Aurelia Butler

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    in Heart

    A new AI-based weather tool surpasses current forecasts

    Weather forecasting is getting cheaper and more accurate. An AI model named Aurora used machine learning to outperform current weather prediction systems, researchers report May 21 in Nature.

    Aurora could accurately predict tropical cyclone paths, air pollution and ocean waves, as well as global weather at the scale of towns or cities — offering up forecasts in a matter of seconds.

    The fact that Aurora can make such high-resolution predictions using machine learning impressed Peter Dueben, who heads the Earth system modeling group at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in Bonn, Germany. “I think they have been the first to push that limit,” he says. More

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    in Computers Math

    New color-changing sensor detects alcohol with a smartphone snap

    Determining how strong your drink is doesn’t need to be either guesswork or lab work. New research has made it as simple as checking your messages — and more colorful, too.
    Osaka Metropolitan University researchers have developed a smartphone-compatible alcohol sensor that can visually detect a full range of ethanol concentrations, without the need for complex electronics or lab tools. Their technology allows for a broad array of potential applications in environmental monitoring, healthcare, industrial processes, and alcohol breath analysis.
    Ethanol is used widely in food, pharmaceuticals, and fuel. It is also the intoxicating ingredient in many alcoholic beverages. Accurate detection of ethanol concentration, particularly in products containing both ethanol and water, is crucial for product hygiene management and quality maintenance.
    “Conventional sensors typically require power sources and complex electronics, limiting their accessibility for everyday use,” said Kenji Okada, an associate professor at Osaka Metropolitan University’s Graduate School of Engineering and lead author of this study.
    Seeking both selectivity and practicality, the team fabricated a portable and highly sensitive ethanol sensor built from a copper-based metal-organic framework (MOF) thin film called Cu-MOF-74.
    These MOFs contain nanometer-sized pores that absorb ethanol molecules and respond with a visible color change — a phenomenon known as solvato/vapochromism. Thanks to its low light-scattering properties and high transparency, the Cu-MOF-74 film enables precise optical measurements without the need for complex lab equipment.
    “Our sensor changes color in response to varying ethanol levels across the full concentration range, even at low concentrations,” Okada said.

    What truly sets this technology apart is its integration with a smartphone app. Users can simply snap a photo of the film to measure ethanol concentration, making it a portable and accessible tool for use in the field, factories, or healthcare settings.
    The researchers’ findings offer a smarter, simpler, and more reliable approach to alcohol sensing. From the quality of your drink to the potential future of portable breath tests, this new sensor technology brings us a colorful step closer to real-time alcohol monitoring in everyday life.
    “We hope our study could open up a wide range of applications, from the food and beverage industry to environmental monitoring, industrial exhaust gas detection and alcohol breath analysis,” Okada said.
    The study was published in Small Science. More

  • 113 Shares159 Views

    in Physics

    The unsung women of quantum physics get their due

    Senior physics writer Emily Conover has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago. She is a two-time winner of the D.C. Science Writers’ Association Newsbrief award and a winner of the Acoustical Society of America’s Science Communication Award. More

  • 138 Shares99 Views

    in Physics

    As quantum mechanics turns 100, a new revolution is under way

    Senior physics writer Emily Conover has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago. She is a two-time winner of the D.C. Science Writers’ Association Newsbrief award and a winner of the Acoustical Society of America’s Science Communication Award. More

  • 125 Shares149 Views

    in Physics

    New audio tech could let you listen privately without headphones

    Controlling sound has long been a staple of science fiction and fantasy. In Dune, the cone of silence allows characters to converse privately, even in open spaces. The eerie billboards of Blade Runner 2049 whisper advertisements into the ears of those passing by.

    In the real world, quirks of architecture, intentional or not, can direct where sound goes. In the U.S. Capitol’s hall of statues, for example, a whisper can travel silently across the room from one spot to another. The sound waves interact with curved surfaces to focus the audio. Now, scientists are looking to precisely control sound, perhaps one day resulting in a world without earbuds, but directing sound waves is a challenge. More

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    in Heart

    Seafloor amber may hold hints of a tsunami 115 million years ago

    Wavelike patterns in 115-million-year-old amber suggest that a long-ago tsunami inundated what is now northern Japan, researchers report May 15 in Scientific Reports.

    Tsunamis can be destructive and, to anything alive nearby, often terrifying. But the physical damage wrought by these giant waves eventually erodes away, typically leaving behind little evidence of their passage. As a result, there’s scant records of tsunamis stretching back beyond the current geologic epoch, which began roughly 12,000 years ago. More

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    in Heart

    This tool-wielding assassin turns its prey’s defenses into a trap

    Add a little-known species of assassin bugs to the list of animals that can fashion and wield tools. And true to their name, the insects use that tool to draw their prey into an ambush, researchers report May 12 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

    Found in Thailand and China, Pahabengkakia piliceps is a species of predatory insects called assassin bugs that has a taste for the region’s stingless bees. When researchers at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden in China began studying the assassin bugs in 2021, they became intrigued by how P. piliceps hunt. While lying in wait at a hive’s entrance, the assassin bugs use their front legs to proficiently pick off bees that fly by. More

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    in Heart

    Skyborne specks of life may influence rainfall patterns

    Sprinklings of life appear key to the recipe for rain.

    Lofted flecks of organic material like bacteria, pollen and fungal spores play a profound role in regulating rainfall patterns, a new study suggests. These bioparticles can make up a major portion of all the particles that can seed rain in the sky, and their levels fluctuate in a daily cycle, researchers report May 5 in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science.

    The study is the first to clearly show that the movements of bioparticles drive daily fluctuations of rainmaking particles more broadly. “This really has not been included in any [weather] models before,” says atmospheric scientist Athanasios Nenes of EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. “It’s something we need to start thinking about.” More