Latest news with #PhysicsWorld
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Found One of the Heaviest Antiparticles Ever. It Could Help Explain Why the Universe Exists.
Understanding why we live in a matter-dominated universe demands that scientists recreate the quark-gluon plasma that existed one millionth of a second after the Big Bang. A Large Ion Collider Experiment, or ALICE, at CERN's Large Hadron Collider does exactly that by smashing together heavy-ion particles and analyzing the results. In late 2024, ALICE discovered hyperhelium-4 and its anti- counterpart. This is only the third hypernuclei ever discovered, and it could help scientists better understand things like the matter-antimatter asymmetry and the strange physics of neutron stars. One of the biggest mysteries of the universe's creation goes by many names. Some call it the baryon asymmetry, others call it the matter asymmetry, and still others call it the matter-antimatter asymmetry. But all of these names speak to the same confounding question: Why does matter exist at all? You, me, the countless stars across among the trillions of galaxies shouldn't exist—at least, not according to the Standard Model of physics. In those first moments of being, matter and antimatter should've been created in equal measure and annihilated each other, leaving only energy in their wake. Fast-forward 13.8 billion years later, however, and it's obvious that we live in a matter-dominated universe—and particle physicists (understandably) want to know why. But understanding what might've caused matter to triumph over antimatter requires somehow recreating the conditions of the Big Bang. The best way to do that so far has been to slam particles together at near the speed of light and sift through the subatomic mess, and one of the best place in the world to do that is at CERN's Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. Recently, scientists working on A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) once again showed why. In late 2024, ALICE—which, as its name suggests, focuses on heavy-ion physics—discovered the heaviest antimatter particle to date at LHC—antihyperhelium-4. Exploring these kinds of exotic hypernuclei is important, as the quark-gluon plasma created by these ALICE's collisions mimic the conditions of the universe one millionth of a second after the Big Bang. So, if you want to understand why matter exists, then this is the place to look. You can read about the discovery in a preprint paper published on the server arXiv. As you probably guessed, hyperhelium isn't the same as your typical helium atom. Instead, hyperhelium contain protons, neutrons, and particles known as hyperons that contain one or more quarks of the 'strange' type (but no charm, bottom, or top quarks). Although heavy-ion collisions create hypernuclei and antihypernuclei in sufficient quantities, finding them is immensely difficult, as they decay almost instantly. Antihyperhelium-4, for example, quickly becomes an antihelium-3 nucleus, an antiproton, and a charged pion, according to Physics World. Scientists have also only discovered three of these antihypernuclei in the past 15 years. The other two—antihypertriton and antihyperhydrogen—were spotted by the STAR collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 2010 and 2024, respectively. 'What caused the difference in quantities of matter and antimatter in the universe?' Qiu Hao, a collaborator with STAR who helped discover the antihyperhydrogen, said in August of 2024. 'To answer this question, an important approach is to create new antimatter in the laboratory and study its properties.' Further study of hypernuclei and antihypernuclei can also help experts explore other mysteries of the universe. By understanding how they interact with neutrons and protons, astrophysicists can also gain a better grasp of the intensely strange physics believed to occur inside the heart of neutron stars. To fully understand the mysteries of our existence—as well as the strange celestial objects that fill the universe—scientists need a better understanding of the raw materials used to fashion existence in the first place. And the finding these hypernuclei particles adds a new piece to that cosmic puzzle. You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
Yahoo
01-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
The solution to oil spills might be hiding in the ocean — researchers just uncovered something huge
The next big breakthrough when it comes to cleaning up disastrous oil spills in the ocean just might come from the ocean itself. Or, rather, an inhabitant of the ocean. Researchers from China's Harbin Institute of Technology have just published a study in Nature Communications outlining how they came up with a fascinating and novel approach to cleaning oil spills in-situ — at the site of the oil spill itself — using technology that's new, but also millions of years old. It's a living sponge. Specifically, E. aspergillum, known familiarly as the Venus flower, a deepwater sea sponge that normally lives at depths of 3,000 feet. The scientists figured out that these sea sponges have a body structure that is very good at slowing high turbulence water flows, allowing the filtering components of their body to more easily absorb nutrients from the water around them, even when the water is moving in complex flows. That's been a problem for traditional methods used to clean up oil spills at the source. "Since the 1979 Atlantic Empress disaster (an oil tanker that sank in the Caribbean), interception and adsorption have been the primary methods for oil spill recovery, but these are sensitive to water-flow fluctuation," explained lead author of the study Shijie You, according to Physics World. You's team essentially built a copy of the sea sponge's architecture in what's called a vortex-anchored filter (VAF). The sponge has a complex internal structure that is able to dissipate high-energy water flow into smaller pockets of calmer water. According to You, this increases the efficiency of the sponge's filtering. By mimicking this capability, You's team built a VAF that does something similar, but rather than filtering out food, it filters out particles of oil suspended in the seawater. Under stress testing, the VAF filtered out an astonishing 97% of oils from water, regardless of how turbulent the water was. If this technology can be scaled, it has tremendous potential applications when it comes to cleaning up ocean pollution. Oil spills, of course, but perhaps it could be used for separating microplastics from the water column. The possibilities are numerous. Do you think America has a plastic waste problem? Definitely Only in some areas Not really I'm not sure Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. "We look forward to applying VAF-based technologies to solve sea pollution problems with a filter that has an outstanding flexibility and adaptability, easy-to-handle operability and scalability, environmental compatibility, and life-cycle sustainability," You said, according to Physics World. The whole ocean-loving world looks forward to that too. Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
