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👉 to our tech newsletter, The Blueprint, which is your daily source of tech, science, and engineering innovation. Here you go:

With the continued advancement of human space exploration, how can forensic science—which contributes to the criminal justice system by analyzing evidence through a myriad of methods—be applied to outer space? This is what a soon-to-be-published study in Forensic Science International Reports hopes to address as a team of international researchers led by Staffordshire University investigated how bloodstain patterns behave under microgravity conditions. This study holds the potential to help scientists and astronauts better understand how Earth-based science can be applied to space, specifically long-term spaceflight.

“Studying bloodstain patterns can provide valuable reconstructive information about a crime or accident,” said Zack Kowalske, who is a PhD student at Staffordshire University and a Crime Scene Investigator for the Roswell Police Department in the State of Georgia, and lead author of the study. “However, little is known about how liquid blood behaves in an altered gravity environment. This is an area of study that, while novel, has implications for forensic investigations in space.”

For the study, the researchers conducted blood spatters experiments on parabolic flights onboard a modified Boeing 747 with an emphasis on observing various angles of impact of the blood droplets and comparing their splatter patterns to those obtained under normal gravity conditions. The reason parabolic flights were used was due to their ability to simulate microgravity conditions, as they are designed to rapidly drop in altitude, thus providing passengers with a few moments of weightlessness.

H/T Stephen Wolfram.

Particularly given its recent surprise successes, there’s a somewhat widespread belief that eventually AI will be able to “do everything”, or at least everything we currently do.

Stephen Wolfram explores the potential—and limitations—of AI in science. See cases in which AI will be a useful tool, and in others a less ideal tool.

This year, Rockefeller scientists plumbed the depths of wound repair and tackled how songbirds solve problems; they used microchips to grow mini-lungs and proposed an environmental trigger for multiple sclerosis. Efforts to combat COVID, Hepatitis B, and other infections bore fruit, and countless papers shed light on basic research, answering questions that have long baffled biologists. Here are some of the intriguing discoveries that came out of Rockefeller in 2023.

Old sperm, new mutations

As the male reproductive system ages, it becomes more and more susceptible to mutations. New research from the laboratory of Li Zhao explored this phenomenon in fruit flies, by focusing on how mutations arise during the formation of sperm. The team found that, while mutations are common in the testes of both young and old flies, the repair mechanisms that remove those mutations and maintain genomic integrity during spermatogenesis become less efficient in older individuals, leading to the accumulation and persistence of more mutations in older flies.

Argonne’s Science 101 series takes you back to the basics, with plain-language explanations of the scientific concepts behind our pivotal discoveries and our biggest innovations.

In this Science 101 video, postdoctoral researchers Gillian Beltz-Mohrmann and Florian Kéruzoré explore two of the biggest mysteries in science: dark matter and dark energy. These strange influences seem to be stretching the universe apart and clumping stuff together in unexpected ways. Together, they make up a whopping 95% of the universe, but because we can’t see or touch them, we don’t know what they are.

Continue reading “Science 101: What are Dark Matter and Dark Energy?” »

Mónica Bello, Curator and Head of Arts at CERN talks about the programmes that have been fostering the dialogue between artists and physicists for over a decade with the aim of exploring the cultural significance of fundamental research.

In paid collaboration with reMarkable, I am happy to recommend this paper tablet which has made my workflow much more efficient and enjoyable.

Science and Technology: I don’t want to die.

A friend of the academic, who died in the US in 2021, says his brain has been cryonically preserved in accordance with his final wishes.

For years, niobium was considered an underperformer when it came to superconducting qubits. Now, scientists supported by Q-NEXT have found a way to engineer a high-performing niobium-based qubit and take advantage of niobium’s superior qualities.

When it comes to quantum technology, niobium is making a comeback.

For the past 15 years, niobium has been sitting on the bench after experiencing a few mediocre at-bats as a core qubit material.