Quantum computing enables simulations to unravel mysteries of magnetic materials

A multi-institutional team became the first to generate accurate results from materials science simulations on a quantum computer that can be verified with neutron scattering experiments and other practical techniques. …

Personal Experiences Bridge Moral and Political Divides Better Than Facts, Research Finds

AmiMoJo shares a report from Live Science: In his inaugural address last week, President Joe Biden called for unity. But how can Americans come together, given what seems to be growing political contention and deep divides? New research suggests the answer can be found in stories, not statistics. People respect those they disagree with more when their position comes from a…

Mira’s last journey: Exploring the dark universe

A team of physicists and computer scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory performed one of the five largest cosmological simulations ever. Data from the simulation will inform sky maps to aid leading large-scale cosmological experiments. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-01-mira-journey-exploring-dark-universe.html…

New Site Extracts and Posts Every Face from Parler’s Capitol Hill Insurrection Videos

“Late last week, a website called Faces of the Riot appeared online, showing nothing but a vast grid of more than 6,000 images of faces, each one tagged only with a string of characters associated with the Parler video in which it appeared,” reports WIRED, saying the site raises clear privacy concerns: The site’s creator tells WIRED that he used simple,…

SpaceX Cargo Dragon succeeds in 1st autonomous undocking

SpaceX’s CRS-21 Cargo Dragon undocked from the International Space Station’s Harmony module on January 12, 2021, succeeding in the world’s first-ever autonomous undocking and testing of several new vehicle upgrades. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/space-x-cargo-dragon-1st-autonomous-undocking-jan-2021…

Space Station, Cygnus test technology for 5G communications, other benefits

A Northrop Grumman Cygnus supply craft carried a load of new scientific experiments to the International Space Station in early October. That is only one of the jobs the craft has, though. Once it undocks from the station Cygnus will continue operations by hosting a two-week test of emerging technologies known as SharkSat. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-01-space-station-cygnus-technology-5g.html…

The map of nuclear deformation takes the form of a mountain landscape

Until recently, scientists believed that only very massive nuclei could have excited zero-spin states of increased stability with a significantly deformed shape. Meanwhile, an international team of researchers from Romania, France, Italy, the USA and Poland showed in their latest article that such states also exist in much lighter nickel nuclei. Positive verification of the theoretical model used in these experiments…

Searching for invisible axion dark matter with a new multiple-cell cavity haloscope

Over the past few decades, many experimental physicists have been probing the existence of particles called axions, which would result from a specific mechanism that they think could explain the contradiction between theories and experiments describing a fundamental symmetry. This symmetry is associated with a matter-antimatter imbalance in the Universe, reflected in interactions between different particles. …

Astronauts Grow Radishes in a Microfarm on the International Space Station

From a report: The thought of eating “astronaut food” brings to mind a kind of instant food that is far from “farm to table.” However, recent experiments aboard the ISS are improving our understanding of how to bring the farm directly into space itself. Astronauts just ran a Veg-PONDS 02 experiment on the International Space Station. The experiment used food that…