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Control Casimir Forces, Chemotherapy Before Surgery for Pancreatic Cancer, More SpaceX Launches
Rob
June 19, 2024
🤖 Computer Science
Smartphones enhance indoor localization for sectors like health and industry. This new system uses GPS for building entry and barometers for floor tracking, achieving over 93% accuracy in entry detection and over 95% in floor changes. The real-time, infrastructure-independent system significantly improves security and navigation in urban buildings.
DrVideo is a new system designed for understanding long videos by treating them as long documents. This method uses large language models to locate key information and perform long-range reasoning. DrVideo converts videos into text-based documents, retrieves key frames, and iteratively searches for missing information to make predictions. Experiments show DrVideo outperforms current methods, achieving significant accuracy improvements on multiple benchmarks.
⚛️ Physics and Chemistry
Researchers have shown that the Casimir force, a quantum effect between two surfaces, can be switched between attractive and repulsive using magnetic fields. This study, published in Nature Physics, demonstrates the effect between a gold sphere and silica plate in water-based ferrofluids.
A study of European starlings has confirmed that birds use significantly less energy when flying behind a leader. This research, led by Ty Hedrick from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is the first to directly measure birds' in-flight energy expenditure. The findings suggest that this energy-saving behavior likely applies to other bird species, including those flying in dynamic flocks and not just in the fixed V-formation of large migratory birds.
Experiments with ultracold water droplets have shown how covalent hydrogen chloride transforms into hydrochloric acid with the addition of individual water molecules. This research could offer insights into other proton transfer reactions, including base chemistry and DNA mutation.
🧬 Biology & Medicine
A new study in JAMA Network Open shows that nearly 5% of pancreatic adenocarcinoma patients treated with chemotherapy (with or without radiation) before surgery achieved a pathological complete response, meaning no detectable cancer cells remained in the tumor area.
An ancient Chinese malaria remedy may offer new hope for women with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), a common endocrine disorder causing hormonal imbalances and infertility. Despite being a major risk factor for obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, PCOS lacks FDA-approved treatments. Women often rely on off-label medications or surgery to manage symptoms.
🔭 Space & Astronomy
SpaceX launched 20 Starlink satellites, including 13 with direct-to-cell capabilities, from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base on June 18. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 11:40 p.m. EDT and successfully landed its first stage on the droneship "Of Course I Still Love You" in the Pacific Ocean about 8.5 minutes later.
Two teams from Southern California won a combined $1.5 million in NASA's Break the Ice Lunar Challenge after two days of live competitions. Since 2020, global competitors have aimed to invent robots for excavating and transporting icy regolith on the Moon, crucial for sustaining human presence at the lunar South Pole, the targeted landing site for crewed Artemis missions.
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