Physicists in the US have made a groundbreaking discovery in the field of ultracold atom traps, finding that five-body recombination could be the largest contributor to loss from these traps at specific “Efimov resonances.” This process, which involves the formation of a tetramer molecule and a single free atom, could have significant implications for building…
Science on The Soothsayer / page 6
The Mars rover Perseverance has made history by capturing the first visible-light image of an aurora on another planet. The image, taken during a solar storm on March 18, 2024, shows a faint greenish tinge in the Martian sky. Scientists believe that similar aurorae would be visible to future human explorers on Mars. Forecast for…
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced plans to remove fluoride supplements from the market, citing concerns about potential harm to gut microbes, links to thyroid disorders, weight gain, and decreased IQ. However, many health experts strongly disagree with the move, warning that it could lead to further decay of oral health, particularly…
Physicists at Ruhr University Bochum, CINECA, and Instituto Superior Tecnico have set a new upper bound on the interaction strength of dark matter by simulating the collision of two clouds of interstellar plasma. The study, published in Physical Review D, rules out many of the simplest dark matter theories and will require them to be…
Physicists at Swansea University have proposed a groundbreaking technique to eliminate quantum backaction noise in optical traps, allowing particles to remain suspended in space undisturbed. This innovation could pave the way for quieter, more precise experiments and unlock a new generation of ultra-sensitive quantum sensors. The technique involves blocking the flow of information from the…
A new study has revealed that bioparticles, such as bacteria, pollen, and fungal spores, play a crucial role in regulating rainfall patterns. These particles can make up a significant portion of the particles that seed rain in the sky and fluctuate in a daily cycle. The study’s findings suggest that incorporating bioparticles into weather models…
Researchers at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Chemistry have made a groundbreaking discovery in the field of superconductivity. By developing a new technique called planar electron tunnelling spectroscopy, they have directly measured a superconducting gap in a hydride sulphide material for the first time. This finding confirms that the electron pairing in these materials is…
Researchers at CERN have developed an innovative experiment using modified smartphone camera sensors to improve the spatial resolution of measurements of antimatter annihilations. This breakthrough could lead to a deeper understanding of how antimatter falls under gravity and potentially challenge our current understanding of the weak equivalence principle. The experiment, known as AEgIS, aims to…
A group of 16 aeronauts participating in the 1906 gas balloon race inadvertently contributed to a groundbreaking discovery in mathematical physics. Lewis Fry Richardson’s analysis of their landing spots revealed a pattern of turbulent swirling in the Earth’s atmosphere, which remains a mystery to this day. Despite significant progress in simulating fluids on computers, mathematicians…
A recent study published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface has revealed that the shape of leaves plays a crucial role in determining how far they fall from the tree. The research, conducted by physicists Matthew Biviano and Kaare Jensen, found that leaves with symmetrical shapes and few lobes tend to fall closer…