International Young Scientist Awards

  The Curiosity rover, NASA’s robotic explorer, has ventured into a rugged and visually captivating region of Mars, exploring a towering Martian butte. These buttes, resembling mesas found on Earth, are composed of layered rock that tell the story of Mars’ ancient environment. By studying the sedimentary layers, scientists can reconstruct the planet's history, from periods of flowing rivers to drier, wind-swept eras. This latest exploration highlights Curiosity's ability to navigate steep, rocky terrain while using its sophisticated tools to analyze rock samples and capture high-resolution images. These findings could reveal critical information about the presence of water and the habitability of Mars in the distant past. Curiosity’s journey through these geological wonders brings humanity closer to understanding the Martian surface and lays the groundwork for future missions, including the eventual goal of human exploration on the Red Planet #CuriosityRover #MarsExploration #M...

More than a third of women across 10 health care practices chose to enroll in a self-pay, artificial intelligence (AI)-enhanced breast cancer screening program, and the women who enrolled were 21% more likely to have cancer detected, acco rding to research being presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). AI has shown great promise in mammography as a " second set of eyes " for radiologists providing decision support, risk prediction and other benefits. Despite its promise, AI is not yet reimbursed by insurance, which likely is slowing its adoption in the clinic. Some practices have elected to offer enhanced workflows enabled by AI at additional cost, much like what was done when digital breast tomosynthesis was originally deployed. For the study, researchers investigated the impact of AI-;including a safeguard review-;as a self-pay option in screening mammography. A self-pay, AI-powered screening mammography program was offer...

Scientists used the James Webb Space Telescope to study planet formation. They observed the star cluster NGC 346. They found long-lasting planet-forming disks. These disks exist even with few heavy elements. This challenges old theories. Planets may have formed earlier than we thought. This discovery changes our understanding of the early universe. The formation of planets has long been a subject of fascination and study in the field of astronomy . For decades, scientists have sought to understand the conditions required for planets to form around stars, particularly in environments that are vastly different from those of our solar system. Recent groundbreaking discoveries, led by advanced telescopes like NASA’ s James Webb Space Telescope, have shed new light on this process. By observing distant star clusters and ancient galaxies, researchers are now uncovering surprising insights into how planets can form and survive even in the harshest conditions. These findings challenge long-st...

  India is making rapid progress for research output in the Nature Index and last year had a higher percentage growth in contributions to index journals than China, according to the latest release of calendar-year data. The Nature Index 2024 Research Leaders – previously known as Annual Tables – is a series of rankings that highlight the leading countries, territories and research institutions for output in the database. The rankings show that India has overtaken Australia and Switzerland to sit in 9th place overall. In the natural sciences, the country is now 8th. Since the Nature Index was introduced in 2014, China has been the standout country for growth in Share, a metric that measures contribution to papers in the Index by authors based in a particular location. In 2022, China overtook the United States as the leading country for natural-sciences output . In 2023, a year after health-sciences journals were added to the Index, China was top overall. India’s overall Share for ...

A team of physicists at ETH Zürich has built the first-ever working mechanical qubit. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their novel idea for creating such a qubit and how well it has worked during testing. Researchers believe quantum computers will be able to solve many types of problems that are beyond the ability of classical computers . And while much progress has been made, the goal has still not been fully realized. One of the major sticking points is the problem of virtual qubits, such as those made using electromagnetics, which produce errors that must be corrected. The research team found another way around the problem—using mechanical qubits instead. Instead of representing data with only ones and zeroes, qubits are able to store data in a superposition of both states. For this new study, the researchers built what they describe as a membrane similar to a drum skin that can hold information as a steady state, a vibrating state or a state t...

Several observatories in China have captured rare images of a falling near-Earth asteroid, formally designated as 2024 XA1. The images, along with the observation results of foreign observatories on the asteroid, mark the 11th successful early warning of an asteroid impacting Earth, and the fourth such prediction of 2024, according to China Science Daily on Friday. The asteroid has an estimated diameter of between 75 centimeters and one meter. It was first discovered by a University of Arizona telescope at 5:55 a.m. (UTC) on December 3, the report said. China played a crucial role in monitoring the event due to its strategic geographic location. The Lijiang branch of the Yunnan Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) detected the asteroid during the time from 3:10 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. (UTC) on December 3 through its Lijiang 2.4-meter telescope, said Zhang Xiliang, a researcher at the Lijiang observatory. At 4:15 p.m. (UTC) on December 3, the asteroid entered Earth's...