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Officers awarded $15M after jury finds LAPD retaliated against them for reporting training safety issues

The four officers’ careers were negatively impacted after they reported unsafe firearms training protocols and staff shortages that left recruits inadequately trained, a jury found

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Orbital dances unlock true masses of Orion’s young stars

A star’s mass determines its entire life story, from how it shines to how it dies. For young stars shrouded in dust, getting an accurate mass has long been difficult, but new radio measurements are beginning to change that. Astronomers are helping unravel the mass mystery of young stars in the Orion star-forming complex by measuring their masses with unprecedented precision.

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Quantum ‘dark modes’ no longer block phonon control, opening new paths for scalable devices

Three RIKEN researchers have demonstrated a way to stop problematic “dark modes” from squelching intriguing effects in quantum systems. This advance could help with the development of more versatile quantum devices that can be used to control the storage and transmission of quantum information. The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

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One-way phonon synchronization could survive noise and defects, theoretical physicists suggest

A novel approach for realizing the one-way quantum synchronization of phonons has been proposed by three theoretical physicists at RIKEN. Importantly, this method is remarkably resilient against practical challenges such as imperfections and environmental noise. Their paper, “Nonreciprocal quantum synchronization,” is published in Nature Communications.

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Operation Prato 1977: When UFOs Attacked the People of Colares, Brazil — And the Military Covered It Up

In the autumn of 1977, the small island town of Colares in the Brazilian state of Pará became ground zero for one of the most terrifying and best-documented…

The post Operation Prato 1977: When UFOs Attacked the People of Colares, Brazil — And the Military Covered It Up appeared first on Infinity Explorers.

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Kenneth Arnold 1947: The Sighting That Invented “Flying Saucers” and Changed History

On June 24, 1947, a private pilot named Kenneth Arnold was flying his CallAir A-2 near Mount Rainier in Washington state when he witnessed something that would change…

The post Kenneth Arnold 1947: The Sighting That Invented “Flying Saucers” and Changed History appeared first on Infinity Explorers.

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The Hessdalen Lights: Norway’s Unexplained Glowing Orbs That Have Baffled Scientists for 40 Years

Deep in the remote Hessdalen Valley of central Norway, something extraordinary has been happening since at least 1981. Bright, pulsating lights appear without warning over the snow-covered hills…

The post The Hessdalen Lights: Norway’s Unexplained Glowing Orbs That Have Baffled Scientists for 40 Years appeared first on Infinity Explorers.

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How electron structure affects light responses in moiré materials

In materials science, if you can understand the “texture” of a material—how its internal patterns form and shift—you can begin to design how it behaves. That’s the focus of the work of Zhenglu Li, assistant professor in the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Li’s recently published paper in PNAS, titled “Moiré excitons in generalized Wigner crystals,” demonstrates that the way electrons organize themselves inside a material determines how that material responds to light—and how this organization can be engineered.

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The Wow! Signal: The 72-Second Transmission From Space That Scientists Still Cannot Explain

On August 15, 1977, a volunteer astronomer named Jerry Ehman was reviewing data from Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope when he noticed something extraordinary. A narrow-band…

The post The Wow! Signal: The 72-Second Transmission From Space That Scientists Still Cannot Explain appeared first on Infinity Explorers.

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Q&A: Apollo astronaut Schmitt talks about getting back to the moon and life in the universe

It was 1972 and Apollo astronauts Harrison “Jack” Schmitt and Eugene Cernan had just stepped onto the moon’s surface to begin collecting rock and soil samples.

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Milky Way’s ‘little cousins’ may hold clues about infant universe

Ultra-faint dwarf galaxies—tiny satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way—have long been seen as cosmic fossils. Now, a new study published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society uses an unprecedented set of simulations to show just how powerfully these faint systems can reflect the conditions of the early universe and tell us why some galaxies grew and others did not.

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Moon dust could stop being a nuisance and start reshaping how humans may build beyond Earth

As space agencies and private companies look toward a sustained human presence on the moon, a fundamental challenge centers on how to build strong, durable infrastructure without hauling every material from Earth. New research from Rice University points to an unexpected solution—transforming one of the moon’s most stubborn obstacles, its abrasive dust, into a valuable building resource. The study demonstrates that lunar regolith simulant, a terrestrial stand-in for the moon’s fine, abrasive dust, can be used to strengthen advanced composite materials. The work, published in Advanced Engineering Materials, was also selected for the cover of the journal’s latest issue.

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3I/ATLAS contains 30 times more semi-heavy water than comets in our solar system

New observations of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS include the first measurement of the abundance of deuterated water relative to ordinary water in an interstellar object. Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) discovered that the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is made of an astonishingly high ratio of semi-heavy water relative to water, indicating that its system of origin likely formed under conditions far colder than our own. The findings are published in Nature Astronomy.

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Did NASA’s Curiosity rover find signs of ancient life on Mars? An astrobiologist explains how we determine ‘life’

NASA’s Curiosity rover has identified seven new organic compounds on the planet Mars, according to new research published in Nature Communications.

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Mysterious gas clouds near Milky Way’s black hole now have a likely source

New observations and simulations by a team of researchers led by MPE reveal that a massive binary star near our galaxy’s center is responsible for creating a series of enigmatic gas clouds—compact gas clumps that help feed the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*. The study is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

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