorcraft that will be visiting Titan hope to be able to replicate the results and gain a better understanding of its wind profile too. 

Source : Profiling Near-surface Winds on Mars Using Attitude Data from Mars 2020 Ingenuity

The post Ingenuity Measured Windspeeds on Mars During its Flights appeared first on Universe Today.

Despite widespread studies revealing the prevalence of racism, its impact is often overlooked. But there are ways to tackle hidden biases and systemic discrimination, says Keon West

In Europe as a whole, the increase in deaths from hot weather over the next century will outweigh the decline in deaths from cold weather, but in colder countries such as the UK, temperature-related deaths will decline overall

I haven’t been accumulating these much, probably because I stopped reading the main source, The Huffington Post.  Ergo some of these may be repeats from days of yore, but so be it, as we have new readers. I’ll give just three:

1.)  “Advancements” used instead of “advances”.   The longer version, which as far as I can see is identical to the older but shorter one, seems to be taking over (I’ll give one example below).  Why is this happening? Only, as far as I can see, because “advancesments” sounds fancier and more intellectual than the simpler “advances.” Let’s go back to the shorter word!

Here’s a Huffpost example from 2011 (click to read if you must):

2.) “Stakeholder” used as “someone with a material interest in a (usually) political or ideological discussion”. This word is not per se offensive, but is inevitably associated with wokeness, like “problematize” or “intersectional.” Particularly in science, it is used to argue (often without reasons) that some people have a say over how science is done. Example: cases in which animal bones or Native American found on government property automatically become controlled by Native American “stakeholders” from a given tribe, even if it cannot be shown that stakeholders from the tribe ever had any stake in the objects at issue (see Elizabeth Weiss’s book).  I consider the word is a canary in the coalmine of woke prose.

HOWEVER, although one sees this word frequently, I notice that those who police language now consider it offensive, as in the articles below (click to read):

From Research Impact Canada:

The second site reports why the word is bad and some suggested replacements (which nobody seems to be using):

The word stakeholder is becoming increasingly contested due to its colonial connotations. Has this hit your radar and are you trying out other words?

In November, Mark Reed posted a thought piece on the use of the word stakeholder concluding “ultimately that means re-thinking our use of the word “stakeholder”.”

The issue with the word stakeholder is that in a colonial context, a stakeholder was the person who drove a stake into the land to demarcate the land s/he was occupying/stealing from Indigenous territories. Continued use of the term can be construed as disrespectful of Indigenous people as well as perpetuating colonization and re-traumatization.

Mark’s post was followed up by a fairly lively LinkedIn discussion. The only conclusion was that everyone respected the discussion. Some options to replace stakeholder were rights holder, KMb constituents, actant and potential beneficiaries.

On November 25, Research Impact Canada (RIC) held a discussion on the use of the word stakeholder in a Dr RIC session – a monthly member driven call where RIC members craft the agenda. About 25 RIC member participants were present. In advance, I sent around Mark’s first post and the subsequent LinkedIn discussion to get everyone on the same page. Some interesting points arose in the discussion:

• Stakeholder isn’t used by some who have a community-based research practice. It comes across as corporate.
• It has a “man vibe”
• I checked with co-chair of Indigenous Council at York University, and he was not aware of the issue. It doesn’t mean it isn’t, just that it is not a discussion that has permeated all Indigenous settings.

One take away is that this is an issue beyond Indigenous contexts so an important discussion whether or not you are approaching this as decolonization.

Some options to stakeholder were

• Those in the circle

• Those who do/should care

• Partners – although that was acknowledged as having a legal definition

3.) “Dudebros”.    This is often used as a general disparagement of men in general, not just a certain type of man. If people want to disparage, say, pretentious college frat guys as “dudebros”, then say whom you’re disparaging. The term should be as offensive to men as the word “chicks” is for women.

*********

The object here is for readers to add their own phrases they don’t like (one I considered here was “it is what it is”, though it can have a real meaning, like “accept things that can’t be changed.)

Do not bother to correct me as to what you see as the “real” meanings of these words, as I am simply giving my own personal reasons to dislike them.

Reader Robert Lang and his wife lost two homes and a studio in the Los Angeles Fires.  That’s horrible news, but if there’s any silver lining, it’s that Robert has time now to put together and describe a large collection of photographs from the Pantanal of Brazil for this site: a set of 13, no less. I will be putting them up over the next weeks and months, and thanks to Robert for using his free time this way.  Here is the first set with Robert’s captions and IDs indented. You can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Note that the next-to-last photo is a “spot the jaguar” quiz:

Readers’ Wildlife Photos: The Pantanal, Part I: Jaguars

In mid-2025, my wife, Diane, and I visited the Pantanal, which is the most incredible wildlife area that no one seems to have heard of. It is an enormous flat basin in Brazil, smack-dab in the middle of South America (where Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay come together). Like the better-known Okavanga Delta in Africa, it annually floods from runoff from surrounding highlands, then slowly dries out over the dry season, creating an always-varying patchwork of wetlands, grasslands, and forests, and supports an amazing diversity of wildlife that are far more accessible and visible than those in the much more famous Amazon rainforest to its north.

Most of the Pantanal is privately owned and used for open-range cattle ranching, but because of the annual flooding, the cattle density is quite low, leaving plenty of room for the wildlife to get about. In recent years, eco-tourism has grown, particularly due to the charismatic jaguars, leading to a virtuous cycle: the ranchers have learned that the jaguars bring tourist dollars, so they no longer shoot the animals (which do take the occasional cow); the reduced hunting pressure makes the jaguars less shy and wary, leading to more sightings by the tourists, leading to more tourist dollars. (Fortunately, the tourism numbers are still low enough that their deleterious impact remains low.) During our 10-day trip, we experienced 10 different jaguar sightings, as well as over 100 different species of birds and numerous other mammals, reptiles, and invertebrates. I’ll show some of all of these over the next several RWP installments.

Climate change is affecting wildlands throughout the world, and the Pantanal is no exception; just a few weeks before our visit, they had experienced their worst wildfires ever recorded, and in some parts we visited smoke still hung thickly in the air. Even so, in many places, only the understory had burned, leaving taller trees intact, and in just a few weeks new greenery was re-sprouting through the charred landscape. (In retrospect, it was an omen of things to come closer to home, as the Eaton Fire tore through my town of Altadena just a few months later).

And with that, let’s dive into the animals, with the stars of the show, the jaguar (Panthera onca)! It’s the largest big cat in the Americas, more robust than the similar-appearing leopard (Panthera pardus) of Africa. (Easy way to distinguish them in photos: leopard spots form empty rings; jaguar spot rings often have smaller spots in the middle.) Unlike the other big cats, which usually kill by biting their prey’s neck and suffocating it, the jaguar typically bites directly through the skull of its prey with one of the most powerful bites in the animal kingdom. Jaguars can kill and eat caimans larger than themselves. We saw most of our jaguars along riverbanks (we were in boats) and a few at watering holes (we were in safari vehicles); while they certainly knew we were there, they pretty much ignored us, allowing plenty of time for observation and photos.

This first one was on a riverbank. A female, if I recall correctly, with an injury on her face that was likely from a fight with another jaguar.

Another on a riverbank. This one hung out here for quite a while, and ignored us and the several other boats that eventually showed up. (As we’ve also seen in Africa, the local guides all share sighting locations with each by walkie-talkie.)

This one, too, was on a riverbank, about 15 feet up. Also had an owie on her face.

After a while, she moved a few feet into some foliage, which made a nice frame and allowed me to take what was my favorite photo of the entire trip:

And then she yawned. Pretty impressive choppers, those.

Another riverbank photo. This one was sitting in a natural cave formed by the overhanging riverbank and a curtain of roots.

This one was in dense foliage, and while we knew it was there, for the longest time, we could only see the stirrings of the leaves that concealed it as it moved back and forth (shades of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park!). Eventally, though, it moved into a clearing, and we got our shots.

This one was on a sandbar in the riverbank and gave us a lovely concert of roaring (which is a forbidding sound—I’ll post a movie, with sound, in a later installment from this trip).

And the last one was on the far side of a watering hole that we drove by in one of our safari jeep drives.

We saw a few other jaguars, but these were the ones I got decent pictures of. Except for the incredible spotting talents of our guides, we’d have missed some of them entirely, like this one. Spot the jaguar!

I’d rate this one as somewhere between easy and medium.

The jaguars alone were worth the journey, but we saw many more animals of other species; those will be the subject of the next several installments from this trip.

JAC: Try your hand at the above, and then go below the fold to see the answer. (Click “continue reading”)

Here’s a close-up photo of the jaguar in the last photo above the fold:

 

 

 

In a barrage of executive orders, President Donald Trump has set the US on course to derail climate goals, biomedical research and pandemic readiness

Worlds with liquid water could have formed just 200 million years after the big bang from the remains of the earliest supernovae