05 Sci-Tech

Researchers make disturbing new discovery about deadly disease that impacts pregnant women: ‘These findings offer vital insights’ – The Cool Down

pgnewser March 19, 2025 0

Researchers make disturbing new discovery about deadly disease that impacts pregnant women: ‘These findings offer vital insights’ – The Cool Down
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Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have discovered that the Zika virus builds tiny tunnels called nanotubes in the cells of pregnant women, helping it to covertly cross the placental barrier, which normally protects the fetus from chemicals and microbes that could harm it.

The study, published in Nature Communications, also found that this strategy raises little alarm in the immune system.

“We discovered that the formation of these tiny tunnels is driven exclusively by a Zika protein called NS1,” first author Rafael T. Michita stated in a news release. “Exposure of placental cells to the NS1 protein of Zika virus triggers tunnel formation. As the tunnels develop and connect neighboring cells, a path opens for the virus to invade new cells.”

Scientists Cracked the Code to Capturing Ultrafast Electron Motion in Real Time – SciTechDaily

pgnewser March 19, 2025 0

Scientists Cracked the Code to Capturing Ultrafast Electron Motion in Real Time – SciTechDaily
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Researchers have simplified a highly complex quantum imaging technique, 2DES, used to observe ultrafast electron interactions.

By refining an existing interferometer design, they improved control over laser pulses, unlocking new capabilities for studying energy transfer in materials.

Unveiling the Ultrafast World of Electrons

The ultrafast movements and interactions of electrons in molecules and solids have long been difficult to observe directly. In recent years, scientists have developed methods to study these quantum processes, such as chemical reactions, solar energy conversion, and quantum computing operations, in real-time with extreme precision.

One of the most advanced techniques for this is two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy (2DES), which can track electron dynamics with a resolution of just a few femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second). However, 2DES is highly complex and has only been used by a few research teams worldwide.

Physicists Just Found a Way to Control Atoms Using Twisted Light – SciTechDaily

pgnewser March 19, 2025 0

Physicists Just Found a Way to Control Atoms Using Twisted Light – SciTechDaily
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Atoms are the fundamental building blocks of everything around us. Occasionally, they lose electrons and become charged particles, a process known as ionization. This phenomenon occurs in lightning, plasma TVs, and even the northern lights. Until now, scientists believed their ability to control ionization was quite limited.

A research team led by Ravi Bhardwaj, Full Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Department of Physics, and PhD student Jean-Luc Begin, in collaboration with Professors Ebrahim Karimi, Paul Corkum, and Thomas Brabec, has introduced a groundbreaking method to manipulate ionization using specially structured light beams.

New genetic analysis suggests the origins of human language are more than 100,000 years old– cosmosmagazine.com

pgnewser March 19, 2025 0

New genetic analysis suggests the origins of human language are more than 100,000 years old– cosmosmagazine.com
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… A new analysis published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology by a team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) uses a different approach to try and find the origin of human language: genomic data.

Modern humans, Homo sapiens, emerged about 230,000 years ago in Africa. The new research begins with the assumption that there is a common language or language group to which all modern languages can be traced.

“The logic is very simple,” says co-author Shigeru Miyagawa, a linguist at MIT. “Every population branching across the globe has human language, and all languages are related.”

Miyagawa’s team mapped out human geographic divergence using data from 15 genetic studies published in the last 18 years.

“I think we can say with a fair amount of certainty that the first split occurred about 135,000 years ago, so human language capacity must have been present by then, or before,” Miyagawa says.

(Nigerian) Bill to regulate social media scales second reading in Senate – The Nation Newspaper

pgnewser March 19, 2025 0

Bill to regulate social media scales second reading in Senate – The Nation Newspaper
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A Bill seeking to make it compulsory for social media platforms to have physical offices as well as formalise the registration and regulation of bloggers in Nigeria scaled the second read reading yesterday at the Senate.

It was the Senate’s second attempt to regulate the social media in the country.

Its first attempt during the Ninth National Assembly fizzled out after widespread criticisms and outcry by stakeholders who regarded it as an attempt to gag the media and contravene Section 39 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to freedom of expression provides.

US Commerce Department bans Chinese AI model DeepSeek on government devices – Caliber.Az – Новости Азербайджана и мира

pgnewser March 18, 2025 0

US Commerce Department bans Chinese AI model DeepSeek on government devices – Caliber.Az – Новости Азербайджана и мира
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The US Department of Commerce has recently notified its staff across various bureaus that the Chinese artificial intelligence model, DeepSeek, is now prohibited on all government devices.

The department issued a mass email to employees, stressing the need to maintain secure information systems, Caliber.Az reports via foreign media.

“To help keep Department of Commerce information systems safe, access to the new Chinese-based AI DeepSeek is broadly prohibited on all GFE,” the email read. “Do not download, view, access any applications, desktop apps, or websites related to DeepSeek.” The Department of Commerce has not yet responded to requests for additional comment.

DeepSeek, known for its low-cost AI models, caused a stir in January when it triggered a significant selloff in global equity markets. The selloff was driven by concerns from investors about the potential risks to the US technological leadership in artificial intelligence. US government officials and members of Congress have raised concerns about the risks DeepSeek poses to data privacy and the protection of sensitive government information.

Dinosaur Armor and Weaponry Was Even More Impressive Than Researchers Thought– www.scientificamerican.com

pgnewser March 18, 2025 0

Dinosaur Armor and Weaponry Was Even More Impressive Than Researchers Thought– www.scientificamerican.com
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In the pantheon of dinosaur royalty, sauropods may have been the biggest and tyrannosaurs the deadliest. But the ceratopsians, ankylosaurs and stegosaurs were the most metal dinosaurs of all. With their horns and spikes, body plates and tail clubs, these horned and armored dinosaurs have long captured popular imagination. In the early 1900s American paleoartist Charles R. Knight depicted one of these weapon wielders, the plant-eating Triceratops, as a worthy adversary of carnivorous Tyrannosaurus rex; Stegosaurus makes regular (and formidable) appearances in the Jurassic Park movie franchise that began in 1993. Yet despite our enduring fascination with these “living tanks,” as armor-bearing dinosaurs have been described, many details of their anatomy—including the composition and even the functions of their impressive accoutrements—have remained unknown.

The problem stemmed from the scarcity of fossils of these animals that, even when found, often consisted of mere scraps. These recovered specimens also preserved only the hard bony parts, not any of the associated soft tissue. In their efforts to reconstruct armored dinosaurs as they were in life based on this meager evidence, paleontologists took what they thought was a conservative approach and assumed that the bony remnants of the armor of these long-dead dinosaurs constituted the bulk of the armor in life. Those reconstructions revealed some magnificent creatures—ceratopsians equipped with three-foot-wide frills, stegosaurs brandishing 30-inch-long tail spikes, nodosaurs bristling with shoulder spikes nearly a foot and a half in length.

Researchers advance substrate engineering pathways to improve power electronics– phys.org

pgnewser March 18, 2025 0

Researchers advance substrate engineering pathways to improve power electronics– phys.org
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As the growth in global electricity need and supply continues to accelerate, efficient power electronics will be key to improving grid efficiency, stability, integration, and resilience for all energy sources.

Advances in wide-bandgap materials for semiconductors offer the potential to enable greater power handling in power electronics while reducing electrical and thermal losses. Wide-bandgap materials also allow for smaller, faster, more reliable, and more energy-efficient power electronic components than current commercial silicon-based power electronic components.

Researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the Colorado School of Mines, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory examined a potential route to achieve peak performance of aluminum gallium nitride, AlxGa1-xN, a key material for increasing power electronics’ energy efficiency and performance, through growth on optimized substrate materials.

 

Discovery of a new species of fossil tree helps paint picture of ancient African forest– phys.org

pgnewser March 18, 2025 0

Discovery of a new species of fossil tree helps paint picture of ancient African forest– phys.org
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Recent research by scientists at the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT), Texas Tech University, and several other collaborating institutions have identified ancient fossils of a newly described tree species named Astropanax eogetem.

The discovery further reveals the details of life nearly 22 million years ago (a geological time known as the early Miocene) in a prehistoric forest in Ethiopia. The findings are published in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.

The fossils were found in the Mush Valley, which is located about 160 miles northeast of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. Dr. Aaron Pan, Executive Director of the Museum of Texas Tech University and a Research Associate at BRIT, has conducted extensive excavations at the site as a member of a research team, uncovering a wealth of evidence of life in a lush tropical forest surrounding a volcanic crater lake.

Harvard Will Make Tuition Free for More Students– www.nytimes.com

pgnewser March 18, 2025 0

Harvard Will Make Tuition Free for More Students– www.nytimes.com
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But he referred to the value of bringing a cross-section of people together.

“Putting Harvard within financial reach for more individuals widens the array of backgrounds, experiences and perspectives that all of our students encounter, fostering their intellectual and personal growth,” Dr. Garber said in the announcement. “By bringing people of outstanding promise together to learn with and from one another, we truly realize the tremendous potential of the university.”

The annual cost of attending Harvard, including tuition and housing, was almost $83,000 this school year. In addition to offering free tuition to students with family incomes up to $200,000, Harvard said that students from families that make under $100,000 will pay for practically nothing.

For those students, Harvard will cover tuition, fees, food, housing, travel costs between campus and home, event fees and activities, and health insurance, if needed. The university will also pay for “winter gear” to help students brace against harsh winters on Harvard’s Cambridge, Mass., campus, along with a $2,000 “start-up” grant.