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Category: electronics – Page 2

When unable to smell prey, female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes turn to—and upregulate—heat sensors in their legs, new Science Advances research finds.

Fig. 2. Orco mutant mosquitoes display enhanced heat-seeking behavior.

(A) Schematic of female body parts that express Orco. (B) Heatmaps showing mean mosquito occupancy for the indicated genotypes on the Peltier (dotted lines) and surrounding area at indicated Peltier temperature during seconds 90 to 180 of each stimulus period. © Mean ± SEM percentage of mosquitoes of indicated genotypes on Peltier (top) during the 36°C trial (bottom). A 20-s pulse of CO2 was applied at the beginning of each stimulus period. (D) Percent of mosquitoes of indicated genotypes on Peltier during seconds 90 to 180 of stimuli of indicated temperature (mean ± SEM, n = 9 trials per genotype; data points marked with indicate that the mutant differs significantly from all other tested genotypes within each tested temperature at P < 0.05; one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s HSD post hoc test). (E to G) Mean dwell time (E), landing frequency (F), and take-off frequency (G) of indicated genotypes on the Peltier surface during the 36°C trial (n = 9 trials per genotype).

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Birds are the undisputed champions of epic travel, but they are not the only long-haul fliers. A handful of bats are known to travel thousands of kilometers in continental migrations across North America, Europe, and Africa. The behavior is rare and difficult to observe, which is why long-distance bat migration has remained an enigma.

Now, scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior (MPI-AB) have studied 71 common noctule bats on their spring migration across the European continent, providing a leap in understanding this mysterious behavior. Ultra-lightweight, attached to bats uncovered a strategy used by the tiny mammals for travel: they surf the warm fronts of storms to fly further with less energy. The study is published in Science.

“The is amazing,” says first author Edward Hurme, a postdoctoral researcher at MPI-AB and the Cluster of Excellence Collective Behavior at the University of Konstanz. “We don’t just see the path that bats took, we also see what they experienced in the environment as they migrated. It’s this context that gives us insight into the crucial decisions that bats made during their costly and dangerous journeys.”

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Prof Zhang Zhiyong’s team at Peking University developed a heterojunction-gated field-effect transistor (HGFET) that achieves high sensitivity in short-wave infrared detection, with a recorded specific detectivity above 1014 Jones at 1,300 nm, making it capable of starlight detection. Their research was recently published in the journal Advanced Materials, titled “Opto-Electrical Decoupled Phototransistor for Starlight Detection.”

Highly sensitive shortwave infrared (SWIR) detectors are essential for detecting weak radiation (typically below 10−8 W·Sr−1 ·cm−2 ·µm−1) with high-end passive image sensors. However, mainstream SWIR detection based on epitaxial photodiodes cannot effectively detect ultraweak infrared radiation due to the lack of inherent gain.

Filling this gap, researchers at the Peking University School of Electronics and collaborators have presented a heterojunction-gated (HGFET) that achieves ultra-high photogain and exceptionally in the short-wavelength infrared (SWIR) region, benefiting from a design that incorporates a comprehensive opto-electric decoupling mechanism.

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Apple could bring Samsung into its camera sensor supply chain, with a new rumor claiming that it is developing a new 3-layer stacked sensor.

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NSF NOIRLab rings in the New Year with a glittering galaxyscape captured with the Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera, mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NSF NOIRLab. This ultra-deep view of the Antlia Cluster reveals a spectacular array of galaxy types among the hundreds that make up its population.

Galaxy clusters are some of the largest known structures in the known universe. Current models suggest that these massive structures form as clumps of and the galaxies that form within them are pulled together by gravity to form groups of dozens of galaxies, which in turn merge to form clusters of hundreds, even thousands.

One such group is the Antlia Cluster (Abell S636), located around 130 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Antlia (the Air Pump).

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Scientists at Macquarie University have discovered a novel way to enhance quantum sensor performance using ordinary grapes.

By utilizing the water content and specific size of grapes, they created strong magnetic field hotspots that improve the efficiency of microwave-based quantum sensing.

Supermarket Grapes and Quantum Sensors.

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The all-in-one optical fiber spectrometer offers a compact microscale design with performance on par with traditional laboratory-based systems.

Miniaturized spectroscopy systems capable of detecting trace concentrations at parts-per-billion (ppb) levels are critical for applications such as environmental monitoring, industrial process control, and biomedical diagnostics.

However, conventional bench-top spectroscopy systems are often too large, complex, and impractical for use in confined spaces. Traditional laser spectroscopy techniques rely on bulky components—including light sources, mirrors, detectors, and gas cells—to measure light absorption or scattering. This makes them unsuitable for minimally invasive applications, such as intravascular diagnostics, where compactness and precision are essential.

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Rapidus becomes the first Japanese firm to announce 2nm trial production and integrate ASML’s EUV equipment, potentially gaining a place in NVIDIA’s supply chain.

Rapidus Announces 2nm Trial Production To Occur By 2025, Commercial Production Slated For 2027, Almost Two Years After TSMC

When you look at the general semiconductor dynamics, it won’t be wrong to say that TSMC has a wide lead, taking in orders from all the big tech giants out there. Competition from the likes of Intel Foundry and Samsung isn’t looking too good, given that both companies are witnessing organizational flaws, which has given TSMC a clear edge. However, Rapidus, which is said to be an emerging semiconductor player, has announced the integration of ASML’s EUV scanners in a facility in Japan and has also revealed that 2nm production is on track, ready to compete with TSMC.

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