When should we listen for alien signals? Scientists turn to game theory

Finding a signal from an extraterrestrial civilization takes more than just pointing a telescope in the right direction. We may also need to listen at exactly the right time.

Go to Source

Light-matter hybrids form supersolid quantum state at room temperature

Researchers from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw, the Military University of Technology (Poland), IBM Research Zurich and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) have observed a new quantum state of matter known as a supersolid in an exciton-polariton Bose-Einstein condensate. Remarkably, the phenomenon occurs not at temperatures close to absolute zero, but at room temperature. The results have been published in Science Advances.

Go to Source

A laser can draw superconductivity at the nanoscale

Researchers from ICMAB-CSIC, the Politecnico di Milano and Université de Liège have adapted a direct laser writing technique that allows them to “draw” superconducting properties in a material. The result is a new way to locally program the behavior of a superconductor, tuning it from a fully superconducting state to an insulating one with extraordinary precision.

Go to Source

ATF affidavit: Suspect deliberately set fire to Miss. police station

The suspect smashed a Senatobia Police Department window, spread flammable liquid inside and triggered an explosion that threw him into the roadway, the ATF said

Go to Source

A single measurement makes quantum bits more reliable

Researchers at the University of Regensburg and their international partners have found a way to significantly reduce errors in quantum bits. In an experiment, they demonstrated that a single additional measurement before a series of quantum operations can cut the error rate by more than half. The results have been published in Applied Physics Reviews.

Go to Source

‘God gave me that right to travel’: BWC shows Utah traffic stop of Ammon Bundy that ended in arrest

Officers carried Bundy to a patrol vehicle after he declined to exit his pickup when an Iron County deputy told him it would be impounded

Go to Source

Red and green auroras may share electron-driven origins

With their mysterious glow and swirling veils of color, auroras enchant even experienced researchers. When a particularly intense solar storm reached Earth on the night of May 10, 2024, and relevant websites predicted auroras even for southern Lower Saxony, several researchers from the Technical University of Braunschweig, the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films IST, the University of Göttingen, and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) took to the outdoors.

Go to Source

An asteroid’s shape influences where a nuclear blast must be aimed to deflect it

If a dangerous asteroid were headed toward Earth, one defense could be a nuclear detonation to blast one side with X-rays and nudge it off course. But new simulations suggest that for a lumpy, irregular asteroid, exactly where those X-rays hit could make a huge difference.

Go to Source

Video: N.M. police avoid pursuit by using drone to track fleeing repeat offender

Santa Fe police say the suspect has been arrested at least 18 times since 2022

Go to Source

Watch: Fla. trooper’s foot pursuit gets a boost from a passing pickup driver

Video shows a pickup driver helping a trooper catch a suspect accused of driving 92 mph and fleeing after a crash

Go to Source

N.Y. trooper fired for off-duty cannabis use sues for reinstatement

The troopers union says a disciplinary panel recommended retaining the veteran officer, who used cannabis gummies off duty following a work-related injury

Go to Source

JWST may have found where heavy black hole seeds formed

Astrophysicists think that the supermassive black holes (SMBH) we see in the modern universe are the result of a long, drawn-out process. That process is referred to as the hierarchical black hole mergers framework. It explains how some SMBHs can reach such staggering masses. Some of the most massive appear to have billions of solar masses.

Go to Source

Physicists step closer to the ‘Zeptoverse’ after 42-year particle search

Physicists have found evidence of a particle decay so rare that it is expected to occur only around once in every 10 billion “beauty” particles. The result, from the upgraded LHCb experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), follows a search spanning more than 40 years and brings physicists closer to exploring the “Zeptoverse”—an unexplored world that exists at distances of a billionth of a trillionth of a meter, or a “zeptometer,” where new particles and forces of nature may be hiding.

Go to Source

Fingernail-sized chip untangles mixed light into clean beams

Stanford engineers and colleagues designed a chip that can take a muddled mixture of light from multiple lasers and output clean beams of light. It’s the first time researchers have demonstrated a device that can take in mixed, or partially coherent, light and sort its photons into a clear set of separate beams.

Go to Source

A tiny shift exposes a cold brown dwarf masquerading as an early galaxy

A faint red object spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope originally appeared to offer a possible glimpse of the universe’s first galaxies. But images taken about 3½ years apart revealed a giveaway: The object, nicknamed Capotauro, had moved.

Go to Source