Science news of the day thread.

[Brian Peacock]

Physicists have proved that a subatomic particle can switch into its antiparticle alter-ego and back again, in a new discovery revealed today.

The extraordinarily precise measurement was made by UK researchers using the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment at CERN.
It has provided the first evidence that charm mesons can change into their antiparticle and back again.

For more than 10 years, scientists have known that charm mesons, subatomic particles that contain a quark and an antiquark, can travel as a mixture of their particle and antiparticle states.
It is a phenomenon called mixing.

However, this new result shows for the first time that they can oscillate between the two states.

Armed with this new evidence, scientists can try to tackle some of the biggest questions in physics around how particles behave outside of the Standard Model.


https://phys.org/news/2021-06-subatomic ... rticle.amp

[NineBerry]

Physicists have proved that a subatomic particle can switch into its antiparticle alter-ego and back again, in a new discovery revealed today.

Stupid liberals again. Those subatomic particles should remain the particle class they were born with.

[Brian Peacock]

Trans particles are real particles.

[macdoc]

impressive

The striking Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) butterfly has been shown for the first time to be capable of making the 12,000-14,000km round trip

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 174123.htm

[macdoc]

Newest family member

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/25/asia ... gfooterold

[Brian Peacock]

Source of a Weird Quantum Sense Found in an Actual Migratory Bird For The First Time



When you're as tiny as a European robin, crossing the continent for the winter is no small feat. We now know its secret to keeping on track over vast distances – an innate ability to harness the weirdness that sits at the heart of quantum physics.

Long hypothesized as means by which animals might sense the tug of Earth's weak magnetic field, a non-classical response to light has been observed taking place within a protein expressed in the eyes of a night-migratory songbird.

A collaboration between researchers from institutions around the globe put the small bird's cryptochrome protein complex through its paces to see how it responded to being illuminated continuously and in flashes of blue light, both inside and outside of a weak magnetic field.

While it stops short of proving the small birds rely on a quantum quirk of chemistry to stay on course as they cross Europe, the finding provides crucial evidence in support of the theory of magnetoreception's role in navigation.

Earlier this year a team of researchers from the University of Tokyo found a similar protein in humans was capable of responding to blue light in different ways, depending on the strength of a nearby magnetic field.
Certain atoms in the protein with a lone electron swinging about in its outer shell could be partnered with another solitary electron in what's known as a radical pair, effectively entangling their characteristics.

The nature of this partnership can be affected by a magnetic field. Struck with a specific dose of energy in the form of blue light, a radical pair will fluoresce in different ways depending on how they're entangled.

In other words, the quantum nature of the relationship between two electrons in the right structure of protein can use light to signal different strengths of a magnetic field, even one as weak as Earth's.
This was nothing short of an astonishing finding, one that strongly implied there was more to biochemistry than classical physics could explain all on its own...

https://www.sciencealert.com/source-of- ... first-time

[Tero]

Fusion with lasers:
NIF scientists also believe they have now achieved something called "burning plasma", where the fusion reactions themselves provide the heat for more fusion. This is vital for making the process self-sustaining.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-enviro ... 252784.amp

[Brian Peacock]

More energy out than in eh?

[macdoc]

Yeah finally some progress on fusion
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/1 ... 817a/full/
...

and settling an old argument

Humans did not drive Australia's megafauna to extinction – climate change did
Scott Hucknall and colleagues for The Conversation

We now know people and megafauna overlapped by up to 20,000 years, until changes to vegetation, water and fire

Megafauna billabong scene inspired by fossils found in northern Australia dating back 40,000 to 60,00 years. Photograph: Queensland Museum

https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... queensland

[macdoc]

rise of the robots …seems only yesterday a marginal dog was walking

[Brian Peacock]

Yeah. Already posted: http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 4#p1916477

Here's another video from the same people...

[Hermit]

Yeah. Already posted: http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 4#p1916477

Here's another video from the same people...

Bosstown Dynamics is a different mob. It consists of Boston Dynamic's escapees.

[JimC]

A modern 3 laws of robotics:

1. A robot must never hurt anyone in the corporation that made them
2. A robot must follow the orders of accredited corporate officers
3. A robot must strive to maximise the profit of the corporation that owns them

[JimC]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-24/ ... /100400552

Two identical office buildings side by side in Sydney's Barangaroo provided a perfect opportunity for solar energy researchers to test a long-held hunch.

Would surrounding rooftop solar panels with green plants make them more efficient?

The answer, as it turned out, was yes.

The study was led by Peter Irga from the University of Technology Sydney and funded by the City of Sydney Council.

"For the first time we had the opportunity to compare these two buildings against each other," Dr Irga said.

On top of one of the buildings was a conventional photovoltaic solar system.

On the other, researchers surrounded the solar panels with plants and foliage.

They then compared how much energy the two solar systems produced over an eight-month period.

What they found was that the "green roof" improved performance by as much as 20 per cent at peak times and by 3.6 per cent over the length of the experiment.

Dr Irga said that solar panels actually worked better when they were not too hot.

"We are blessed in Australia to have so much sunlight but temperatures above 25 degrees make photovoltaic panels less efficient," he said.

Jock Gammon is the co-founder of Junglefy, the company that installed the green roof.

"We had heard of anecdotal evidence there was improved performance but we have seen up to 3.6 per cent increase in solar panel output," he said.

"Now that doesn't sound like a lot but with solar panels at the moment to even get a one or two per cent increase is a big deal."

Over nine months the green roof generated an additional 9.5 MWh or $2,595 worth of renewable energy.

The extra energy could be sold back to the grid resulting in a cost saving for the building.

Lucy Sharman, sustainability manager for Lendlease, which owns the building said the study proved "something that's been a bit of theory for a while".

"As the results started to come through about how much more efficient the solar panels were, how much cooler this roof was that was really exciting."

On hot days, the surface temperature on the green roof was up to 20C lower compared with the roof with no plants.

Mr Gammon said green roofs had a role to play in future-proofing cities against the damaging effects of climate change.

[macdoc]

29 year horizon now

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021
New superconducting magnet breaks magnetic field strength records, paving the way for fusion energy
by David Chandler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

https://phys.org/news/2021-09-supercond ... ength.html

Seriously tho ...this is a monster.