Vacuum-fluctuation-enhanced superconductivity demonstrated for the first time

In a study published in Nature on Aug. 19, a research team has enhanced superconductivity through vacuum fluctuations for the first time. The achievement marks a significant advance in controlling quantum states of matter.

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Mapping thorium’s preferred sites could pave the way for nuclear clocks

For decades, physicists have used a technique called Mössbauer spectroscopy to peer inside solid materials, revealing fine details of their surroundings by studying how their atomic nuclei absorb and re-emit gamma rays.

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One step closer to the ideal glass—simulations reveal hidden order at absolute zero

In the physical sense, glass is not limited to familiar window glass; it forms whenever a liquid is cooled so quickly that it cannot crystallize. As a result, glass has an amorphous structure—that is, its “building blocks” are not arranged regularly as in crystals. At the same time, however, glass is as resistant to deformation as a crystalline solid.

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Corners in focus: Metasurface enables motion tracking without digital image processing

A research team at City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) has developed a new optical corner-detection imaging method that uses azimuthal Hilbert transform metasurfaces and is designed to work as a universal framework. The study marks an important advance in high-speed, low-power optical information processing and has demonstrated potential for motion-tracking applications.

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Fla. PD puts up decoy ALPR cameras to catch suspected vandal

The Oviedo Police Department installed 3D-printed bait cameras after a wave of vandalism targeted real Flock cameras in the area

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Ind. troopers hunt down MrBeast in ‘Escape 100 Cops’ challenge

The agency snagged a $500,000 prize for “arresting” the popular YouTuber and four other participants in the video, which has more than 40 million views

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LST-1 and MAGIC telescopes shatter distance record for the very high-energy blazar OP 313

On Aug. 15, the CTAO LST Collaboration and the MAGIC Collaboration released findings from observations of OP 313, the most distant very-high-energy blazar ever recorded. The paper, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, presents in-depth observations conducted with the prototype Large-Sized Telescope (LST-1) and the MAGIC telescopes at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in La Palma, Spain.

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2 Phoenix officers arrested and fired, accused in violent, unreported traffic stop

Officers Antonio Felix and Luis Vasquez were arrested on charges including aggravated assault and kidnapping, police chief Matt Giordano said

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Former Ill. deputy convicted of killing Sonya Massey dies in prison, lawyer says

Sean Grayson had been diagnosed with colon cancer before Massey’s killing, and his attorneys said at his sentencing that the disease had spread to his liver and lungs

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A 4-star system caught eclipsing itself in a way never seen before

Astronomers have found a four-star system doing something that has never been confirmed before. The system, TIC 433545934, has two close pairs of stars orbiting each other. While each pair eclipses its own two stars, as usual, only one pair eclipses the other. A paper outlining the properties of this unique system was submitted to the arXiv preprint server on Aug. 13. It has been accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

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New free-space optical link adds a wireless component to the nation’s longest quantum network

There’s a new lighthouse on Long Island. But instead of shining light to guide ships through waterways, this one transmits and receives particles of light that carry quantum information. Perched atop a seven-story building at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, the “Quantum Lighthouse” is a key pillar of the free-space optical (FSO) link spanning Brookhaven Lab, the State University of New York at Stony Brook (Stony Brook University) and Yale University.

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China says unmanned moon mission delayed over ‘launch conditions’

China’s manned space agency said Sunday it is delaying a research moon mission that is part of Beijing’s efforts to land a crew there by 2030, less than two weeks after a rare launch failure.

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JWST peeks at Callisto’s ancient scars

Of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons, Callisto is the one that gets the least attention. Io is constantly being resurfaced by volcanoes. Europa has a giant liquid water ocean. And Ganymede has its own magnetic field that interacts with its parent planet in weird ways. Callisto, by comparison, seems sedate, with its ancient, crater-saturated surface seemingly frozen in time. But new data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) shows that even this most benign of the Big Four moons is more active than previously realized.

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China abruptly postpones ambitious Chang’e-7 lunar mission launch

China said on Sunday it was postponing its planned ambitious Chang’e-7 lunar mission, which was set to carry out explorations including searching for water ice on the moon.

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The superconducting gap of an ultrathin nickelate defies expectations

Superconductors are materials that carry electrical current with zero resistance below a specific critical temperature. In conventional superconductors, the transition to superconductivity generally occurs at very low temperatures.

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