Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics (PI): The physics of Halloweâen and more
I am highlighting a few items from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physicsâ October 28, 2026 newsletter (received by email),
Did You Know? 5 Physics Facts Behind Halloween Icons
Boo! From batsâ echolocation to owlsâ silent flight, discover five fascinating physics facts behind Halloween iconsâand the science that makes them spooktacular.
Read article here
Francis Halzen wins 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics
The 2026 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to particle physicist Francis Halzen âfor decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory [in Antarctica] and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.â
Read article here
Five reasons Ada Lovelace was a science hero
In 1840s Britain, Ada Lovelace would become the worldâs first computer programmer, envisioning how a machine could one day process information and perform an array of tasks beyond what even the brightest minds of her era could imagine.
Full article here
10 Community Science [also known as, citizen science or participatory science] projects you can contribute to right now
You donât need a doctorate, access to expensive technology, or even a blackboard to help with groundbreaking research. Here are 10 Community Science projects that anyone can take part in.
Find article here
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Hereâs one of the physics facts behind a Halloweâen icon,
You can find four more Halloweâen physics facts here.
One of the five reasons Ada Lovelace is a science hero,
1. She wrote the first computer algorithm
In 1843, Ada translated an article about Charles Babbageâs Analytical Engine from French to English. The Analytical Engine was a proposed mechanical computer for mathematical calculations. Along with the translation, Ada included elaborate notes that detailed a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers, a sequence of rational numbers foundational to calculus, algebra, and number theory, using the Analytical Engine.
Although the machine was never built during her lifetime, Adaâs instructions demonstrated how a machine could solve complex problems by following a defined process, laying the foundation for modern computer programming.
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More Ada Lovelace here.
Here are two of the 10 community science projects you can participate in,
Einstein@Home
Einstein@Home interactive screensaver. Image Credit: Al Piskun, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What if your computer could make a scientific discovery while youâre not using it?
Since 2005, Einstein@Home has used donated computer power from volunteers around the world to search astrophysical data for signals from objects such as neutron stars. With hundreds of thousands of participants coming together, the project has discovered gamma-ray pulsars, exotic systems, and black widow binaries, all thanks to the computer hardware contributed by its participants.
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Name that Neutrino!
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory uses a vast detector buried beneath Antarctic ice to study elusive neutrino particles. Image Credit: Zooniverse, IceCube
With this project, you can help out researchers down in the South Pole without ever having to leave to comfort (and warmth) of your own home.
IceCube Neutrino Observatory is the worldâs largest particle detector, located deep within the ice of Antarctica. They search for and monitor neutrinos: tiny, subatomic particles with extremely small masses and no electrical charge. Since they can travel enormous distances without being deflected by magnetic fields, neutrinos can give scientists clues about some of the universeâs most extreme environments, including exploding stars and powerful objects like black holes.
Participants of this project can help researchers by reviewing short animations of the particle interactions and classifying them as either cone-shaped âtracksâ or expanding spherical âcascades.â By classifying these signals, volunteers help researchers test and improve machine-learning algorithms that analyze IceCubeâs enormous datasets.
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There are eight more community science projects to choose from in the PI list.
Enjoy!
https://www.frogheart.ca/?p=68537
#perimeterinstitute #theoreticalphysics #physicsfacts #adalovelace #analyticalengine #communityscience #factsbehind #nobelprize #behindhalloween #francishalzen
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Growing human brain tissue in living mice (a chimera story)
I hope the title has alerted people; this is a difficult and possibly upsetting topic. For anyone unfamiliar with xenotransplantation and chimeras, I have this description from a January 19, 2019 commentary titled âInterspecies Chimeras and the Generation of Humanized Organs: by Daniel J. Garry and Mary G. Garry (in Circulation Research Volume 124, Number 1 https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.118.31418), Note: Links have been removed,
Xenotransplantation as a strategy to provide an alternative source of organs, such as a heart, has had a rich and long-standing history.1,3 The first cardiac xenotransplant [emphasis mine] was undertaken by Dr James D. Hardy and his team at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (January 24, 1964) where they transplanted a nonhuman primate (ie, chimpanzee) [sic] heart [emphasis mine] into a 68-year-old patientâalthough the donor heart was successfully implanted, the patient expired after â90 minutes of support.3 Twenty years later, Dr Leonard L. Bailey at Loma Linda University Medical Center transplanted a baboon heart into an infant (AKA Baby Fae) with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Baby Fae survived for 21 days before her death. The legendary cardiac transplant pioneer, Norman Shumway, often quipped that âThe future of transplantation is xenotransplantation and it will always be the future,â suggesting that the immunologic barriers to xenotransplantation would never be fully overcome for it to be a broadly used therapy.4 Nevertheless, recent advances in immunobiology and, separately, the ability to gene edit animals suggest that the barriers for xenotransplantation may be waning.5,6
An alternative approach [emphasis mine] relies on the use of technologies such as blastocyst complementation to engineer an interspecies chimera [emphasis mine].7 The overall strategy is to establish a host which could be genetically modified [emphasis mine] that lacks a single or multiple lineage(s), thus providing a permissive niche for a donor stem cell [emphasis mine] to contribute to the absent lineage in the recipient (host) embryo. This would provide the donor stem cell a competitive advantage as the host would be unable to form the lineage of interest (ie, the lineage that had been deleted) [sic].7 The feasibility of this strategy has been amplified with the derivation and use of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs), which can be readily obtained from a patient who would desire or need the organ. In this fashion, the patient becomes both the donor and eventually the recipient. Furthermore, hiPSCs lack the ethical issues associated with human embryonic stem cells.8,9 In addition to the hiPSCs, the ability to use gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR/Cas9 has further accelerated these research initiatives.8,9
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I have this definition from the Xenotransplantation entry on Wikipedia (accessed October 20, 2026), Note: Links have been removed,
⊠Xenotransplantation is an artificial method of creating an animal-human chimera, that is, a human with a subset of animal cells. In contrast, an individual where each cell contains genetic material from a human and an animal is called a humanâanimal hybrid.[4]
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To sum up. the definition of xenotransplantation is (I suspect) evolving and for the purposes of this piece, the work being discussed here is focused on an animal-human-chimera thatâs a result of xenotransplantion. A September 16, 2026 Stanford University (California, US) news release by Bruce Goldman describes an advancement in the ability to grow human brain cells a nonhuman brain, Note: Links have been removed
Stanford Medicine scientists have chalked up a major advance in growing human brain cells outside of the human brain â and outside of laboratory glassware.
In a study published online Sept. 16 [2026] in Nature, the researchers succeeded in transplanting self-organizing bits of laboratory-grown human brain tissue called cortical organoids into mice specially bioengineered and bred so that almost all of their cerebral cortex was missing. (The cerebral cortex is the outermost ârindâ of the brain, to which much of our higher-level functioning such as cognition, language, attention and decision-making is attributed.)
The resulting vastly enlarged cavity in the miceâs brains proved to be a hospitable environment. The human tissue survived, thrived, grew â and developed working connections to the miceâs brain and beyond to the spinal cord.
âThese animal models offer a unique opportunity to study how disease-associated alterations in human brain circuitry manifest in an intact nervous system,â said Sergiu Pasca, MD, the Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Professor II of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and a member of Bio-X as well as the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute.
The researchers were astonished to find, in these mice, an important nerve-cell type that hasnât been previously glimpsed in laboratory culture and has been seen only in autopsied human brains.
Pasca, who is the Bonnie Uytengsu and Family Director of the Stanford Brain Organogenesis Program, a CZ BioHub Investigator and a science fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford, is the studyâs senior author. Lead co-authorship is shared by postdoctoral scholar Konstantin Kaganovsky, PhD; assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences Kevin Kelley, MD, PhD; neurosurgery instructor Tilo Gschwind, PhD; and medical student Paul Harary.
The burden of severe neurodevelopmental disorders
The new methodology should speed research into the underlying biological causes of schizophrenia, epilepsy, profound autism and cerebral palsy, Pasca said. âNeuroscientists will be able to learn much more about the causes and mechanisms of neurodevelopmental and pregnancy-incurred disorders and to test possible interventions to correct or prevent them.â
Such conditions are exceedingly difficult to study at the molecular and cellular level because the brain is more complex than any other organ and because living human brain tissue is nearly always inaccessible.
One in 20 American adults is troubled by a severe psychiatric illness; the associated medical, social and economic burdens are huge. More than 1 in 100 adults suffers from schizophrenia, believed to be largely the result of brain-circuit abnormalities predating birth. Some 1% of all people remain epileptic throughout adulthood.
According to Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, a patient-advocacy group that funds autism research, one in every 218 American children meets the criteria for profound autism: an unarguably disabled state requiring round-the-clock supervision to ensure safety, as well as for assistance with activities of daily living such as getting dressed, using the bathroom and preparing food.
âProfoundly autistic patients have pronounced cognitive disabilities, with measured IQs below 50. They are vulnerable to sleep disorders, epilepsy and self-injury; they are disproportionally likely to exhibit aggressive behavior,â she said.
In their laboratory-generated âxenocorticalâ mice, the researchers were also able to show human cerebral nerve cellsâ singular vulnerability to oxygen deprivation â known to be a cause, when it occurs during pregnancy or around birth, of cerebral palsy, which affects 3 in 1,000 Americans and is a risk factor for epilepsy and autism.
âWhile animal models have been extremely helpful, some biological features seem to be uniquely human,â Pasca said.
He and his colleagues have circumvented that constraint via a series of extraordinary laboratory leaps. More than a decade ago, they described the creation of what are now known as organoids, three-dimensional laboratory cultures resembling specific regions of the brain. They transformed human skin cells into stem cells that can differentiate into most of the bodyâs cell types, then gently coaxed these cells to form self-organizing clusters of brain tissue whose internal architecture closely resembled that of circuitry found in the cerebral cortex.
âWe can now generate a broad range of brain cell types, present throughout the developing human nervous system,â Pasca said.
Various organoids mimicking distinct brain regions can be juxtaposed to spur interaction between them and interpenetration of their component nerve cells, or neurons, to form complex signaling circuits resembling those in the human brain. These fused multi-organoid combos, which Pasca later named assembloids, could be connected in threes or even fours to re-create pathways in our bodies that drive movement or sensation.
But there were limits. âWe couldnât study complex human behavior in a dish,â Pasca said. In addition, the absence of blood supply, immune-cell infiltration, connections to sensory input and motor output, and failure of some component cell types to fully mature put a cap on what could be learned from probing organoids or assembloids in culture to study neurodevelopmental disorders or human brain processes in general.
Might integrating human organoids into a living rodentâs brain â particularly when that brain was still in an early stage of circuit formation â address these limitations?
From the dish to the rodentâs brain
In 2022, Pasca and his colleagues transplanted human cortical organoids into newborn ratsâ brains and saw much better neuronal development than could be achieved in a dish. The implanted human organoids, measuring perhaps one-fifth of an inch in diameter when transplanted, occupied a full one-third of the hemisphere of the rat brain six months later. At eight months, individual neurons from the human organoids in the rat brains were substantially bigger and more electrically active than those in the organoids â generated the same way, at the same time â that remained in a dish instead of being transplanted. They exhibited much more sophisticated branching patterns. And they integrated with their rat-neuron neighbors to form working brain circuits.
âThe cells we implant carry the genetic material of the person theyâre derived from â whether that person is a patient or a healthy individual â allowing us to study downstream disease effects in brain cells and circuits,â Pasca said.
âThe idea that you can make an organoid model with an individualâs unique genetic character and use that to learn whatâs gone awry in that individualâs brain is a critical step toward precision medicine,â said Singer, the Autism Science Foundation president.
âWhile animal models have been extremely helpful, some biological features seem to be uniquely human.â
âSergiu Pasca
In that same 2022 study, Pascaâs team seeded neonatal ratsâ cortical regions with brain tissue from young patients with a rare but devastating genetic condition called Timothy syndrome, characterized by severe autism and heightened vulnerability to epilepsy and schizophrenia. Pasca and his colleagues were able to pinpoint the disorderâs molecular defect and, later on, found a candidate drug to treat it. That drug is now in preparation for entering phase 1/2 safety trials.
Even then, there were limits: For example, the rat neurons developed much more quickly than the human neurons did.
âThe two parallel developing systems are in competition for turf,â Pasca said.
The advent of apallial mice
In the new study, Pascaâs team came up with a way to eliminate much of that competition. They produced a laboratory mouse strain that was genetically engineered so that the âstarter cellsâ that give rise to the evolutionarily more-recent addition to the cerebral cortex â the neocortex â and certain other brain structures canât get formed.
Achieving this necessitated several technically challenging steps. But the team finally generated mice that survived in healthy condition, despite the absence of most of their cortex and hippocampus, a brain structure important for memory formation.
Upon reaching adulthood, the brains of the âapallial miceâ (so named because the missing cortical tissue develops from a prenatal brain structure called the pallium) contained a mere 2% of ordinary miceâs equivalent cortical content, leaving plenty of space that could have been occupied by human cortical cells.
âOur findings suggest that, when cortical circuitry is lost very early in development, the cortex may not be solely responsible for all of the functions traditionally attributed to it,â Pasca said. âOther brain regions may compensate for some of the missing cortical circuitry as the brain develops.â
While pretty much indistinguishable from normal mice at first glance, the apallial mice did exhibit minor but measurable behavioral quirks: a slightly more cautious gait, probably reflecting somewhat compromised fine-motor coordination, and a tendency to be more forgetful about recently encountered novel environments. Their behavioral performance also varied more from one individual to the next than normal control miceâs did, suggesting that the cortex has a stabilizing role in brain function.
A more complete model
Newborn apallial mice served as recipients for human cortical organoids. About two months after developing cortical organoids (derived from healthy donors who had consented to having their cells transplanted into animals), the investigators surgically positioned organoids (typically more than one per recipient) containing perhaps 100,000 cells apiece in 2-day-old apallial animalsâ enlarged fluid-filled cavities in the brain.
A lopsided majority of these operations succeeded. The human tissue survived and thrived in cortex-depleted miceâs brains. Three months after the surgical procedure, more than 90% by volume of the cortical tissue in the miceâs brains was human. Integration of human and mouse neurons into circuits was proceeding apace.
Three to six months after the transplant surgery, the xenocortical miceâs performance on behavioral tests was generally similar to that of their same-age normal peers.
Stanford Medicine
In a proof-of-concept experiment demonstrating how these mice can be used for studying disease, xenocortical mice were exposed to five hours of low oxygen. The exposure wreaked substantial damage on their human-originated cortical tissue. Oxygen-deprived xenocortical mice appeared to have trouble sustaining a steady gait and maintaining their balance, reminiscent of what is seen in children with cerebral palsy. In contrast, normal and apallial mice were virtually unaffected.
âFinding out what accounts for this difference could yield clues about human neural susceptibility to oxygen deprivation, shed light on mechanisms underlying cerebral palsy and provide a platform for testing potential therapeutic strategies,â Pasca said.
Spotted: A seldom-glimpsed brain-cell type
Remarkably, the xenocortical miceâs human brain tissue contained detectable numbers of what the researchers determined were von Economo neurons, or VENs. These nerve cells are peculiar in several ways: Theyâve previously been observed only in postmortem brain tissue, havenât previously been generated in culture, and hadnât turned up in the earlier transplant experiments under more crowded conditions in recipient rodentsâ brains. Theyâre very rare, accounting for roughly one in every 90,000 cortical neurons. Originally thought to be human-specific, theyâre now known to be present in other large-brained, highly social animals including great apes, elephants, dolphins and whales. In humans, theyâre situated in the fronto-insular cortex and anterior cingulate cortex, two brain regions involved in social awareness and decision-making. Their projections can extend well beyond these cortical centers. Theyâre gigantic â much bigger than most other neurons â and distinctively cigar-shaped.
âThis cell type appears to be particularly vulnerable in frontotemporal dementia, a neurodegenerative disorder that can begin in midlife,â Pasca said. âIn some forms of the disease, these cells are markedly reduced, and early symptoms can include changes in social behavior and personality or difficulties with language, often before prominent memory problems emerge.â
VENs canât be made in laboratory culture. âYet here they were, sitting in the xenocortical miceâs human tiss
https://www.frogheart.ca/?p=68455
#medicalcenter #babyfae #xenotransplantation #universitymedical #mississippimedical #lindauniversity #interspecieschimeras #lomalinda
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Nanoparticles as smart weaponsâswitching off contamination by bacteriophages
Caption: Precise control of bacteriophages using conducting polymer nanoparticles without damaging bacteria. Photo courtesy of Strzelnica Warszawianka. Photo by: Grzegorz Krzyzewski Credit: Source IPC PAS, Grzegorz Krzyzewski
A February 10, 2026 Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences press release (also on EurekAlert but published on February 12, 2026) presents work that could address bacterial resistance to antibiotics,
Bacteriophages are viruses that can kill bacteria through highly specific interactions. While this property can be beneficial in selected applications, bacteriophages represent a serious threat to laboratories and industries that rely on bacterial cultures for production. Their selective inactivation remains a major challenge. Recently, researchers from the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences in Poland, demonstrated an innovative solution that enables targeting the surface of bacteriophage through electrostatic interactions as a promising strategy for their inactivation without adversely affecting bacterial strains or eukaryotic cells.
Decades ago, antibiotics were considered wonder drugs capable of curing bacterial infections. Unfortunately, overuse of these drugs led to the development of antibiotic-resistance in many pathogenic bacterial strains, raising global concern. One of the solutions to defeat these pathogens is bacteriophages, also called phages. While phages are explored as therapeutic agents in medicine, their presence is highly undesirable in laboratories and industrial processes that depend on carefully controlled bacterial cultures.
In many industrial sectors, including food fermentation, enzyme, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics production, specific bacterial strains are essential for efficient and reproducible manufacturing. In these settings, bacteriophages pose a major risk, as they can selectively infect and eliminate production strains, leading to failed batches and significant economic losses. Phages may also appear in agriculture or wastewater treatment environments, where their presence can influence microbial populations, but in controlled bioprocesses their uncontrolled spread is particularly detrimental.
Despite their small size, bacteriophages are highly persistent and can easily spread within laboratory and industrial environments. They may be introduced through contaminated raw materials, inadequately disinfected equipment, surfaces, or even air. Once present, phages can rapidly propagate within bacterial cultures, often remaining undetected until the entire system collapses due to bacterial lysis. To prevent phage contamination, laboratories and factories rely on strict hygiene protocols involving sterilization and disinfection methods such as UV-C radiation, high temperature and pressure, ozone, and aggressive chemicals including potassium peroxymonosulfate (Virkon), ethanol, bleach, and hydrogen peroxide. These approaches typically aim to damage phage capsid proteins or nucleic acids, thereby inactivating the virus. However, bacteriophages can aggregate, increasing their resistance to harsh environmental conditions such as heat or chemical exposure. Moreover, phages are often more resilient than bacteria themselves. As a result, disinfection methods strong enough to eliminate phages frequently destroy the bacterial strains required for industrial processes. This lack of selectivity represents a critical limitation of existing anti-phage strategies and drives the search for safer, more effective solutions.
Addressing these challenges, the interdisciplinary team of researchers from the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, propose a solution that enables the selective killing of phages without any harmful effect on bacteria. Their latest work, published in Materials & Design, shows an innovative approach based on polymeric nanospheres having a well-defined surface that interacts with bacteriophages. How does it work? Bacteriophages possess characteristic surface charges that differ from those of bacterial and eukaryotic cells. The researchers designed polypyrrole nanoparticles (NPs) that interact directly with charges on the phage surface through electrostatic interactions. Because the biological membranes of bacteria and human cells have different surface properties than bacteriophages, they are not affected, and the charged polypyrrole NPs act selectively on phages.
âImportantly, the present study demonstrates that selective antiphage activity can be achieved using polymer-based nanoparticles, offering a significantly cheaper and scalable alternative to other nanostructural solutions like gold-based systems.â â comments prof. Piyush Sindhu Sharma.
The proposed nanoparticles are approximately 50 nm in diameter and contain specific chemical groups on their surface, namely negatively charged carboxylic groups, which enhance electrostatic interactions with bacteriophages. The researchers controlled the density of these groups during fabrication by polymerizing mixtures of pyrrole with and without carboxylic modifications. Importantly, they identified an optimal surface composition required for effective phage inactivation. Once the content is too small or too high, the effect can be worsened. Among many different stoichiometries between bare pyrrole and carboxylic group-modified pyrrole, the 1% content of carboxylic groups in the obtained NPs is sufficient to inactivate even 95% of phages.
âOur study proposes polypyrrole nanoparticles functionalized with 1% carboxyl groups (P(Py:PyCOOH) 100:1 NPs) as a targeted solution for phage inactivation due to their selective antiviral properties. Their high efficacy, combined with a simple synthesis method, offers the potential for later use on a larger scale.â â adds Dominik Korol
The authors first confirmed the antiviral activity of the nanoparticles against bacteriophages and then evaluated their effects on bacteria exposed to nanoparticle-treated phages. Their results demonstrate that the proposed NPs effectively protect bacteria from phages. Importantly, they also checked whether phage inactivation was reversible. The presence of carboxylic groups in the NPs in described content is effective to disrupt the phageâs essential functions, such as host recognition and attachment. The cytotoxicity studies that were performed on fibroblasts demonstrated that the nanoparticles were biocompatible at concentrations effective for phage inactivation. The irreversible inactivation of phages along with minor cytotoxicity shows the potential of the proposed NP in biotechnology, antimicrobial, and medical applications.
Why does the topic matter so much? The proposed approach differs from the commonly used methods that are applied in industry and laboratories, such as pasteurization or chemical disinfection by the abovementioned harsh compounds. Proposed NPs can be used in an indirect approach that avoids introducing nanoparticles directly into fermenters, reduces safety and regulatory concerns, and provides effective protection in high-value bioprocesses.
Sada Raza â the first author of this study, remarks: âWe combined our know-how in different disciplines, delivering a highly effective and selective strategy that simplifies the control of phages. Our particles minimize cost and safety concerns, and offer practical use in high-value bioprocesses where phage outbreaks are especially detrimental.â
Understanding the mechanisms that stand behind the bacteriophagesâ inactivation required interdisciplinary approaches combining the use of methods from different fields from virology to polymer chemistry. That enabled the design of surface attachment through functional NPs with controlled size and charge. Integration of diverse fields led to the development of a solution that can help to control phage contamination in laboratories and technological processes. Demonstrated work illustrates how complex biological challenges are addressed through open-minded researchers and cross-disciplinary collaboration.
Presented work was financed by the National Science Centre, Poland, within the grants OPUS 2022/45/B/ST5/01500 and UMO-2023/49/B/ST11/01771, and PRELUDIUM BIS 2020/39/O/ST5/01017.
Hereâs a link to and a citation for the paper,
Targeted inactivation of bacteriophages by polypyrrole nanoparticles by Sada Raza, Dominik Korol, Enkhlin Ochirbat, Bartosz KamiĆski, Maciej Cieplak, Piyush Sindhu Sharma, Jan Paczesny. Materials & Design Date: December 2025 Article: 115204 Volume: Volume 260 DOI: 10.1016/j.matdes.2025.115204
This paper is open access.
https://www.frogheart.ca/?p=64613
#grzegorzkrzyzewski #bacteriophages #physicalchemistry #polishacademy #contamination #nanoparticles #strzelnicawarszawianka #krzyzewskicredit #sourceipc #february
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Get tickets: Monday, October 26, 2026 at 9 am ET for Perimeter Institute event: The Invisible Universe: Higgs, Dark Matter, Gravity Waves by Marcela Carena on November 4, 2026
Free tickets for the Perimeter Institute are available on October 28, 2026 for the upcoming November 2026 event (in person, livestreamed, and in a recording posted later), hereâs more about the event from an October 22, 2026 Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) notice (received via email),
The Invisible Universe: Higgs, Dark Matter, Gravity Waves by Marcela Carena
Wednesday, November 4, [2026] at 6:45 PM ET
Most of the universe is invisible, but the invisibles determine our everyday existence. There is an invisible energy field, related to the Higgs boson, that provides mass. There is dark matter that holds our galaxy together, but we have yet to detect it in the laboratory. We have only recently learned how to detect gravity waves â ripples in spacetime â coming from the far corners of the cosmos, and possibly from dramatic events in the early universe.
The CERN Large Hadron Collider may produce signals of dark matter, new forces of nature or cousins of the Higgs boson. Discoveries from the LHC and from other experiments and observatories will be needed to pull together a coherent picture of the invisible world and explain the first instants of the Big Bang.
The lecture will be given by Professor Marcela Carena, the Executive Director of Perimeter Institute. Professor Carena is a renowned particle physicist who has advanced our understanding of fundamental mysteries of science related to sourcing the mass of the fundamental particles in nature, the origin of matter in the universe and the nature of dark matter. Her most recent research program explores particle physics and quantum information to tackle problems of quantum theory in the early universe.
If youâre unable to attend in person, a recording will be available on our YouTube channel.
Donât miss out! Free tickets to attend this event in person will become available on Monday, October 26, [2026] at 9 am ET.
In-Person Tickets
The event page on Eventbrite has more, Note: Some of this information is redundant,
Overview
Explore the invisible universe, from the Higgs field and dark matter to gravitational waves and discoveries that may reveal the Big Bang.
Important
This public lecture will begin at 7:00 PM. Your ticket is valid until 6:45 PM. This ensures all guests have enough time to enter the Theatre and be seated by our ushers.
The talk will be livestreamed via our YouTube channel with a recording of the talk available following the event.
Our ushers seat guests beginning from the front rows of the Theatre toward the back.
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Title
The Invisible Universe: Higgs, Dark Matter, Gravity Waves
Abstract
Most of the universe is invisible, but the invisibles determine our everyday existence. There is an invisible energy field, related to the Higgs boson, that provides mass. There is dark matter that holds our galaxy together, but we have yet to detect it in the laboratory. We have only recently learned how to detect gravity wavesâripples in spacetimeâcoming from the far corners of the cosmos, and possibly from dramatic events in the early universe.
The CERN Large Hadron Collider may produce signals of dark matter, new forces of nature or cousins of the Higgs boson. Discoveries from the LHC and from other experiments and observatories will be needed to pull together a coherent picture of the invisible world and explain the first instants of the Big Bang.
About the Speaker
Professor Marcela Carena is the executive director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada. She is also a physics professor at the University of Chicago, where she has been a member of both the Enrico Fermi Institute and the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics.
Prof. Carena is a renowned particle physicist who has advanced our understanding of fundamental mysteries of science related to sourcing the mass of the fundamental particles in nature, the origin of matter in the universe and the nature of dark matter. Her most recent research program explores particle physics and quantum information to tackle problems of quantum theory in the early universe.
Prof. Carena is an original co-author of the Status of the Higgs Boson review of the Particle Data Book. In 2022, Prof. Carena was honored as a U.S. DOE [Department of Energy] Office of Science distinguished scientist fellow. In 2010, Prof. Carena won the Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She was a staff member and a John Stuart Bell Fellow at CERN and was awarded a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship of the European Commission to conduct research at DESY.
Tickets
Tickets are free and must be reserved through Eventbrite, as there is no on-site box office.
TICKETS ARE VALID UNTIL 6:45 PM THE DAY OF THE EVENT.
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One last note, if you are attending in person, the event is being held at the:
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
31 Caroline Street North
Waterloo, ON N2L 2Y5
There you have it.
https://www.frogheart.ca/?p=68501
#perimeterinstitute #marcelacarena #darkmatter #gravitywaves #invisibleuniverse #higgs #october #november #carenawednesday #monday
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Plant sunscreen created by sound waves
RMIT University researchers have developed a new way to coat fragile surfaces, including living plant leaves, using highâfrequency sound waves to create a fine mist that can act like a plant sunscreen. Credit: RMIT University
Plant sunscreens have been mentioned here before, notably a sunscreen for lettuce in my August 27, 2025 posting, but this is the first time that sound waves have been involved. A May 7, 2026 RMIT University press release (Australia; also on EurekAlert but published on May 6, 2026) by Will Wright describes a new technique that can be used not only for plants but other fragile surfaces,
RMIT University researchers have developed a new way to coat fragile surfaces, including living plant leaves, using highâfrequency sound waves to create a fine mist that can act like a plant sunscreen.
The approach tackles a longâstanding challenge in materials science: many promising coatings require high temperatures or harsh processing, making them unsuitable for delicate surfaces such as living tissue, soft plastics or emerging electronic materials.
Demonstrating the potential on living plants
To test how gentle the approach was, the researchers applied the coating to living plant leaves, treating only part of each leaf to allow direct comparison.
Lead author and PhD researcher Javad Khosravi Farsani said the coating acted as a UV shield while still allowing normal plant function.
âThe coating absorbs harmful UV light while allowing visible light through,â he said.
âThat means the plant can continue photosynthesis while being protected from damage.â
After the coating was removed, the leaves and plants continued growing normally for months, showing the process did not harm plant health.
The plant experiments were intended as a proof of concept, demonstrating the broader capability of the coating platform.
RMIT filed a provisional patent on this work earlier in the year.
In the study, the soundâformed mist was made from a covalent organic framework, or COF, liquid that rapidly assembles into a solid, UVâblocking layer as it is sprayed.
COFs belong to the same broader family of porous materials whose development and impact have been recognised by the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, highlighting their importance to modern materials science.
The work is among the first to show that highly ordered COF coatings can be both formed and applied in a single step, at room temperature, on almost any surface, including living tissue. Until now, achieving this level of material quality has typically required multiple processing steps or elevated temperatures, which has limited where and how such coatings could be used.
Why these materials have been hard to use
COFs belong to a broader family of porous materials that also include metalâorganic frameworks, or MOFs, which are valued for their ability to be precisely designed to absorb light, separate molecules or protect surfaces.
Distinguished Professor Leslie Yeo, from RMITâs School of Engineering and a senior author on the study, said this challenge had held back their practical use â until now.
âThese materials have extraordinary properties, but youâve typically had to choose between preserving their structure and protecting the surface youâre applying them to,â Yeo said.
âWhat this work shows is a way to avoid that tradeâoff by forming and coating the material under very gentle conditions.â
Coating without heat or damage
Conventional coating techniques often rely on ovens, aggressive solvents or specialised equipment, which can damage sensitive materials or restrict what can be coated.
Associate Professor Amgad Rezk from RMITâs School of Engineering said the new RMITâled approach removed those constraints by using sound waves to drive the coating process itself.
âBy using sound waves, weâre able to form and deposit the coating within minutes without heating or damaging the surface,â he said.
âThatâs a major shift from conventional coating methods and it allows us to work with fragile materials, including living plant tissue.â
How sound helps form a coating
Rather than manufacturing a coating first and then attaching it, the technique uses sound waves to do both at the same time.
Highâfrequency vibrations break the liquid formulation into microscopic droplets. As the droplets travel through the air, the COF material rapidly assembles into an organised solid layer that settles evenly onto the surface below.
Associate Professor Joseph Richardson, a coâcorresponding author on the study, said the process works in open air at room temperature.
âOur method effectively combines manufacturing and coating into a single step,â Richardson said.
âThat simplicity is what makes it adaptable across different surfaces and applications.â
Many emerging electronic components, sensors and membranes are highly sensitive to heat or chemicals but still require protective or functional surface layers to operate outside the lab.
âThat opens up opportunities for industries working with sensitive materials that simply couldnât be processed this way before,â Rezk said.
The research was conducted in collaboration with partners in Australia and Europe, including the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) in Spain.
The research paper, âAmbient oneâstep synthesis and direct coating of highly crystalline covalent organic frameworks on arbitrary surfacesâ, is published in Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aee1769).
Hereâs a link to and a citation for the paper,
Ambient one-step synthesis and direct coating of highly crystalline covalent organic frameworks on arbitrary surfaces by Javad Khosravi Farsani, Juan Pablo Cavalieri, Omid Mazaheri, Fred Junghans, Jorge Albalad, Billy J. Murdoch, Caiden J. Parker, Ravichandar Babarao, Daniel Maspoch, Amgad R. Rezk, Joseph J. Richardson, and Leslie Y. Yeo. Science Advances 6 May 2026 Vol 12, Issue 19 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aee1769
This paper is open access.
For anyone interested in sound waves and their use in various applications, thereâs a February 26, 2020 RMIT article by Caleb Scanlon, âThe power of sound waves making noise with new research,â describing the work in more detail.
https://www.frogheart.ca/?p=65960
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