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Physicsworld

195

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Around the world in 16 orbits: a day in the life of the International Space Station

The International Space Station (ISS) is an excellent setting for a philosophical novel.
Orbital by Samantha Harvey follows six astronauts and cosmonauts through one day on the ISS.
The novel captures the minutiae of astronaut tasks and includes descriptions of Earth during each of the 16 orbits.
The ISS’s orbit 400 km above Earth makes it possible to see the topography and colors that pass beneath.
The author's vivid and poetic descriptions of the planet are as captivating as any astronaut memoir.
Set on the ISS without being science fiction, the book depicts old yet still remarkable technology.
The novel conveys that details such as regulations for everyday life on the ISS, and even the recycling of urine and sweat become quotidian.
Orbital has been shortlisted for both the 2024 Booker Prize and the 2024 Ursula K Le Guin Prize for Fiction.
Harvey’s writing has been compared to Virginia Woolf; however, Orbital is as accessible and educational as the best of popular science.
Orbital is a remarkable book that considers life beyond borders, emphasizing the importance of international cooperation, science, and engineering.

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Physicsworld

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Semiconductor pioneer Richard Friend bags 2024 Isaac Newton Medal and Prize

Richard Friend from the University of Cambridge has won the 2024 Isaac Newton Medal and Prize for his work on the fundamental electronic properties of molecular semiconductors.
Friend pioneered the fabrication of thin-film molecular semiconductor devices and co-founded companies to develop polymer LED displays and transistor circuits for e-paper displays.
He has received other honors, including the Katherine Burr Blodgett Medal and Prize and the Millennium Technology Prize.
Friend continues to work on molecular semiconductors to improve the efficiency of LEDs.

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Physicsworld

177

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‘Mock asteroids’ deflected by X-rays in study that could help us protect Earth

Physicists in the US have conducted lab-based experiments showing how an asteroid could be deflected by bursts of X-rays.
The experiments used a powerful X-ray generator to accelerate an asteroid-mimicking target suspended in space.
The study provides an alternative approach to deflecting asteroids using X-ray bursts instead of impact collisions.
The research could contribute to the development of effective defense mechanisms against devastating asteroid impacts.

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Eu-Startups

182

AI innovators score the 2024 Nobel Prize “A turning point for science and innovation”

John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics for their contributions to neural networks and deep learning.
Demis Hassabis, head of DeepMind, received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of AlphaFold, revolutionizing protein structure understanding.
The recognition highlights the significant impact of AI on science, industry, and process transformation.
The awards symbolize the beginning of a new era of hybrid intelligence, where AI and human intelligence collaborate to tackle global challenges.

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Physicsworld

302

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Patient-specific quality assurance (PSQA) based on independent 3D dose calculation

Patient-specific quality assurance (PSQA) is an essential component of radiation treatment process, ensuring delivery of planned dose.
3D dose calculation systems offer a solution to reduce time needed for initiation of treatments.
Implementing PSQA based on independent 3D dose calculation for VMAT treatments in breast cancer using DICOM information and LOG files.
Daniel Venencia and Carlos Bohorquez are experts in the field of medical physics and clinical quality assurance.

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Physicsworld

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Quantum material detects tiny mechanical strains

Scientists from Nanjing University of China have developed a quantum material-based sensor that can detect strains in a material more than an order of magnitude weaker than was possible with previous sensors. Traditional sensors' resistances don't change much under strain, making it hard to detect weak strains, but a material from single-crystal vanadium oxide can easily measure the changes and generate large electrical signals. The Nanjing researchers faced challenges in fabricating the sensor because of the material's structure, and used a specially-adapted hydrogen-assisted chemical vapour deposition micro-nano fabrication process to create it. The device could have applications in materials science and electronics engineering.
Vanadium oxide is used in this sensor and the material shows potential for strain detection applications, prompting researchers in electronics engineering and materials science to study similar compounds and this context. The team grew high-quality, smooth single crystals of the material and transferred them from the SiO2/Si wafer on which they were grown to a flexible substrate (smooth and insulating polyimide), and then loaded the polyimide substrate/VO2(B) into a customized strain setup. Once the device had been created, researchers measured how the current voltage characteristics of the mechanical sensor changed as strain was applied to it. Under no strain, the channel current of the device registers 165 μA at a bias of 0.5 V, indicating that it is conducting.
The device was able to detect slight mechanical pressure from small objects, gentle airflows and tiny vibrations, and future research will involve integration with flexible devices in order to create ultra-sensitive quantum material sensing chips.

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Medium

284

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AI Rebranded as Physics: Reflections on the 2024 Physics Nobel Prize by a Physicist turned AI…

The mathematics behind an X-ray laser invention can be applied to create a computationally efficient sequential pattern matching algorithm, contributing to the formulations of AI.
From a purist perspective, AI does not belong to the discipline of physics.
Hinton and Hopfield made remarkable breakthroughs in the fields of computer science and mathematics, not physics.
Though their work has enabled astrophysicists and other subfields in physics to analyze large sets of images, AI does not entirely contribute to the discipline of physics.
Physics does have deep connections with other interdisciplinary fields as everything is mathematical modeling, which is essentially what physics is mostly about.
However, dedicating a Nobel Prize to AI is contributing to its 'AI-ification' and leads to the undervaluation of contributions made in other disciplines.
It is a concern that society is over-indexing on one type of scientific progress while undervaluing others in the face of immense challenges as a society.

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Knowridge

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Scientists uncover hidden deformations in complex light fields

Researchers at Tampere University have discovered that complex light structures can cause deformations when reflected off flat surfaces.
The deformations reveal valuable information about the material properties of the reflecting object.
This phenomenon, known as 'topological aberration,' confirms a prediction made over a decade ago.
The discovery could lead to new methods for measuring material properties using structured light waves.

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Netflixtechblog

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Investigation of a Workbench UI Latency Issue

The Analytics and Developer Experience organization at Netflix offers a product called Workbench. It allows data practitioners to work with big data and machine learning use cases at scale. Recently, several users reported that their JupyterLab UI becomes slow and unresponsive when running certain notebooks. Itay Dafna devised an effective and simple method to quantify the UI slowness. We observed latencies ranging from 1 to 10 seconds, averaging 7.4 seconds.
One of the symptoms was that their JupyterLab UI based on Titus becomes slow and unresponsive when running some of their Notebooks. The UI was also slow in cases of no pystan use. The Workbench instance runs as a Titus container. To efficiently utilize our compute resources, Titus employs a CPU oversubscription feature.
The next theory was that the network between the web browser UI on the laptop and the JupyterLab server was slow. The more CPUs you have, the slower you get. The extension used to monitor CPU usage causing CPU contention.
We used py-spy to do a profiling of the jupyter-lab process. A lot of CPU time is spent on a function called __parse_smaps_rollup. Starting many grandchildren processes in the child process cause the parent process to be slow.
The extension is used to display the CPU and memory usage of the notebook process on the bar at the bottom of the Notebook. Disabling the jupyter-resource-usage extension meets their requirements for UI responsiveness.
This was a challenging issue that required debugging from the UI all the way down to the Linux kernel. Overall, the problem is linear to both the number of CPUs and the virtual memory size. Two dimensions that are generally viewed separately.
If you’re excited by tackling such technical challenges and have the opportunity to solve complex technical challenges and drive innovation, consider joining our Data Platform teams. Be part of shaping the future of Data Security and Infrastructure, Data Developer Experience, Analytics Infrastructure and Enablement, and more.

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Physicsworld

116

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Electrical sutures accelerate wound healing

Researchers at Donghua University have created surgical sutures that produce electricity to help accelerate the healing process. The suture generates electricity via a triboelectric mechanism with the movement from contracting muscles generating an electric field at the wound site. The electricity promotes wound repair by stimulating cell proliferation and migration, and the suture material is also both biocompatible and biodegradable. Tested on rats, the BioES-suture treated group achieved 96.5% wound healing compared to the 32.6% traditional suture achieving.
After a week, the researchers found the BioES sutures had similar viability to that of control cells, with strength comparable to commercial sutures.
The core of the BioES-suture completely degraded within 14 days, and the PCL layer remains intact for up to 24 weeks with no obvious BioES-suture evidence left.
The BioES-suture's ability to generate electricity was 7.32V in air and 8.71V in water, and it could effectively convert natural body movements into stable electrical impulses.
In vitro wound models, treated with BioES-sutures, showed increased cell proliferation, faster migration of fibroblasts, and increased expression of growth factors compared to traditional sutures.
The researchers also tested the BioES-suture's antibacterial capabilities and found that it significantly inhibited bacterial growth compared with other sutures, which could indicate an antimicrobial effect during wound healing.
Clinical trials are underway for the BioES-suture's potential use in humans.

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Knowridge

432

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Scientists use asteroid data to investigate possible fifth force in the universe

Scientists are using data from the asteroid Bennu to explore the possibility of a fifth fundamental force in the universe.
The OSIRIS-REx mission, which returned a sample of Bennu in 2023, provided valuable data for this investigation.
By analyzing Bennu's trajectory, scientists hope to detect any unusual behavior that could indicate the existence of a fifth force.
The fifth force could potentially explain phenomena such as dark matter and dark energy.

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Knowridge

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How Earth’s lightning storms affect “killer” electrons in space

Lightning storms on Earth can dislodge high-energy electrons, known as 'killer electrons', from space around our planet.
These electrons pose a danger as they can damage satellites and harm astronauts.
Researchers discovered that lightning storms cause bursts of energy that knock high-energy electrons out of the inner radiation belt.
This connection between lightning strikes and high-energy electrons in space allows for better prediction and protection against harmful radiation.

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Knowridge

388

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Scientists develop world’s strongest ultra-short laser pulses

Researchers from ETH Zurich have developed a laser that produces the strongest ultra-short pulses to date, setting a new world record in laser technology.
The laser pulses have an average power of 550 watts and last less than a picosecond.
The pulses can be used for scientific and industrial applications, such as machining materials and observing ultra-fast processes.
The breakthrough was achieved through the use of special mirror arrangements and a unique mirror called SESAM.

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Hackaday

294

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Remembering John Wheeler: You’ve Definitely Heard of His Work

Physicist John Archibald Wheeler made groundbreaking contributions to physics.
His work includes concepts such as wormholes, black holes, and the phrase 'It from Bit.'
Wheeler's students included Richard Feynman and Kip Thorne.
His research pushed the limits of theories and sought a greater understanding of reality.

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Interactions

210

Particle physicists chart a course to the future

The European Strategy for Particle Physics is set to develop a visionary and concrete plan that greatly advances human knowledge in fundamental physics through the next flagship project at CERN.
During the next year and a half, the whole community will work to develop a common vision for the future of particle physics in Europe.
The previous update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics completed in 2020 recommended that the world should investigate the technical and financial feasibility of a future hadron collider at CERN with a centre-of-mass energy of at least 100 TeV.
The European Strategy update is expected to prioritise areas of priority for scientific exploration complementary to colliders, as well as for other items such as accelerator, detector and computing research and development, theory developments, actions to minimise environmental impact and improve the sustainability of accelerator-based particle physics, initiatives to attract, train and retain early-career researchers, and public engagement.
The European Organisation for Nuclear Research will investigate the fundamental nature of the universe through the world's largest and most complex scientific instruments to study the basic constituents of matter – the fundamental particles.
The third update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics has been launched to develop a visionary and concrete plan for the next flagship project at CERN.
Studying the Higgs boson and other elementary particles in greater detail and exploring nature at higher energies using next-generation colliders will be key to tackling profound open questions.
The third update is expected to prioritise alternative options to be pursued if the chosen preferred plan turns out not to be feasible or competitive.
The European Strategy is driven by the CERN Council, composed of representatives of all Member States.
The community will work towards developing a common vision for the future of particle physics in Europe, including which major project should succeed the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

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