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    Astrophysicists Uncover Supermassive Black Hole/Dark Matter Connection in Solving the ‘Final Parsec Problem’

    July 23, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Astrophysicists uncover supermassive blackhole/dark matter connection in solving the 'final parsec problem'
    Simulation of the light emitted by a supermassive black hole binary system where the surrounding gas is optically thin (transparent). Viewed from 0 degrees inclination, or directly above the plane of the disk. The emitted light represents all wavelengths. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Noble; simulation data, d’Ascoli et al. 2018

    Researchers have found a link between some of the largest and smallest objects in the cosmos: supermassive black holes and dark matter particles.

    Their new calculations reveal that pairs of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) can merge into a single larger black hole because of previously overlooked behavior of dark matter particles, proposing a solution to the longstanding “final parsec problem” in astronomy.

    The research is described in ...

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    Long COVID Puzzle Pieces are Falling into Place—the Picture is Unsettling

    July 22, 2024, Categories  Uncategorized

    Since 2020, the condition known as long COVID-19 has become a widespread disability affecting the health and quality of life of millions of people across the globe and costing economies billions of dollars in reduced productivity of employees and an overall drop in the work force.

    The intense scientific effort that long COVID sparked has resulted in more than 24,000 scientific publications, making it the most researched health condition in any four years of recorded human history.

    Long COVID is a term that describes the constellation of long-term health effects caused by infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus...

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    Nanoscale Trilayer Exhibits Ultrafast Charge Transfer in Semiconductor Materials

    July 22, 2024, Categories  Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    An illustration of charge movement in a mixed-dimensionality hetero-trilayer material, with different-colored dots and lines representing photoexcited electrons, holes, and carbon nanotubes.
    Charge movement in a mixed-dimensionality hetero-trilayer material: Photoexcited electrons and holes travel from the transition metal dichalcogenide layer (top) through single-walled carbon nanotubes (middle), resulting in a long charge recombination lifetime of 1.2 microseconds, which has potential applications in optoelectronics and energy harvesting. Image by Alexis Myers, NREL

    Successfully innovating optoelectronic semiconductor devices depends a lot on moving charges and excitons—electron-hole pairs—in specified directions for the purpose of creating fuels or electricity.

    In photosynthesis, pigment molecules absorb and transfer solar energy to a reaction center, where the energy is converted and used...

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    New Dawn for Space Storm Alerts could help Shield Earth’s Tech

    July 22, 2024, Categories  Technology/Electronics, Astronomy/Space

    Scientists say it is now possible to predict the precise speed a coronal mass ejection (shown left in an artist's impression) is travelling at and when it will smash into Earth (bottom right moving in our direction) – even before it has fully erupted from the Sun (top right).
    Scientists say it is now possible to predict the precise speed a coronal mass ejection (shown left in an artist’s impression) is travelling at and when it will smash into Earth (bottom right moving in our direction) – even before it has fully erupted from the Sun (top right).
    Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Jhelioviewer
    Licence type Attribution (CC BY 4.0

    Space storms could soon be forecast with greater accuracy than ever before thanks to a big leap forward in our understanding of exactly when a violent solar eruption may hit Earth.

    Scientists say it is now possible to predict the precise speed a coronal mass ejection (CME) is traveling at and when it will smash into our planet—even before it has fully erupted from the sun.

    CMEs are bursts of gas and magnetic fields sp...

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