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In Chaos, researchers explore the factors driving background checks, and whether coordination between U.S. states may exist and if one state exerts influence over others in terms of enacting gun laws or acquiring firearms. They researchers constructed a rigorous mathematical approach to interpret the patterning of firearm background check data and found these patterns of frequency oscillations are different at various time points. This suggests states may have interacted differently with each other during the terms of Bush, Obama, and Trump.

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The journal Biomicrofluidics has selected Ikram Khan as the winner of its 2021 Best Paper award. The designation highlights significant contributions by emerging authors in microfluidics and nanofluidics and is determined by an expert panel of judges. In the winning paper, "A low-cost 3D printed microfluidic bioreactor and imaging chamber for live-organoid imaging," the authors developed a system capable of supporting brain organoid growth while allowing long-term live imaging and drug delivery support. Organoids, or biological systems grown in vitro, act as important models for studying normal and diseased development.

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In AIP Advances, Qing-Bin Lu, a scientist from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, reveals a large, all-season ozone hole in the lower stratosphere over the tropics comparable in depth to that of the well-known springtime Antarctic hole, but roughly seven times greater in area. His observed data agree well with the cosmic-ray-driven electron reaction (CRE) model and strongly indicate the identical physical mechanism working for both Antarctic and tropical ozone holes.

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An optical fiber as thin as a strand of hair holds promise for use in minimally invasive deep-tissue studies of patients' brains that show the effects Alzheimer's disease and other brain disorders. The challenge is efficiently increasing image resolution at the subcellular level, because loss of information is inevitable from light scrambling. In APL Photonics, researchers in the Netherlands address this challenge with speckle-based compressive imaging that exploits the light scrambling of multimode fibers to their advantage.

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In APL Bioengineering, researchers from Tufts University examine some of the latest advances in wearable electronic devices and systems being developed using electrospinning – the fabrication of nanofibers with tunable properties from a polymer base – and showcase the many advantages electrospun materials have over conventional bulk materials. Their high surface-to-volume ratio endows them with enhanced porosity and breathability, which is important for long-term wearability, and with the appropriate blend of polymers, they can achieve superior biocompatibility.

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Chinese researchers may have found a new approach to treat cancer by using a plasma treatment to induce apoptosis, without any obvious side effect to normal cells. A plasma-activated medium (PAM) can be treated as a drug, with a dose-effect relationship. In Physics of Plasmas, the scientists' definition of a plasma dose, the equivalent total oxidation potential (ETOP), can be used for PAM to reveal the plasma dose-response relationship for different cell types.

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In The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, scientists in Denmark review recent experiments and find noise regulations may need to be changed to protect porpoises, seals, and other sea-dwelling mammals. Current guidance for seals and porpoises is based on few measurements in a limited frequency range; the guidance is still valid for these frequencies, but investigators found substantial deviations in recent studies of the impact of low frequency noise on seals and high frequency noise on porpoises.

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In Biomicrofluidics, scientists reveal their development of a new type of prosthetic using microfluidics-enabled soft robotics that promises to greatly reduce skin ulcerations and pain in patients who have had an amputation between the ankle and knee. They started with a recent device that uses pneumatic actuators and miniaturized the actuators by designing a microfluidic chip with 10 integrated pneumatic valves to control each actuator. The control box is small and light enough to be worn as part of the prosthesis.

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The American Institute of Physics is happy to announce the appointment of James Taylor as its new chief federation officer. Starting Aug. 1, Taylor will spearhead AIP's efforts to advance the success of its 10 Member Societies, who have a combined membership of more than 116,000 physical scientists, engineers, students, and educators. Taylor will be leading initiatives that drive the federation's success, collective action, shared impact, and reach.

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The Journal of Chemical Physics, in its commitment to recognizing the excellent work of early-career investigators, is proud to announce the 2021 winners of the JCP Best Paper by an Emerging Investigator Awards. The awardees, Andrew Musser and Yoav Green, were selected for their research on molecular polaritons and electroneutrality breakdown in nanopores, respectively. The award includes a $2,000 honorarium and an invitation to write a perspective article for JCP.

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In Physics of Fluids, researchers carefully studied bubbles that form when water droplets come into contact with heated cooking oil and found that the type and number of bubbles formed depends on the amount of water absorbed by the chopsticks as well as the chopstick material. The water droplet explodes when it hit the hot oil, in three types of bubble events: an explosion cavity, an elongated cavity, and an oscillating cavity.

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Recent efforts have sought to make low-boom supersonic aircraft, but noise issues due to sonic booms may become more pronounced in cities, where buildings form canyons that distort the booms. In The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, researchers conducted simulations comparing how sonic booms reflect differently over a single building, two neighboring buildings, and multiple buildings spaced at regular intervals. The researchers found the wider the streets compared to the height of buildings, the less booms are affected. Narrower streets introduced more complex boom propagation.

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TEAM-UP Together announces the launch of a multimillion-dollar scholarship program focused on rolling back underrepresentation of African American students in physics and astronomy over the next five years. The program will provide financial assistance to those students to help them achieve their bachelor's degrees and the awards of up to $10,000 per student per school year aim to reduce the financial barriers preventing many Black students from completing their undergraduate degree programs in physics and astronomy.

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There is much more that comes out of the pop of an opening champagne bottle than meets the senses. In Physics of Fluids, computational fluid dynamics simulations revealed the formation, evolution, and dissipation of shock wave patterns as the carbon dioxide mixture shoots through the bottleneck in the first millisecond after cork popping. The findings could provide insight into the complex and transient behavior of supersonic flow in applications ranging from rocket launchers, ballistic missiles, and wind turbines to electronics manufacturing and underwater vehicles.

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In Physics of Fluids, researchers create a model to connect what biologists have learned about COVID-19 superspreading with how such events have occurred in the real world. They use occupancy data to test several features ranging from viral loads to the occupancy and ventilation of social contact settings. They found that 80% of infections occurring at superspreading events arose from only 4% of those who were carrying the virus into the event. The top feature driving the wide variability in superspreading events was the number of viral particles found in index cases.

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In Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, researchers in China and the United States outline a computer simulation model addressing the challenge of solar power's inherent intermittency by adding biomass as another renewable energy source to advance a reliable, affordable heating solution while reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The proposed solar-biomass hybrid system is based on distributed multi-generation technology that integrates photovoltaic-thermal and biomass power sources.

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In Journal of Applied Physics, researchers from the United States and Germany present a comparative analysis of urban magnetic fields between two U.S. cities: Berkeley, California, and the Brooklyn borough of New York City. They explore what kinds of information can be extracted using data from magnetic field sensors to understand the working of cities and provide insights that may be crucial for preventative studies.

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When reading news and analyses of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, researchers in Spain perceived many conflicting messages being transmitted. The most notable one is the theory of “two Ukraines” or the existence of ideologically pro-West and pro-Russian regions. This doesn’t match the unity of Ukrainians against the Russian invasion, so they wondered if they could provide any solid proof to support or reject such a theory via data analysis tools?

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Most biofuel cells provide low power output and short-term operational stability due to their poor electron transfer between enzymes and electrodes and between neighboring enzymes. These electron transfer issues are closely related to the performance of almost all electrochemical sensors, including BFCs and other bioelectronics.

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A group of high school students used a tiny, inexpensive computer to try to measure Earth's magnetic field from the International Space Station, showing a way to affordably explore and understand our planet.

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In Physics Today, science writer Toni Feder describes the impact of war on Ukrainian and Russian scientists in the June issue cover article, “In Ukraine, science will need rebuilding postwar; in Russia, its isolation could endure.”

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In AIP Advances, researchers in Japan developed a desktop air curtain system that blocks all incoming aerosol particles. An air curtain, or air door, is a fan-powered ventilation system that creates an air seal over an entryway, but one challenge in developing smaller air curtains is fully blocking emitted aerosol particles over time because it is difficult to maintain the air wall over a long distance. The DACS contains a discharge and suction port to help address this problem. A generator at the top of the DACS produces the airflow, which is guided to the suction port at the bottom of the device.

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In Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, scientists determined that by increasing the accuracy of weather forecasts over the last decade, consumers netted at least $384 million in energy savings. The researchers based their predictions on NOAA's High Resolution Rapid Refresh model, which provides daily weather forecasts for every part of the U.S. These include wind speed and direction data, which utilities can use to gauge how much energy their turbines will produce. Every few years, NOAA releases an updated model and spends a year testing it out, and by looking at the difference in errors from each model, the researchers were able to put a dollar amount on each upgrade.

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In Physics of Fluids, researchers assessed the potential impact of a rocket launch on atmospheric pollution by investigating the heat and mass transfer and rapid mixing of the combustion byproducts. The team modeled the exhaust gases and developing plume at several altitudes along a typical trajectory of a standard present-day rocket. They did this as a prototypical example of a two-stage rocket to transport people and payloads into Earth's orbit and beyond and found the impact on the atmosphere locally and momentarily in the mesosphere can be significant.

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Ruobing Qian and Wenhui Liu jointly received the annual Future Luminary Award by APL Photonics, a publication of AIP Publishing, for developing a parallelized diffuse correlation spectroscopy system to capture high-quality in vivo blood flow signals. In the winning paper, "Fast and sensitive diffuse correlation spectroscopy with highly parallelized single photon detection," Qian, Liu, and their colleagues improve upon biophotonics technology using a single-photon avalanche diode array with thousands of independent detection channels.

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In Physics of Fluids, researchers present clinicians with information about the risk factors for atherosclerotic plaque formation from a mechanical point of view. The scientists are exploring whether it is possible to screen and intervene early for people at risk for atherosclerotic disease from the perspective of hemodynamics, using color Doppler ultrasound, coronary computed tomography angiography, and other screenings. The researchers used a multipoint, noncontact laser flow measurement method called microparticle image velocimetry.

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In Physics of Fluids, scientists describe their work on an at-home study of rheology, which is used to study the way non-Newtonian liquids or semisolid substances flow. The projects assigned to students had two parts: gathering qualitative visual evidence of rheological properties and taking quantitative measurements. The students checked for four behaviors – shear thinning viscosity, viscoelasticity, shear normal stress difference, and extensional viscosity – and even without access to laboratory rheometers, they developed creative and unique ways to carry out their measurements.

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AIP Publishing is proud to announce APL Machine Learning, a new open access scientific journal, and the appointment of its founding editor-in-chief, Adnan Mehonic. APL Machine Learning will feature research addressing how machine learning and artificial intelligence can aid physicists, material scientists, engineers, chemists, and biologists in advancing scientific discovery — and how insights from these disciplines can pave the way for development of better AI systems. It will begin accepting submissions in mid-2022 with a target to publish in January 2023.

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In Biomicrofluidics, researchers developed a soft robotic sleeve controlled with a microfluidic chip that reduces cost, weight, and power consumption for treatment of lymphedema. The prototype is more portable than previous devices, and the underlying mechanisms can extend to other treatments, such as prosthetics. The microfluidic chip has 16 channels, each with a different resistance. The differing resistances create a time delay between the flow through each channel, causing balloons in the sleeve to sequentially inflate and push fluid upwards, out of the arm.

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In Physics of Fluids, researchers use principal component analysis along with fluid dynamics simulation models to show the crucial importance of proper fit for all types of masks and how face shape influences the most ideal fit. They modeled a moderate cough jet from a mouth of an adult male wearing a cloth mask over the nose and mouth with elastic bands wrapped around the ears and calculated the maximum volume flow rates through the front of mask and peripheral gaps at different material porosity levels.

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In Chaos, researchers propose using a complex-network-based clustering workflow to search for synchronized structures of extreme rainfall events within the context of atmospheric chaos. By doing this, they were able to reconstruct a functional climate network to encode the underlying interaction of the climate system. Clusters on the network revealed regions of similar climatological behaviors. This means extreme rainfalls within different locations are not independent of each other but have a certain degree of similarity.

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In Chaos, researchers in China created a network model drawn from the traffic index and air quality index of 21 cities across six regions in their country to quantify how traffic emissions from one city affect another. They leveraged data from COVID-19 lockdown procedures to better explain the relationship between traffic and air pollution and turned to a weighted climate network framework to model each city as a node using data from 2019 and 2020. They added a two-layer network that incorporated different regions, lockdown stages, and outbreak levels.

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When a large ice sheet begins to melt, global-mean sea level rises, but local sea level near the ice sheet may in fact drop. In American Journal of Physics, a researcher illustrates this effect through a series of calculations, beginning with a simple, analytically tractable model and progressing through more sophisticated mathematical estimations of ice distributions and gravitation of displaced seawater mass. The paper includes numerical results for sea level change resulting from a 1,000-gigatonne loss of ice, with parameter values appropriate to the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

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In Chaos, researchers developed a model to spatially distribute mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria, which reduce the transmission of the dengue virus. The researchers use real data on human and vector activity in a framework that can be analyzed from a mathematical point of view, allowing them to re-create and understand the epidemiological situation and identify those geographical areas with the greatest vulnerability, creating a ranking of areas that prioritizes those where Wolbachia-carrying mosquitoes can have the strongest and most beneficial impact on the spread of the virus.

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In Journal of Applied Physics, researchers in India are asking why, after decades of development and promising results, ultrawide bandgap photodetectors with deep UV capabilities haven't enjoyed widespread adoption, and are taking stock of advancements and challenges in the field. Unlike their silicon-based counterparts, UWBG photodetectors made from aluminum gallium nitride and gallium (III) oxide are more efficient, can tailor cutoff wavelengths, and do not need optical filters to reject visible or infrared wavelengths for solar-blind applications.

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In Physics of Fluids, researchers from MIT characterized the flow and fracture of Oreos, finding the creme, which is officially "mushy" in rheological texture, tends to stick to one side of the cookie. They placed Oreos in a rheometer, a laboratory instrument they used to measured torque, and after the filling failed and the cookie broke apart, they quantified the amount of creme on each wafer by visual inspection. The authors investigated the influence of milk, cookie flavor, amount of filling, and rotation rate on the final creme distribution.

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In Physics of Fluids, researchers examined how pasta swells, softens, and becomes sticky as it takes up water. They combined measurements of pasta parameters, such as expansion, bending rigidity, and water content to solve a variety of equations to form a theoretical model for the swelling dynamics of starch materials. The team observed how the noodles come together when lifted from a plate by a fork. This provided them with a grounding of how water-driven hygroscopic swelling affects pasta's texture.

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In Physics of Plasmas, scientists report a method to study smaller magnetospheres, sometimes just millimeters thick, in the laboratory. The new experimental platform combines the magnetic field of the Large Plasma Device at UCLA with a fast laser-driven plasma and a current-driven dipole magnet. The LAPD magnetic field provides a model of the solar system's interplanetary magnetic field, while the laser-driven plasma models the solar wind and the dipole magnet provides a model for the Earth's inherent magnetic field. Motorized probes allow system scans in three dimensions by combining data from tens of thousands of laser shots.

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When triggered by some external agent, shockwaves can propagate through molecular clouds of gas and dust to create pockets of dense material. At a certain limit, that dense gas and dust collapses and begins to form new stars. In Matter and Radiation at Extremes, researchers modeled this interaction using a high-power laser and a foam ball. The foam ball represents a dense area within a molecular cloud. The high-power laser creates a blast wave that propagates through a surrounding chamber of gas and into the ball, where the team observed the compression using X-ray images.

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Modern methods of creating plant-based meat can yield high optical similarities and targeted molecular-sensory methods, but on a molecular scale, it appears completely different from the food it tries to mimic. In Physics of Fluids, scientists investigate the molecular function and effects of vegetable proteins of different origins to identify sensory weak points in plant-based substitutes, employing rheology and tribology and bringing greater insight than pure sensory analyses. They said muscle proteins emulsify fats and oils in a very different way while lending to a different biting behavior.

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TEAM-UP Together boldly takes the first steps toward achieving a goal of doubling the number of African Americans graduating college with undergraduate degrees in physics and astronomy by 2030. The AIP Foundation has secured a $12.5 million, five-year grant from the Simons Foundation and Simons Foundation International, and TEAM-UP Together will launch in 2022 with the aim of providing both direct financial support to students and grants to physics and astronomy departments that are committed to changing the lived experience of their African American students.

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In Applied Physics Letters, researchers constructed a photovoltaic cell that harvests energy from the environment during the day and night, making use of the heat leaking from Earth back into space. At night, solar cells radiate and lose heat to the sky, reaching temperatures a few degrees below the ambient air. The device under development uses a thermoelectric module to generate voltage and current from the temperature gradient between the cell and the air. The setup is inexpensive and, in principle, could be incorporated within existing solar cells.

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In The Physics Teacher, researchers explore the goal of culturally relevant pedagogy, which is to center students' cultural resources as a bridge to learning. It relies on a framework of academic excellence, cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness and encourages teachers to push their students toward using what they learn within the classroom to challenge injustices in society. These investments in students can be invaluable in turning classrooms into places where students recognize their worth.

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The AIP Longitudinal Survey of Astronomy Graduate Students was initiated by AAS in 2006 to better understand the forms and long-term impacts of harassment in the field of astronomy. The study polled astronomy graduate students during the 2006-07 school year and followed up with those same people in 2012-13 and in 2015-16 after they entered the workplace. Across the study, 33% of the respondents reported experiencing harassment and discrimination at school or work.

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Researchers want to leverage the centuries-old art of cutting paper, kirigami, into designs to develop a sensor sheet that can stretch and breathe with the skin while collecting electrocardiographic data. In Applied Physics Reviews, scientists in Japan use cuts in a film made of polyethylene terephthalate printed with silver electrodes to fit a sensor on a person's chest to monitor his or her heart. At the optimal size found, they were able to detect enough signal from the heart to be used in a smartphone app.

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In Applied Physics Reviews, researchers advocate for a paradigm change in the science of forecasting corrosion damage within reinforced concrete structures. They discuss the severe flaws in using the chloride threshold concept for forecasting corrosion and say change is needed to address the growing challenges of aging structures losing functionality and potentially collapsing, greenhouse gas emissions, and the economy at large. To achieve this, a multiscale, multidisciplinary approach combining scientific and practical contributions from materials science, corrosion science, cement/concrete research, and structural engineering is needed.

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In American Journal of Physics, researchers were inspired by marinated eggs to demonstrate how diffusion works in an easy and quantifiable way. The basis of the recipe is marinating hard boiled eggs in vinegar or brine, which cures the eggs by sufficiently saturating the egg whites via diffusion. In their experiment, the researchers compared penetration levels of red food dye in the whites of peeled hard-boiled eggs at three different temperatures: refrigerator temperature, room temperature, and in a cool convection oven.

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In the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, scientists from China show a bionic approach combining features of a seagull's wing with an engineered flow control accessory, known as a Gurney flap, can greatly improve wind turbine performance. To achieve the best aerodynamic performance, the scientists simulated the use of the combined flow control accessory in a variety of situations, including high and low angle of attack and pre- and post-stall scenarios. They compared their computational simulations to experimental results for an aircraft wing undergoing a dynamic stall.

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In Physics of Fluids, researchers in Italy developed a method to leaven pizza dough without yeast. The team, which included its very own professional pizza-maker/graduate student, prepared the dough by mixing water, flour, and salt and placing it in a hot autoclave, an industrial device designed to raise temperature and pressure. From there, the process is like the one used to produce carbonation in soda. Gas is dissolved into the dough at high pressure, and bubbles form in the dough as pressure is released during baking.

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In AVS Quantum Science, scientists in Germany review research on gravitational wave detectors as a historical example of quantum technologies and examine the fundamental research on the connection between quantum physics and gravity. The team examined recent gravitational wave experiments, showing it is possible to shield large objects from strong influences from the thermal and seismic environment to allow them to evolve as one quantum object. This decoupling from the environment enables measurement sensitivities that would otherwise be impossible.