🤖 Tech & Computer Science

Gmail users on Android can now chat with Gemini about their emails

Gmail users on Android can now chat with Google’s AI assistant, Gemini, directly in the Gmail app through a new feature called Gmail Q&A. This allows users to ask Gemini to summarize emails or find specific details within their inbox. The feature, available to Gemini subscribers, will also be coming to iOS. While traditional search remains available, Google is shifting towards AI chat for finding email information. However, users should be cautious of potential inaccuracies from the AI.

Automatic recognition system for concrete cracks with support vector machine based on crack features

This study focuses on improving crack detection in concrete surfaces using machine vision. A support vector machine (SVM) was utilized for distinguishing cracks from other regions. The proposed system combines image processing techniques, like the Prewitt operator with the Otsu threshold, to enhance crack detection accuracy. After filtering impurities, the automatic identification model based on SVM achieved a 97.14% recognition accuracy, proving the method's effectiveness for practical applications.

⚛️ Physics and Chemistry

New Sisyphus cooling technique could enhance precision of atomic clocks

Researchers at NIST, the University of Colorado, and Penn State developed a new sub-recoil Sisyphus cooling technique to enhance atomic clock precision. Initially applied to a high-performing ytterbium optical lattice clock, this method could also improve other clocks and quantum metrology tools. The technique, detailed in Physical Review Letters, represents a significant advance in precision spectroscopy, a field with broad applications, including studies on antimatter.

Heavy exotic antinucleus gives up no secrets about antimatter asymmetry

The STAR Collaboration at Brookhaven National Laboratory observed the heaviest antinucleus ever produced, an antihyperhydrogen-4 nucleus containing a strange quark. While studying such antimatter particles might help explain the matter-antimatter imbalance in the universe, no new physics beyond the Standard Model was observed. Shortly after the Big Bang, the universe was too hot for quarks to form hadrons, instead existing as a quark-gluon plasma that later cooled, allowing baryons and mesons to form.

🧬 Biology & Medicine

High-Dose Psilocybin Shows Promising Results for Depression

A new meta-analysis shows that high-dose psilocybin provides greater relief from depressive symptoms compared to placebo or escitalopram, without an increased risk of severe adverse events. The analysis included data from 15 psychedelic trials with 811 participants and five escitalopram trials with 1968 participants, focusing on the effectiveness of oral monotherapy with psychedelics versus escitalopram in treating clinically diagnosed depression. The primary measure was the change in depressive symptoms from baseline.

CD4 T cells found to be key players in tuberculosis defense

Scientists discovered that CD4 T cells, a type of immune cell, protect the lungs from tuberculosis (TB) reinfection by creating an anti-inflammatory environment rather than directly killing the bacteria. This finding, reported in Immunity, suggests new ways to enhance existing TB vaccines.

🔭 Space & Astronomy

Boeing's 1st crewed Starliner to return to Earth without astronauts on Sept. 6

Boeing's Starliner capsule is set to leave the International Space Station on Sept. 6, weather permitting. The capsule will undock at 6:04 p.m. EDT and land six hours later in New Mexico. Starliner launched on June 5 with NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, despite encountering some technical issues during the mission.

NASA selects Intuitive Machines for south pole lunar lander mission

NASA has awarded Intuitive Machines a $116.9 million contract to deliver six payloads to the moon's south pole in 2027. This is the first award under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program in nearly 18 months. The payloads, weighing a total of 79 kilograms, will include experiments from NASA, ESA, and the University of Colorado Boulder, focusing on biology, planetary science, space science, and resource prospecting.

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