It’s getting cold out, which makes me want to hunker down at home and spend some time with little plastic bricks. The current sale in Walmart’s LEGO shop runs from tubs of Classic bricks for little kids to Star Wars display models and Botanicals bouquets built for a grown-up’s shelf. If LEGO makes up a big chunk of your holiday shopping list, this is a good week to cross some names off. These are the same sets LEGO sells, and several of them are sold out or back-ordered on LEGO.com. We checked every price in this post against Walmart and…
Author: Michael
Researchers at the UVSOR Synchrotron Facility (Institute for Molecular Science, Japan) and partner institutions have observed the decay of a xenon 4d core hole, an inner-shell vacancy, directly in the time domain. They used pairs of phase-coherent extreme ultraviolet pulses from a synchrotron to make the photoelectron wave packets they released interfere. The contrast of the interference fringes decreased over a few femtoseconds as the delay between the pulses increased. A model using literature core-hole lifetimes of about 6 femtoseconds reproduced this rapid decay of the fringe contrast. The study is published in the journal Physical Review A.
Building an accurate model of how atoms interact is a complicated process. Researchers must choose new calculations, test successive models and track the mechanisms behind each interaction. But a newly developed AI agent called MLP Copilot has made this process much easier by bridging computational tools and scientific evidence with human supervision.
A surprising discovery suggests that some early signs of Alzheimer’s disease may begin outside the brain. Using miniature laboratory systems made from human cells, scientists found that genetic mutations associated with inherited Alzheimer’s can disrupt nerve-to-muscle connections without any involvement from the brain or spinal cord. This could help explain why some patients experience changes in balance, walking, and coordination long before memory problems develop.
A KAIST-led research team has characterized how light propagates through and is absorbed by barium titanate (BTO), a promising material for next-generation optical communication devices. By clarifying optical properties that had been difficult to determine because of the material’s complex internal structure, the study provides a foundation for designing these devices.
An exceptionally preserved 74-million-year-old forest in New Mexico is revealing unexpected details about ancient plant life. Dinosaurs may have been eating a much wider variety of fruits than scientists once believed. Fossils from a 74-million-year-old forest in New Mexico show that some flowering plants were already producing surprisingly large fruits millions of years before the […]
The AI company is expected to set its valuation range this week, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Dehydrating milk to turn it into powder is, today, an energy-intensive process that subjects the product to high temperatures. Powdered milk is widely used by the food industry and allows the product to be stored and transported in a stable condition for long periods of time without the need for refrigeration. While industrial methods are effective, they have high energy costs and can alter heat-sensitive components, such as whey proteins, enzymes or vitamins.
Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels are projected to decrease by 0.4% in 2026—driven by expansion of solar and wind power and the Iran conflict—according to new research by the Global Carbon Project. The 2026 edition (the 21st annual report) is published in the journal Earth System Science Data.
It’s not quite a victory for humanity’s transition to renewables. The dip is probably driven by high gas prices from the Iran war.