Ryugu Samples illuminate Terrestrial Weathering Effects on Primitive Meteorites

Ryugu Samples Illuminate Terrestrial Weathering Effects on Primitive Meteorites

A groundbreaking study conducted by a team of international scientists has unveiled unprecedented insights into the nature of the asteroid Ryugu and shed light on the composition of water- and carbon-rich small bodies in the solar system.

Asteroids like Ryugu are remnants of planetary embryos that never reached larger sizes, making them invaluable windows into materials that formed in the early solar system.

The study centered on laboratory measurements of the samples brought back to the Earth by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft in 2020.

Led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Hayabusa2 aimed to uncover the true nature of Ryugu and explore how astrologists can use knowledge from meteorites to...

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Kids with Cats have more than Double the Risk of Developing Schizophrenia, researchers find

cats
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Researchers at The Park Center for Mental Health, Australia, have added to the growing body of evidence that cat ownership is a major risk factor for schizophrenia and quantified the risk at more than double. In a paper, “Cat Ownership and Schizophrenia-Related Disorders and Psychotic-Like Experiences: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” published in Schizophrenia Bulletin, the team details the connections between youth cat ownership and later-in-life schizophrenia-related diagnosis.

The researchers conducted an extensive study search across various databases and gray literature from January 1, 1980, to May 30, 2023, without geographical or language limitations...

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Portable, Non-invasive, Mindreading AI turns Thoughts into Text

Portable, non-invasive, mind-reading AI turns thoughts into text
UTS researcher tests DeWave technology. Credit: University of Technology Sydney

In a world-first, researchers from the GrapheneX-UTS Human-centric Artificial Intelligence Centre at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) have developed a portable, non-invasive system that can decode silent thoughts and turn them into text.

The technology could aid communication for people who are unable to speak due to illness or injury, including stroke or paralysis. It could also enable seamless communication between humans and machines, such as the operation of a bionic arm or robot.

The study has been selected as the spotlight paper at the NeurIPS conference, an annual meeting that showcases world-leading research on artificial intelligence and machine learning, held in New Orleans on 12 De...

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New Dark Matter Theory Explains Two Puzzles in Astrophysics

Thought to make up 85% of matter in the universe, dark matter is non-luminous and its nature is not well understood. While normal matter absorbs, reflects, and emits light, dark matter cannot be seen directly, making it harder to detect. A theory called “self-interacting dark matter,” or SIDM, proposes that dark matter particles self-interact through a dark force, strongly colliding with one another close to the center of a galaxy.

In work published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, a research team led by Hai-Bo Yu, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Riverside, reports that SIDM simultaneously can explain two astrophysics puzzles in opposite extremes.

“The first is a high-density dark matter halo in a massive elliptical galaxy,” Yu said...

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