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Sunrise III data release opens rare high-altitude solar views that could sharpen space weather forecasts

Close to 100 scientists from all over Europe, the United States, and Japan are gathering this week at the Institute for Solar Physics (KIS) in Freiburg to present and discuss the first scientific results from the successful third flight of the balloon-borne solar observatory SUNRISE. KIS is a key contributor to the SUNRISE project. The meeting marks a milestone in the study of the sun by bringing together researchers from all over the world who are analyzing unprecedented new data gathered by the SUNRISE III project.

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Nanomagnets control diamond qubits, pointing to more scalable quantum hardware

Quantum computing, once only a theoretical possibility, promises to deliver faster, more energy-efficient computers—but only if scientists can build and scale the hardware needed to run the machines. New research from Virginia Commonwealth University brings scientists one small step closer to quantum computing at a practical scale, which could help dramatically reduce energy usage and computing times in some industries.

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BWC: Man throws lit Molotov cocktail on cruiser, stabs K-9 in head before fatal OIS

Grand Rapids PD officers responded to the scene after the man threatened to kill his family; he tried to set a cruiser ablaze, carjacked a woman and attacked a K-9 before the shooting

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Out-of-plane ice bridges reveal new way to suppress frost spreading

A research team led by Professor Nenad Miljkovic in The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has published a breakthrough study in Nature Physics. The work reports the first experimental discovery of a previously unknown frost propagation mechanism—a “suspended ice bridge”—offering new pathways for anti-frosting surface design.

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‘Don’t scare the cat!’ Engineers find smarter way to measure quantum systems

UNSW Sydney engineers have riffed on the famous Schrödinger’s cat analogy to demonstrate a more efficient way to eliminate errors in quantum computing.

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Most detailed map of the universe’s hidden magnetic fields released

The largest magnetic map of the universe ever produced—five times larger than all previous efforts combined—marks the beginning of a new generation of research into intergalactic magnetism. Magnetic fields influence how galaxies grow, how matter moves through space, and how the universe has evolved over billions of years.

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Portable UV spectrometer can detect air pollutants across 2.5 km with high precision

Birgitta Schultze-Bernhardt and her team at the Institute of Experimental Physics at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) have developed a new type of UV dual-comb spectrometer that detects gaseous air pollutants with unrivaled accuracy and sensitivity. Using ultraviolet double laser light, the device measures the concentration of harmful gases such as formaldehyde within half a second.

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FBI fatally shoots man holding hostages in Calif. bank building

The suspect was killed in “an officer-involved shooting involving Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel,” the Bakersfield Police Department said in a statement

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Studying impact flashes to detect missile and meteorite composition

Southwest Research Institute, or SwRI, is studying impact flashes generated by high-speed collisions. One application of understanding impact flashes is to remotely identify what materials are involved in the collisions. Advances in understanding optical impact flashes can be highly beneficial for missile defense, making it possible to determine the composition of an intercepted missile and its payload.

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HETDEX opens massive Cosmic Noon dataset to scientists, novices and AI

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX)—which recently completed the largest survey ever taken of the early universe—has released all of its immense, information-rich database to the public. Built from more than half a petabyte of raw and processed data, it will allow astronomers to study how the first galaxies formed and evolved, measure how gas and stars were distributed within these galaxies, map the large-scale structure of the cosmos, and investigate rare and unexpected objects not easily found in traditional surveys.

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‘BBQ sauce’ phase may link little red dots to quasars

Everyone knows that finding the right sauce recipe can make or break a barbecue, but now astronomers are using BBQSORS (pronounced “barbecue sauce”) as part of the recipe to explain quasars, some of the brightest objects in the universe. These results were made possible by data from a new instrument on the Subaru Telescope.

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Mars mission ends: NASA declares Maven dead after six months of silence

After six months of radio silence, NASA’s Maven spacecraft at Mars has been declared dead.

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Chip-scale ‘acoustic atom’ controls sound waves to imitate atomic energy levels and advance computing

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. What goes up must come down. Physical laws like these govern all of the natural world—except for the tiny internal components of today’s microprocessors, which operate according to the unique and complicated rules of quantum physics.

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S.C. officer fired after pointing gun at colleague in alleged confrontation over microwaved fish

Michael Debiase allegedly confronted another Myrtle Beach officer who was “warming up fish in the microwave, causing an odor,” according to an arrest warrant

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Ultrafast laser shrinks to chip scale, potentially lowering costs for diagnostics and atomic clocks

Ultrafast lasers emit pulses lasting only a few hundred femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second). These flashes of light power applications from precision micromachining to eye surgery to optical frequency combs, the Nobel Prize-winning technology behind today’s most precise optical atomic clocks. Yet despite more than two decades of effort, ultrafast lasers have largely remained bulky, expensive systems confined to optical tables.

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