AI Shines a New Light on Exoplanets

Comparison of the solution from the scattering PINN with a higher accuracy PINN with fixed parameters. Credit: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2024). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stae1872

Researchers from LMU, the ORIGINS Excellence Cluster, the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), and the ORIGINS Data Science Lab (ODSL) have made an important breakthrough in the analysis of exoplanet atmospheres.

Using physics-informed neural networks (PINNs), they have managed to model the complex light scattering in the atmospheres of exoplanets with greater precision than has previously been possible.

This method opens up new opportunities for the analysis of exoplanet atmospheres, especially with regard to the influence of clouds, and could significantly improv...

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Researchers develop Light-Charged Supercapacitor for Self-Powered Devices

Shining light on new supercapacitor
Photo-chargeable supercapacitor showed 3,000% rise in capacitance under light compared to the dark. A novel necking behavior is discovered upon illumination. Credit: Santilata Sahoo

Researchers at the Department of Instrumentation and Applied Physics (IAP), Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and collaborators have designed a new supercapacitor that can be charged by light shining on it. Such supercapacitors can be used in various devices, including streetlights and self-powered electronic devices such as sensors.

Capacitors are electrostatic devices that store energy as charges on two metal plates called electrodes...

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Brain Scans reveal that Mindfulness Meditation for Pain is Not a Placebo

Brain scans reveal that mindfulness meditation for pain is not a placebo
These brain scans show different neural signatures associated with pain response: the NAPS (left) is associated with the emotional experience of pain, the SIIPS-1 (center) is related to our expectations of pain and other psychosocial factors, and the NPS (right) is associated with pain intensity. Researchers at UC San Diego found that mindfulness meditation can modulate the NAPS and NPS, but not the SIIPS-1, showing that different parts of the brain are engaged in mindfulness-based pain relief compared to placebo. Credit: UC San Diego Health Sciences

Pain is a complex, multifaceted experience shaped by various factors beyond physical sensation, such as a person’s mindset and their expectations of pain...

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NASA’s Hubble, MAVEN help Solve the Mystery of Mars’s Escaping Water

Mars was once a very wet planet, as is evident in its surface geological features. Scientists know that over the last 3 billion years, at least some water went deep underground, but what happened to the rest? Now, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) missions are helping unlock that mystery.

“There are only two places water can go. It can freeze into the ground, or the water molecule can break into atoms, and the atoms can escape from the top of the atmosphere into space,” explained study leader John Clarke of the Center for Space Physics at Boston University in Massachusetts. “To understand how much water there was and what happened to it, we need to understand how the atoms escape into space.”

Clarke and his team combined data from H...

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