BWC: Ariz. SWAT engages in multi-hour standoff with armed suspect known to be ‘anti-police’

Through past contact with the suspect, Glendale cops knew the man had animosity toward police; he called 911 during the standoff to say he was armed and refused to drop his weapons

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Minneapolis officer fired, accused of tipping off brother suspected in shooting

The officer allegedly sent her brother a picture of a confidential bulletin informing officers to be on the lookout for a suspect who resembled him

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S.C. deputy shot during traffic stop, suspect remains at large

An Aiken County Sheriff’s deputy was hospitalized after a suspect fleeing a traffic stop shot at him; a manhunt to locate the suspect is underway

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Black hole observations uncover evidence of solar storm–like magnetic eruptions

Technion researchers have presented evidence for the existence of solar-storm-like outbursts near supermassive black holes, which can be a million times larger than the sun or more. The phenomenon was discovered in the vicinity of the black hole in the galaxy NGC 3783, and the researchers’ findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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The sky in Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ matches the predawn sky around July 22, 1889

New research published in Scientific Reports finds that the sky in Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night” (1889) matches, in both observation and shape, the predawn sky over Saint-Rémy around July 22, 1889. In the early hours of that period, a waning crescent moon, Venus and the Hyades star cluster in Taurus appeared close together. The study was carried out jointly by SLLAB, a South Korean space-science company, and the School of Space Research at Kyung Hee University.

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There should be black holes in our neighborhood. Can we find them?

Scientific estimates show that there should be between about 100 million and 1 billion stellar-mass black holes in the Milky Way. But they aren’t easy to locate. They’re not like supermassive black holes (SMBH) at the centers of galaxies. Those are usually easy to spot for different reasons.

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Curtain-like plasma structures explain solar jets’ apparent spinning in simulations

An international team of scientists from the University of Sheffield and the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, led by a postdoctoral research fellow from the University of Newcastle, Australia, has discovered that solar jets called spicules, which are 6–8 Mm long, take the form of warped, denser plasma sheets like pleated drapery.

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Texas officer dies after medical incident on duty

Fort Worth Police Brian Gentry had been employed by the city as an officer since 2004; He was assigned to the fugitive unit as a U.S. Marshals Service task force officer

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Are ‘mega-Earths’ real? Stellar activity may explain these oversized rocky worlds

A new study suggests that some of the heaviest rocky planets ever reported may not be as heavy as they look. These so-called ‘mega-Earths,’ rocky planets weighing more than about 10 Earths, could be an illusion created by activity on their host stars. The paper was posted to the arXiv preprint server on Oct. 8.

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Lost Schrödinger manuscript reveals his true view of quantum randomness

Unlike classical physics, quantum mechanics generally cannot tell us exactly what will happen in an individual event. Instead, it predicts the probabilities of different outcomes. As one of the theory’s early pioneers, Erwin Schrödinger played a key role in debates about what this randomness really means. However, part of his contribution has stayed hidden for more than 80 years.

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Sapphire-grown semiconductor film sets bandgap record

Semiconductors with wider bandgaps could pave the way for smaller, more efficient electronics that can handle far higher voltages, but the wider this gap becomes, the harder it is to control how well a material conducts electricity. Now, a team led by Darrell Schlom at Cornell University has shown that adding silicon to thin films of aluminum gallium oxide can keep this control intact at bandgaps wider than any semiconductor before it. Their research has been published in Nature.

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Laser-made lattice reveals discrete light solitons in tunable atomic vapor

Scientists from the Quantum Technologies Group at the Institute of Physics Zagreb, in collaboration with a colleague from the Physics Department at the Faculty of Science (PMF), have experimentally demonstrated for the first time the existence of discrete one-dimensional (1D) solitons in an optically induced photonic lattice in warm rubidium vapor.

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Perovskite laser maintains stable performance over 400 million pulses

In a study published in Advanced Optical Materials, researchers at Vilnius University (VU) demonstrated perovskite-based laser structures that maintained stable performance over more than 400 million pulses. Their findings address one of the major challenges limiting the practical use of perovskites: their instability. These semiconductor materials could play an important role in next-generation optical technologies, but their tendency to degrade has long posed a challenge for researchers worldwide.

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Texas deputy killed, police officer wounded in shootout with suspect

Van Zandt County Deputy Adam Sherifi was killed and a Canton Police officer was wounded in a shootout with a suspect wanted on warrants of assault on a peace officer

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NASA’s CASALS instrument bridges gaps in 3D maps of Earth’s surface

A team of researchers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has developed a new instrument designed to eliminate blind spots between lines of lidar data on Earth’s surface. Built with support from NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), the Concurrent Artificially-intelligent Spectrometry Lidar System (CASALS) could help researchers map the features of Earth’s surface in detail. Rather than mechanically steering a laser with moving mirrors, CASALS steers light using wavelength itself, generating a continuous, 3D swath of the ground below.

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