In this week’s Physics of Fluids, researchers study how Champatis roll and bounce down inclines. The authors released a heap of the seeds down an inclined plane while a camera recorded their descent to analyze their speed and the dynamics of their movement. The grains start to spread out slowly, then decrease quickly as they move downstream, akin to rock avalanches.
In this week’s Physics of Fluids, researchers employ machine learning to more accurately model the boundary layer wind field of tropical cyclones. Conventional approaches to storm forecasting involve large numerical simulations run on supercomputers incorporating mountains of observational data, and they still often result in inaccurate or incomplete predictions. In contrast, the author’s machine learning algorithm is equipped with atmospheric physics equations that can produce more accurate results faster and with less data.
Danielle Speller is the 2024 winner of the Joseph A Johnson award for her research on neutrinoless double beta decay and dark matter research, and for mentoring the next generation of aspiring physicists. Jessica Esquivel receives an Honorable Mention her work at Fermilab and for fostering equity, education, and community through the #BlackInPhysics social movement and Oyanova Enterprises.
In the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, an interdisciplinary team explored possible regularities in vocal emotional expressions by comparing expressive interjections, such as “wow,” to nonlinguistic vocalizations, such as screams and cries, from across the globe. The researchers analyzed vowels in interjections from 131 languages, comparing them with nearly 500 vowels from vocalizations produced in joyful, painful, or disgusting contexts. Each of the three emotions yielded consistent and distinct vowel signatures across cultures in vocalizations.
The airflow from an indoor badminton court’s HVAC system and cross ventilation can affect the path of a birdie and have a significant role in play, but research published in Physics of Fluids proposes that different roof configurations could help mitigate wind drift. The authors recommend that important badminton games be played on courts with a barrel roof and a ventilation opening. The team modeled the airflow in a barrel roof stadium with different ventilation opening directions and tested this against a simulation of a flat roof to understand the roof effects.
In APL Bioengineering, researchers employed analysis tools and machine learning algorithms to identify two genes linked to rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis that could serve as diagnostic tools and potential targets for treatments. Drawing from a large database of genetic information, they gathered dozens of sequenced genomes from people with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis to look for any similarities, using recently developed computational methods to narrow down their search. They identified genes ATXN2L and MMP14 as significantly associated with the progression of both rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis.
In this week’s Chaos, researchers used an electrophysiological computer model of the heart’s electrical circuits to examine the effect of the applied voltage field in multiple fibrillation-defibrillation scenarios. They discovered far less energy is needed than is currently used in state-of-the-art defibrillation techniques. The authors applied an adjoint optimization method and discovered adjusting the duration and the smooth variation in time of the voltage supplied by defibrillation devices is a more efficient mechanism that reduces the energy needed to stop fibrillation by three orders of magnitude.
Research published in Physics of Fluids shows that not all standing positions in airport smoking lounges are created equal. Scientists from the University of Hormozgan in Iran found that the thermal environment and positioning of smokers influences how particles settle in the room. Additionally, smokers seated farther from ventilation inlets experience the lowest levels of pollution in the room.
Disc golf is a sport growing in popularity, but there hasn’t been much research into the best techniques – until now. Researchers and disc golf enthusiasts have determined the best thumb position on a disc to maximize angular and translational speeds.
The U.S. is ramping up plans for a major increase in offshore wind production, but the country needs to design turbines that can withstand the challenges of tropical storms. In the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, researchers examine tropical storm observation technology and review physics-based modeling and data-driven models that use AI and machine learning. Advanced modeling techniques are rapidly developing, such as deep neural networks that downscale existing regional data to point-scale data using super-resolution techniques. Another key advancement is using machine learning methods for dynamic warm potential predictions, which can better predict the intensity of a storm.
The 2024 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.”
The Nobel Prize in physics is scheduled to be awarded Tuesday, Oct. 8, at 5:45 a.m. ET, and AIP is here to help news outlets and reporters prepare. Experts from AIP and AIP Publishing will be available the morning of the announcement to comment on the new laureates, their accomplishments, and the importance of the Nobel award to the world of science at large.
Discerning whether a nuclear reactor is being used to also create material for nuclear weapons is difficult, but capturing and analyzing antimatter particles has shown promise for monitoring what specific nuclear reactor operations are occurring, even from hundreds of miles away. Researchers have developed a detector that exploits Cherenkov radiation, sensing antineutrinos and characterizing their energy profiles from miles away as a way of monitoring activity at nuclear reactors. They proposed to assemble their device in northeast England and detect antineutrinos from reactors from all over the U.K. as well as in northern France.
Inspired by the dynamic color-changing properties of squid skin, researchers have developed a method to manufacture a heat-adjusting material that is breathable and washable and can be integrated into flexible fabric. The composite material operates in the infrared spectrum and consists of a polymer covered with copper islands.
The tiered umbrella is one of Thailand’s oldest and most sacred ornamental symbols. Constructing one of these ornate pieces, also called chatras, can take master artisans up to six months. However, in the Journal of Laser Applications, researchers demonstrate a technique for constructing seven-tiered umbrellas using high-powered lasers, which dramatically reduces the production time. Employing carbon dioxide lasers, they were able to fashion umbrellas from stainless steel in a matter of days while preserving their intricate beauty.
Artificial coastlines, including human-made dikes and other engineered constructions, can help prevent erosion and protect from storms and flooding. However, ecological functions remain unprotected from many of these structures. So researchers in China have investigated the use of specialized types of cement.
Within the cycling realm, “to Everest” involves riding up and down the same mountain until your ascents total the elevation of Mt. Everest. A new record was set a few years ago, but a debate ensued about the strong tailwind the cyclist had on climbs. To what extent do the tailwind help a cyclist as they climb?
Van Gogh’s brushstrokes in “The Starry Night” create an illusion of sky movement so convincing it led researchers to wonder how closely it aligns with the physics of real skies. Marine sciences and fluid dynamics specialists analyzed the painting to uncover what they call the hidden turbulence in the artwork.
Many childhoods have been shaped by the works of Maurice Sendak, whose deeply emotional stories and fantastical illustrations have captured the imaginations of millions.
James Joyce’s tome “Finnegans Wake” famously breaks the rules of normal prose through its unusual, dreamlike stream of consciousness, and new work in chaos theory takes a closer look at how Joyce’s challenging novel stands out mathematically.
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