Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

A newly developed superconducting quantum heat engine could deepen our understanding of thermodynamics while helping advance technologies needed for quantum computers with very large numbers of qubits. Scientists are getting a clearer picture of how thermodynamics behaves in the quantum world, and that progress could benefit both quantum technology and our understanding of familiar thermodynamic principles. Researchers at Aalto University have now taken an important step by demonstrating the first cyclic quantum heat engine built inside a superconducting circuit. The experiment connects two areas of physics that normally describe very different scales. Quantum mechanics explains the behavior of matter at…

An AI-powered tool is helping keep an eye on the world’s most remote forests.Named SPARROW, the biodiversity monitoring tool continuously gathers and analyzes images and audio from forests over a long time period without human intervention.Developed by Microsoft, it aims to make data gathering and analysis from remote forests easier for scientists and conservationists.SPARROW has been deployed in five continents and, according to Microsoft, tests on location show it can function for more than a year without interruption.See All Key Ideas At a meeting with conservationists a couple of years back, Juan Lavista Ferres had a eureka moment.…

Matilda Davis’s story should force us to confront an uncomfortable truth and something that parent carers tell us every day: for too many families raising disabled children, the care system fails to care (Matilda in pieces: what one mother’s suicide reveals about the carers broken by the system, 11 August).Parent carers need timely access to support in the home, short breaks and services that recognise and respond to their own needs as well as those of their disabled child. Most importantly, families need support early – before exhaustion becomes a crisis.Matilda’s story exposes everything that is wrong with the system. The…

The claim that U.S. Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once testified that brain damage prevented him from holding a job remains under investigation.  The rumor stems from a 2024 New York Times report that cites a 2012 deposition Kennedy reportedly gave in the context of divorce proceedings from his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, who died by suicide that same year.  The Times’ story said Kennedy argued in his deposition that his alleged brain damage caused cognitive issues that impaired his ability to make a living. It’s worth noting that the report did not state that Kennedy specifically…

The Israeli army’s faltering attempts this week to rescue two Palestinian families who have been besieged in their West Bank homes by violent Jewish settlers prompted a striking statement on Friday morning from Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz.He said he wanted to get the Israeli military out of the business of protecting Palestinians in the occupied West Bank from rampaging settlers and would try to shift the responsibility to the Israeli police.As a practical matter, only the Israel Defense Forces have the thousands of personnel needed to patrol and respond quickly to attacks in the scores of communities plagued by…

Since the day she began her campaign for Congress, Paige Cognetti, the Democratic mayor of Scranton, has centered her pitch to voters on the prodigious stock trading of the House Republican she is seeking to unseat, Representative Rob Bresnahan Jr. of Pennsylvania.“This year he’s already made 600 trades,” Ms. Cognetti said in the announcement video for her campaign in September. “Sold Chinese stocks the week of a tariff. Buys missile stocks before a war. Buys jet stocks before a big contract. Oversees crypto? Buys crypto stocks before a vote.”It may be the district where the issue rings the loudest. Democrats…

The UK’s leading climate organisations have accused the prime minister, Andy Burnham, of “remaining silent” on the climate crisis as the country struggles to cope with its fifth heatwave of the year.As widespread droughts and devastating wildfires grip the country, green groups have written to Burnham urging him to “show leadership” and be honest with workers and the public that the climate crisis is driving the extreme conditions they are facing.“Without naming the cause of our rapidly changing environment, you will be unable to adequately prepare the country for the adaptations it will need to make, and the efforts needed…

The Federal Trade Commission recently announced deals with two auto dealers, along with the former general manager of a third, promising not to enforce—or even help enforce—their court-ordered obligations to maintain fair lending programs and not engage in unlawful credit discrimination.The Northern District of Illinois, which presided over one case, says it was never given the opportunity to evaluate one of the new agreements, and Arizona attorney general Kris Mayes, whose office was a coplaintiff in another of the affected cases, calls the move “outrageous.”The FTC is doing away with the obligations because the defendants didn’t explicitly instruct its salespeople…

Even after a nuclear reactor is switched off, activity continues deep inside its core. Long-lived radioactive fission products keep decaying for months or even years, releasing a weak stream of particles called antineutrinos. (Anti)neutrinos are the lightest and most elusive known particles in the Universe, and they can pass through both the reactor and its surrounding shielding with little interference. Scientists with the Double Chooz collaboration have now measured this lingering antineutrino emission for the first time. The research, recently published in Physical Review Letters, was led by Anthony Onillon and Thierry Lassere of the Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik (MPIK) in…

Tesso Nilo National Park on the Indonesian island of Sumatra is notorious for human-wildlife conflicts, but women farmers living in its buffer zone are working to protect the park.Members of the Batang Nilo Women’s Forest Farmer Group, known as Perbani, plant citrus trees, which elephants avoid, around their farms, while also growing fruits that the animals can feed on.Perbani also empowers its more than 30 members through monthly gender equality classes, covering skills such as leadership and public speaking, as well as a savings-and-loans scheme.In 2024, the forestry ministry granted the women’s group Wanawiyata Widyakarya status, awarded to community…