Science X Newsletter Week 16

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Here is your customized Phys.org Newsletter for week 16:

	New state of water molecule discovered Neutron scattering and computational modeling have revealed unique and unexpected behavior of water molecules under extreme confinement that is unmatched by any known gas, liquid or solid states.
	Chemists create battery technology with off-the-charts charging capacity University of California, Irvine researchers have invented nanowire-based battery material that can be recharged hundreds of thousands of times, moving us closer to a battery that would never require replacement. The breakthrough work could lead to commercial batteries with greatly lengthened lifespans for computers, smartphones, appliances, cars and spacecraft.
	Earth-like planet may exist in a nearby star system (Phys.org)—An Earth-like planet may be lurking in a star system located just 16 light years away, according to a new research. The star, named Gliese 832, was recently investigated by a team of astronomers searching for additional exoplanets that may be residing between the two currently known alien worlds in this system. A paper detailing the finding was published online on Apr. 15 in the arXiv journal.
	Researchers can identify you by your brain waves with 100 percent accuracy Your responses to certain stimuli—foods, celebrities, words—might seem trivial, but they say a lot about you. In fact (with the proper clearance), these responses could gain you access into restricted areas of the Pentagon.
	Solar-powered plane completes journey across Pacific Ocean (Update) A solar-powered airplane on a mission to fly around the world landed in California, completing a risky, three-day flight across a great expanse of the Pacific Ocean.
	Inverse spin Hall effect: A new way to get electricity from magnetism By showing that a phenomenon dubbed the "inverse spin Hall effect" works in several organic semiconductors - including carbon-60 buckyballs - University of Utah physicists changed magnetic "spin current" into electric current. The efficiency of this new power conversion method isn't yet known, but it might find use in future electronic devices including batteries, solar cells and computers.
	Quantum computing closer as researchers drive towards first quantum data bus RMIT University researchers have trialled a quantum processor capable of routing quantum information from different locations in a critical breakthrough for quantum computing.
	Researchers demonstrate hydrogen atoms on graphene yield a magnetic moment (Phys.org)—A team of researchers with members from institutions in Spain, France and Egypt has demonstrated that hydrogen atoms on graphene yield a magnetic moment and furthermore, that such moments can order ferromagnetically over relatively large distances. In their paper published in the journal Science the group describes experiments they carried out in attempting to cause a sheet of graphene to become magnetic, how they found evidence that it was possible using hydrogen atoms, and the ways such a material might be used in industrial applications. Shawna Hollen with the University of New Hampshire, and Jay Gupta with Ohio State University, offer some insights into the work done by the team in the same journal issue with a Perspectives piece—they also outline the hurdles that still need to be overcome before magnetic graphene might be used in real applications.
	Lone planetary-mass object found in family of stars In 2011, astronomers announced that our galaxy is likely teeming with free-floating planets. In fact, these lonely worlds, which sit quietly in the darkness of space without any companion planets or even a host sun, might outnumber stars in our Milky Way galaxy. The surprising discovery begged the question: Where did these objects come from? Are they planets that were ejected from solar systems, or are they actually light-weight stars called brown dwarfs that formed alone in space like stars?
	Kepler recovered and returned to the K2 mission The Kepler spacecraft has been recovered and, as of 8:30 a.m. PDT today, it is back on the job as the K2 mission searching for exoplanets—planets beyond our solar system.
	Hubble sees a star 'inflating' a giant bubble For the 26th birthday of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers are highlighting a Hubble image of an enormous bubble being blown into space by a super-hot, massive star. The Hubble image of the Bubble Nebula, or NGC 7635, was chosen to mark the 26th anniversary of the launch of Hubble into Earth orbit by the STS-31 space shuttle crew on April 24, 1990
	Venus Express' swansong experiment sheds light on Venus' polar atmosphere Some of the final results sent back by ESA's Venus Express before it plummeted down through the planet's atmosphere have revealed it to be rippling with atmospheric waves – and, at an average temperature of -157°C, colder than anywhere on Earth.
	Diphoton bump at LHC leads to generation of hundreds of theoretical papers (Phys.org)—Last year, two teams working at the LHC reported that they had found proton-to-proton collisions that had led to the creation of more photon pairs (with energies of approximately 750 GeV) than was expected, leading to theories that the evidence might be pointing to a new particle than no one has theorized. This discovery led to a plethora of teams creating papers seeking to be the first to explain this seeming anomaly—so many papers have been submitted to journals for publication that editors have had to pick and choose which to publish. One example is Robert Garisto with Physical Review Letters, who has published an editorial describing the onrush and the decision to publish just four papers in their latest edition, which the editorial team believes is representative of the four main ideas.
	Scientists discover new reef system at mouth of Amazon River A new reef system has been found at the mouth of the Amazon River, the largest river by discharge of water in the world. As large rivers empty into the world's oceans in areas known as plumes, they typically create gaps in the reef distribution along the tropical shelves—something that makes finding a reef in the Amazon plume an unexpected discovery.
	The first fossilised heart ever found in a prehistoric animal Palaeontologists and the famous Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz were once in search of the same thing: a heart. But in our case, it was the search for a fossilised heart. And now we've found one.
	Brain scans link physical changes to cognitive risks of widely used class of drugs Older adults might want to avoid a using class of drugs commonly used in over-the-counter products such as nighttime cold medicines due to their links to cognitive impairment, a research team led by scientists at Indiana University School of Medicine has recommended.
	Better tests for Schrodinger cats (Updated) In a classical world, objects have pre-existing properties, physical influences are local and cannot travel faster than the speed of light, and it is in principle possible to measure the properties of macroscopic systems without altering them. This is referred to as local realism and macroscopic realism, and quantum mechanics is in strong contradiction with both of them. While Bell inequalities have been proven to be an optimal tool for ruling out local realism in quantum experiments, Lucas Clemente and Johannes Kofler from the Theory Division of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) in Garching, Germany, have now shown that inequalities can never be optimal for tests of macroscopic realism. Their results reveal a hitherto unknown radical difference in the mathematical structures of spatial and temporal correlations in quantum physics, and also provide a better tool for the search of Schrödinger cat-like states (PRL.116.150401, 15 April 2016).
	Researchers create super stretchy, self-healing material that could lead to artificial muscle If there's such a thing as an experiment that goes too well, a recent effort in the lab of Stanford chemical engineering Professor Zhenan Bao might fit the bill.
	Fructose alters hundreds of brain genes, which can lead to a wide range of diseases A range of diseases—from diabetes to cardiovascular disease, and from Alzheimer's disease to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder—are linked to changes to genes in the brain. A new study by UCLA life scientists has found that hundreds of those genes can be damaged by fructose, a sugar that's common in the Western diet, in a way that could lead to those diseases.
	First high-energy neutrino traced to an origin outside of the Milky Way (Phys.org)—An international team of researchers has spotted the first instance of a high-energy neutrino collision from a source outside of the Milky Way, marking what they describe as a significant discovery. In their paper published in the journal Nature Physics, the team describes their work at the South Pole Neutrino Observatory, the details pertaining to the sighting and why they believe their discovery may lead to a new era in neutrino astrophysics.

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