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Fyfluiddynamics

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The Great Red Spot’s Cycle

Jupiter's Great Red Spot has a 90-day cycle in which its size, shape, and brightness vary.
The storm's major axis is shrinking, making it more circular over time.
Changes in the Great Red Spot are relatively subtle, but can be tracked using amateur astronomers' data.
The storm has been raging unabated since regular observations began in the 19th century.

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Physicsworld

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Superconductivity theorist Leon Cooper dies aged 94

Leon Cooper, the US condensed-matter physicist who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize for Physics, has passed away at the age of 94.
Cooper, along with Robert Schrieffer and John Bardeen, developed a theory of superconductivity in the late 1950s, explaining the absence of electrical resistance in certain materials at low temperatures.
Cooper's breakthrough BCS theory of superconductivity had applications in both condensed matter physics and particle physics.
Later in his career, Cooper turned to neuroscience and founded Brown's Institute for Brain and Neural Systems, making contributions to the field of artificial neural networks.

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Medium

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Automation Platform v2: Improving Conversational AI at Airbnb

Airbnb's Automation Platform v2 has been upgraded to support large language models (LLMs) for conversational AI applications.
The platform enables LLM development that assists support agents in efficiently providing resolutions and faster responses. It employs the use of LLMs in chatbot interfaces to enhance the natural conversation experience; these systems can interpret queries and gather nuanced information.
However, LLM-powered applications for large-scale experiences are still relatively new and aren't fully reliable for sensitive data validations, so the solution is to combine them with traditional workflows.
Beyond supporting LLM applications, the platform has been tailored to aid their development with features such as context management and guardrail frameworks and is fully integratable with common development tools.
Chain of Thought is a framework offered through LLM implementation, which allows reasoning for problem-solving. It uses an LLM as the reasoning engine, and tools as the ways for the LLM to interact with the world.
Context management ensures the LLM has all necessary and relevant information and can be customized for either statically declared context or named dynamic context retrievers.
LLMs can generate text and come with issues, like hallucinations and jailbreaks. This led to the creation of their guardrails framework, a safeguarding mechanism that monitors communications with the LLM to ensure they are helpful, relevant and ethical.
The platform aims to evolve with these technologies, expanding tool capabilities, and investigating LLM application simulation to provide gains for all AI practitioners.
Thanks to credits at the end of the post providing a team of engineers who worked together on the product, alongside an invitation to join the company if interested in work like this.
As of now, Automation Platform v2 is improving conversational AI at Airbnb, providing an enhanced customer support experience for clients.

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Physicsworld

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Optical technique measures intramolecular distances with angstrom precision

Physicists in Germany have used a MINFLUX enhanced version of an optical fluorescence microscopy technique to measure intramolecular distances smaller than 10 nm precisely. The technique has 1-Angstrom precision and can be used to study biological processes such as protein interactions. Conventional microscopy cannot distinguish between two features of an object separated by less than half the wavelength of the light used to image them due to diffraction. MINFLUX overcomes diffraction by exciting individual fluorescent groups and leaving others dark. A new type of fluorescent dye molecule that can be switched in succession using UV light but not interact with each other was introduced to measure positions with single fluorescent molecules to within 0.1 nm. The technique demonstrated precision of 0.1 nm while measuring distances of 1–10 nanometres in polypeptides and proteins. MINFLUX can serve as a reliable alternative for monitoring sub-10-nm distances.
MINFLUX first turns on individual molecules and then determines their position by scanning a beam of light across them with a doughnut-shaped intensity profile.
Localization process involves relating the unknown position of the fluorophore to the known position of the centre of intensively light intense beam. The technique reduces the required levels of detected photons by a factor of 100 compared to traditional camera-based techniques, leading to 10-fold precision increase.
One of the crucial prerequisites for the development of MINFLUX was the sequential ON/OFF switching of the fluorophores emitting fluorescence. The fluorescent molecules should have independent behavior in the silent (OFF-state) and emitting (ON-state) states.
The technique is exciting as it brings access to conformation details of biological molecules and can quantify measurements even within them. Researchers are looking to establish MINFLUX as a standard tool for quantifying the mechanics of proteins.

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Medium

338

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2024 CAIRFI fellowships & research awardees announced

Capital One has announced the award recipients for the 2024 academic year out of the Center for AI and Responsible Financial Innovation at Columbia University.
The Center was created in January 2024 to accelerate research, education, and the responsible advancement of AI in financial services.
The initiatives include 2 PhD fellowships and 2 faculty-led research projects that are selected and funded annually.
The two PhD fellows, Leonardo Toso and Sachit Menon, will research Bayesian priors for efficient multi-task representation learning and trustworthy decision-making in artificial intelligence respectively.
The two faculty-led research awards will be offered to Richard Zemel and Anish Agarwal to research a framework for responsible LLM deployment in a changing world and a user session-level counterfactual simulator respectively.
The goal of the research led by Anish Agarwal is to build a counterfactual simulator that creates the predicted trajectory of a user if a specific text/image is shown in real-time during a session.
Capital One’s partnership with Columbia University allows them to broaden their AI research efforts and advance new capabilities to better serve customers.
These initiatives create pathways to engage talent in new ways and support emerging research in the field of financial services.
These awards were selected after thoughtful consideration and offer opportunities for emerging research in the financial services industry.
The Center for AI and Responsible Financial Innovation will continue to support emerging research in the field of financial services and promote its responsible advancement.

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Physicsworld

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Imaging method could detect Parkinson’s disease up to 20 years before symptoms appear

Researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel have developed a method to detect early signs of Parkinson’s disease at the cellular level using skin biopsies.
The new method combines a super-resolution microscopy technique, known as direct stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (dSTORM), with advanced computational analysis to identify and map the aggregation of alpha-synuclein (αSyn), a synaptic protein that regulates transmission in nerve terminals.
The analysis detected a larger number of clusters, clusters with larger radii, and sparser clusters containing a smaller number of localizations in Parkinson’s disease patients relative to what was seen with healthy control subjects.
Parkinson’s disease diagnosis based on quantitative parameters represents an unmet need that offers a route to revolutionize the way Parkinson’s disease and potentially other neurodegenerative diseases are diagnosed and treated.

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Hobbieroth

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A Toy Model of Climate Change

A Toy Model of Climate Change is a mathematical representation that helps understand the basic concept of climate change without getting bogged down in the details.
In the absence of the earth's atmosphere, the temperature is calculated by balancing the energy emitted by the sun with the energy from the earth radiating into space. The earth's temperature without an atmosphere is approximately -19°C.
The analysis of the atmosphere around the earth's temperature requires keeping track of the power coming in and out of both, the earth and the atmosphere, as the earth has its temperature and the atmosphere has its temperature.
The greenhouse gases absorb thermal radiation, such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane. Carbon dioxide has a high concentration, and burning fossil fuels produces more carbon dioxide. Therefore, climate change discussions are primarily focused on carbon dioxide.
The albedo reflects the sunlight, and snow and ice cover earth depend on albedo and sunlight absorbed by earth, creating a viscous cycle that affects temperature.
Positive feedback leads to explosive change, and the earth's climate has multiple loops of feedback, making climate modeling even more complicated.
The toy model serves as an excellent enhancement of understanding and helps develop an insight into the complicated phenomena of climate change.

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Physicsworld

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Ask me anything: Raghavendra Srinivas – ‘Experimental physics is never boring’

Raghavendra Srinivas, an atomic physicist, discusses the skills used in his job, including working with lasers, simulations, data analysis, and physics theory.
He has a more supervisory role now and also teaches a quantum mechanics course, emphasizing the importance of experimentation.
He highlights the importance of project management and effective communication across disciplines.
Srinivas enjoys the unpredictable nature of experimental physics and the opportunity for outreach activities, but dislikes non-lab-based tasks and the need to switch between different projects.
He wishes he had known earlier in his career to ask questions, focus on the big-picture physics, and maintain a healthy work-life balance.

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Knowridge

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New study reveals unusual remains of a historical supernova in 3D

A nebula called Pa 30 has been identified as the remnants of a supernova that occurred in 1181.
Astronomers' recent use of Caltech's Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI) in mapping Pa 30's strange filaments in 3D showed their unusual streaming outward from the explosion's location.
KCWI afforded the image clarity of every pixel in multiwavelength detail multiwavelength capturing every pixel in an image, with the team then using spectral information to create a 3D map of the structure.
Some of the stars survived this Type Iax supernova, leaving behind a 'zombie star'.
Using the 'red arm' of KCWI, the team discovered that the filaments in the supernova material are flying outward from the explosion at approximately 1000 km per second.
The 3D imaging also revealed a large cavity inside the spindly, spherical structure indicating an asymmetric explosion in addition to the filament material.
Scientists believe the filament material in Pa 30 was generated by the supernova but cannot yet explain how or when the filaments formed.
Christoph Martin, Caltech professor of physics leading the KCWI project, likened a standard image of the supernova to a static photo of a fireworks display.
He added KCWI gives something more like a 'movie' by measuring the motion of the explosion's embers streaking outward from the central explosion.
The study, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, was led by NASA Hubble Fellow Tim Cunningham and some parts of the study were funded by NASA, the National Science Foundation, and FONDECYT.
The findings reveal the most sensitive spatial and spectral measurements of Pa 30's 3D map to date, holding the current record for the largest contiguous region surveyed with the red channel.

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Brighter Side of News

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Researchers use magnetic fields to freeze light in its tracks

Researchers from AMOLF and Delft University of Technology have discovered a technique to freeze light by deforming a two-dimensional photonic crystal.
This breakthrough could lead to the development of efficient nanophotonic devices.
The researchers manipulated the photonic crystal to confine and halt light at the nanoscale.
This achievement has potential applications in fields such as optical communication and quantum computing.

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Medium

316

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Nanomotors In The Field of Medicine

Nanomotors are devices that convert electrical, chemical, light, and other kinds of energy to mechanical motion and are designed to work with matter on an atomic scale.
Mobility has been implemented in several ways by converting light, heat, electromagnetic fields, and chemical reactions to mechanical energy.
Nanomotors are key in many sectors of science, including the field of medicine, where they are employed to explore or interact with targeted cells to achieve a variety of goals that were once impossible or theoretical.
One of the major uses of nanomotors is as probes to detect cancer cells; researchers used magnet-driven nanomotors to observe and map changes in an environment infected by a tumour model that imitated the condition of a tissue affected by breast cancer.
While the implementation of nanobots in medicine is a burgeoning field, it comes with its share of limitations, concerns, and complexities.
In order to be used on patients, nanomotors must be tested rigorously on parameters such as cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, immunotoxicity and others.
The sophisticated design and development of nanobots, along with its operational expertise induces high costs, making it difficult to scale-up the production.
Nanomotors offer the potential to revolutionize how we approach tasks like drug delivery, invasive surgeries, and cancer detection, but there are significant challenges that must be addressed, including concerns about biocompatibility, production costs, and data privacy.
As research continues, rigorous testing will be important to ensure these technologies are safe and effective for widespread use.
The ethical challenge of privacy is often brought into conversation, requiring highly secure data storage systems and ironclad privacy policies and security systems.

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Fyfluiddynamics

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Self-Cleaning With Salt Critters

Researchers have developed a solution for tackling scale buildup using salt critters.
Salt critters are jellyfish-like structures that grow and detach from nanotextured surfaces.
Microtextured surfaces lead to salt buildup, while nanotextured surfaces prevent adhesion and promote self-cleaning.
This approach could allow for the use of salt water in industrial processes, preserving freshwater for other essential purposes.

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Physicsworld

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Eco-friendly graphene composite recovers gold from e-waste

A new eco-friendly composite material made from graphene oxide and chitosan has been developed to extract gold from electronic waste.
The composite is 10 times more efficient than previous adsorbents, filtering gold without an external power source.
The combination of graphene's high surface area and chitosan's reducing agent properties enhances the gold recovery process.
The composite material shows high extraction efficiency, environmentally friendly properties, and potential applications in recovering other valuable metals and environmental cleaning efforts.

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Arstechnica

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For the strongest disc golf throws, it’s all in the thumbs

Physicist Zachary Lindsey conducted an experiment to improve disc golf performance.
Lindsey and his team found the optimal thumb distance from the disc's center.
Disc golf, also known as Frisbee golf, was popularized by Ed Hendrick in the 1960s.
The game is played with discs and targets called "baskets."

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Medium

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Global Development in Magnetic Propulsion: A Snapshot

The field of magnetic propulsion is experiencing rapid and decentralized development.
Challenging existing paradigms and embracing a more open and collaborative approach to research is crucial.
Magnetic propulsion offers the potential to create a more sustainable future.

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