General science thread

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Researchers have found that when they transplant microbiota of young mice into the intestines of older mice, the older mice display improved cognitive function. This is the first study that shows the correlation between transplantation of a gut microbiome from a younger mouse into an older one with improved brain abilities in the older mice.

In an interview with Inverse, Marcus Böhme, a neuroscientist with University College Cork and one of the authors, was effusive in his reaction to the research.

“It was really great to see that full change in their microbiomes can really excel such effects on cognitive behavior, like almost resembling the learning performance of young mice, it was pretty mind-blowing,” says Böhme.

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In the last few years, physicists around the world have been constructing another state of matter: a “time crystal.” Using a quantum computer, a few researchers have created a time crystal that, they think, firmly establishes time crystals in the world of physics.

The researchers haven’t yet formally published their research, but last month, they posted a preprint (a scientific paper that has yet-to-be peer-edited) on the website ArXiV.

What defines any bog-standard crystal—such as a diamond, an emerald, or even an ice cube—is that the crystal’s atoms are somehow arranged in repeating patterns in space. There’s three dimensions of space—and a fourth dimension, time. So physicists wondered if a crystal’s atoms could be arranged in repeating patterns in time.

In practice, that works something like this. You create a crystal whose atoms start in one state. If you blast that crystal with a finely tuned laser, those atoms might flip into another state—and then flip back—and then flip again—and so forth, all without actually absorbing any energy from the laser.

If you step back, what you’ve just created is a state of matter that’s perpetually in motion, indefinitely, without taking in any energy.

That’s no small feat. It beats against one of classical physics’ most sacred tenets: the second law of thermodynamics. That law states that the amount of entropy, or disorder, always tends to increase. Think of it like a vase, teetering at the edge of a table. The universe wants to push that vase over and make it shatter across the floor. To piece it back together, you have to put in the energy.

Time crystals are actually a rather new idea, having first been theorized by Nobel-winning physicist Franck Wilczek in 2012.

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Bright lights illuminated the night sky Tuesday during a powerful earthquake near the Pacific resort city of Acapulco that killed at least one person and rocked buildings hundreds of miles away in Mexico City.

It's not the first puzzling light spectacle to coincide with a major earthquake. In 2017, for example, images of green and blue lights appeared on social media following a magnitude 8.1 earthquake in Mexico, National Geographic reported.

Some conjectured that the lights were another instance of earthquake lights, a phenomenon that has baffled experts for years.

Quote: Evenbob

I did not know places like this even existed. This is pretty damned amazing.
A 40-story horizontal building that hold samples of all the seeds in the world.
That can survive all natural and man-made catastrophes.

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The whitest paint in the world has been created in a lab at Purdue University;

Xiulin Ruan, a Purdue University professor of mechanical engineering, and his students have created the whitest paint on record. The paint has now made it into the Guinness World Records book as the whitest ever made.

The paint reflects 98.1% of solar radiation while also emitting infrared heat. Because the paint absorbs less heat from the sun than it emits, a surface coated with this paint is cooled below the surrounding temperature without consuming power. Using this new paint to cover a roof area of about 1,000 square feet could result in a cooling power of 10 kilowatts. “That’s more powerful than the air conditioners used by most houses,” Ruan said.

Typical commercial white paint gets warmer rather than cooler. Paints on the market that are designed to reject heat reflect only 80% to 90% of sunlight and can’t make surfaces cooler than their surroundings.

Two features make this paint ultra-white: a very high concentration of a chemical compound called barium sulfate – also used in photo paper and cosmetics – and different particle sizes of barium sulfate in the paint, scientists at Purdue said.

Quote: rxwine

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/scientists-created-the-world-s-whitest-paint-it-could-eliminate-the-need-for-air-conditioning/ar-AAOyydl?ocid=msedgntp

Quote: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/scientists-created-the-world-s-whitest-paint-it-could-eliminate-the-need-for-air-conditioning/ar-AAOyydl?ocid=msedgntp

The whitest paint in the world has been created in a lab at Purdue University