Category Technology/Electronics

Physicists reveal a new quantum state where electrons run wild

Three men standing outside. They are, from left, researchers Cyprian Lewandowski, Aman Kumar and Hitesh Changlani.
From left, researchers Cyprian Lewandowski, Aman Kumar and Hitesh Changlani. (Devin Bittner/FSU College of Arts and Sciences)

Electrons can freeze into strange geometric crystals and then melt back into liquid-like motion under the right quantum conditions. Researchers identified how to tune these transitions and even discovered a bizarre “pinball” state where some electrons stay locked in place while others dart around freely. Their simulations help explain how these phases form and how they might be harnessed for advanced quantum technologies.

Electricity keeps modern life running, from cars and phones to computers and nearly every device we rely on. It works through the movement of electrons traveling through a circuit...

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Microquasars emerge as the Milky Way’s most extreme particle engines

The Milky Way’s Most Extreme Particle Engines
Micro-quasars have been confirmed as major engines of extreme cosmic rays, resolving the long-puzzling “knee” in the energy spectrum. Credit: Shutterstock

LHAASO has traced the mysterious cosmic ray “knee” to powerful micro-quasars firing ultra-energetic particles across the galaxy. LHAASO has uncovered that micro-quasars, black holes feeding on companion stars, are powerful PeV particle accelerators. Their jets produce ultra-high-energy gamma rays and protons that exceed long-held expectations. Precise cosmic-ray measurements reveal a new high-energy component, suggesting multiple sources within the Milky Way. These findings finally tie the “knee” structure to black hole jet systems.

Milestone results released by the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) o...

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Nature-inspired navigation system helps robots traverse complex environments without GPS

A bio-inspired system could enhance robot navigation in real-world environments
Performance of the insect-inspired navigation component. The graph shows the AntBot- inspired Spiking Neural Network (red) maintaining a significantly lower positional drift over time compared to conventional Visual-Inertial Odometry (blue) in a challenging desert environment. Credit: (2025). DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.5674916

Robots could soon be able to autonomously complete search and rescue missions, inspections, complex maintenance operations and various other real-world tasks. To do this, however, they should be able to smoothly navigate unknown and complex environments without breaking down or getting stuck, which would require human intervention.

Most autonomous navigation systems rely on global positioning systems (GPS), which can provide information about where a robot is located ...

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Self-adapting LLMs behave more like students to absorb new knowledge

Self-adapting LLMs behave more like students to absorb new knowledge
Credit: AI-generated image

In an MIT classroom, a professor lectures while students diligently write down notes they will reread later to study and internalize key information ahead of an exam.

Humans know how to learn new information, but large language models can’t do this in the same way. Once a fully trained LLM has been deployed, its “brain” is static and can’t permanently adapt itself to new knowledge.

This means that if a user tells an LLM something important today, it won’t remember that information the next time this person starts a new conversation with the chatbot.

Now, a new approach developed by MIT researchers enables LLMs to update themselves in a way that permanently internalizes new information...

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