Thunder Bay high school students head to national science fair in Edmonton - CBC

Diffuse laser cooling (DLC) provides a compact, robust, and scalable approach to generating cold-atom ensembles, offering significant potential for ground-based and spaceborne microwave atomic clocks. However, the performance of DLC systems remains limited by the weak atom-light interaction arising from their relatively low atomic density. This limitation is characterized by the optical density (OD), which quantifies the effective interaction strength between the atomic ensemble and the probe light and strongly influences the achievable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Although quasi-one-dimensional (quasi-1D) DLC extends the probe interaction length and improves atomic utilization, increasing the local atomic density within the interrogation region remains challenging. Here, we demonstrate a magnetically enhanced quasi-1D DLC system that simultaneously maintains the extended interaction length and increases the atomic density through a two-dimensional magnetic-field gradient.

Cathy Bendle in a columnist for the Daily Herald, who finds humor in the quirks of everyday life, from training teachers to dodging housework. When not writing, she’s either laughing at her pets, frantically Googling for her work assignments, or playing on her iPad. Her column appears every other Wednesday. Swept from the corners of my mind… I’ve always had pets. Reptiles, fish, llamas, dogs, birds, you name it. Even while living in a college dorm, I had an aquatic frog. Life is better surrounded by animals. These days, however, I am at capacity. I live in a small house with a large, young German Shepherd, an affable but hyperactive English Setter (hereafter referred to as Tigger-On-Crack), an extremely vocal Rat Terrier, cats, and birds in cages so large they reduce the living space for the rest of us. There are horses behind the house and cattle just over the fence. Assorted wildlife wanders through the yard, leaving scents and spines for my hapless crew. It all makes me happy. But there comes a point where adding another heartbeat means there isn’t enough time, space, or energy to properly care for the ones already present. People have strange ideas about farm life.

There has been a torrent of solar physics data lately, largely thanks to new spacecraft that have begun actively observing the Sun. One of those spacecraft, Solar Orbiter, happened to have a serendipitous encounter with a type of solar physics phenomenon known as a “switchback”. A new paper, available in Nature Astronomy from researcher Jesse T. Coburn and their co-authors, describes how that serendipitous encounter allowed them to track the switchback back to its birthplace in the solar corona for the first time. Switchbacks are important in our understanding of solar physics because of how they tie into the solar wind - the supersonic stream of charged particles that consistently blows from the surface of the Sun out into space. Modern spacecraft have shown that violent kinks in the Sun’s magnetic field, which they called “switchbacks”, directly affect the flow of these particles, and therefore, the exposure the wider solar system gets to the solar wind more generally.

We’re sharing this article early to provide faster access to peer-reviewed, accepted research. It is citable and carries a permanent DOI. This version is subject to further edits and will be replaced automatically by the final Version of Record. All legal disclaimers apply. AbstractDigital learning systems rarely adapt to momentary cognitive state, creating risk of underload or overload. The current study investigates whether EEG-based closed-loop pacing can alter task load dynamics during a digital constellation-learning task. Fifty-one participants were randomly assigned to adaptive, reward, or control conditions. In the adaptive condition, a task load index derived from frontal theta and parietal alpha adjusted feedback duration between 3 and 8 s; fixed 5s feedback was used in reward and control conditions, with reward participants expecting to receive performance-contingent draw entries. Accuracy increased across blocks in all groups, with no significant group or group-by-block effect.

We’re sharing this article early to provide faster access to peer-reviewed, accepted research. It is citable and carries a permanent DOI. This version is subject to further edits and will be replaced automatically by the final Version of Record. All legal disclaimers apply. AbstractBranched-chain amino acids (BCAA; leucine, isoleucine, valine) are linked to cardiovascular disorders. Numerous benefits have been reported in relation to the reduced intake of dietary BCAA. Herein, a meta-analysis combined with findings from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) indicated a positive association between elevated cardiovascular risk and cumulative dietary valine intake. In hypertensive male rodents, a low-valine diet alleviates pathological cardiac hypertrophy and improves cardiac function. Mechanistically, our findings reveal that valine accumulation enhanced its binding to ATP synthase subunit beta (ATP5F1B) under hypertension, which promoted an enhanced interaction with mitochondrial ion peptidase 1 (LONP1) utilizing mass spectrometry analysis.

We’re sharing this article early to provide faster access to peer-reviewed, accepted research. It is citable and carries a permanent DOI. This version is subject to further edits and will be replaced automatically by the final Version of Record. All legal disclaimers apply. AbstractAssessing land use pressure is fundamental to understanding regional sustainability. This study constructs a comprehensive Land Use Pressure Index (L) using remote sensing and socio-economic data from 2000 to 2019 across three dimensions—carbon effects, ecological risks, and landscape stability—with weights objectively determined by the entropy weight method. An Urbanization Composite Index (U) is also developed across demographic, economic, spatial, and social dimensions. We further introduce a local-tele coupling coordination framework incorporating an Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) spatial weight matrix to capture inter-city spillover effects, extending traditional coupling analysis to include both local and tele-coupling interactions.