(© Kamioka Observatory, ICRR, University of Tokyo

Neutrinos, elementary particles that interact very little with matter, come in three types: e (the type of neutrinos emitted during beta decay), muon and tau (named after the heavy electrons which they are associated, the muon and tau). Theorists had predicted in 1956 that if neutrinos have nonzero masses, they can spontaneously transform from one species to another – a phenomenon called oscillation because the corresponding probabilities are periodic functions of time. The existence of neutrino oscillations has been confirmed for the first time in 1998 thanks to the Super-Kamiokande detector Japanese. The results of the international experience T2K, Japan, are now providing the last piece of the puzzle of neutrino oscillations.

In 1998, Super-Kamiokande was detected in the particles produced by interactions between cosmic rays and the upper atmosphere, fewer muon neutrinos than expected, we could interpret as a consequence of the transformation of some of muon neutrinos into tau neutrinos. Since then, transformation of electron neutrinos into muon neutrinos or tau have been demonstrated by various experiments on neutrinos emitted by the Sun or a nuclear reactor.

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(Temperature anomalies in the summer of 2010 in Castilla y León. Photo: DICYT.)

“They try to emulate the position of the brain, which are not strictly mathematical models, but are capable of learning,” explained researcher DiCYT Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Burgos Angel Arroyo. Neural networks are a common tool in artificial intelligence and flexibility has allowed advances in different scientific disciplines.

Through her doctoral thesis, Arroyo tries to apply these models to the environment. His research has borne fruit in about a dozen publications in scientific journals. The most recent, in Logic Journal of the IGPLEstablishes the standards by determining a typical day in thermal meteorological Burgos.

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(One of the electron neutrino candidates observed in the experiment T2K. Photo: IFAE / IFIC.)

The T2K experiment, A collaboration involving more than 500 physicists from 12 countries, has been first detected the appearance of electron neutrinos from a muon neutrino beam. This is the first observed this phenomenon, known as “oscillation“Between this type of neutrinos, which is an important step to better understand this elementary particle.

In addition, this opens the door to detect experimental study of one of the major mysteries of the universe: the domain of matter versus antimatter. In the experiment involving researchers from the Institut d’Altes Energies Physics (IFAE, A consortium Generalitat de CatalunyaUniversitat Autònoma de Barcelona) And the Institute of Physics, Corpuscular (IFIC, CSIC-University of Valencia).

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Researchers at the University of Cádiz (UCA), University of Valencia (UV) and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) have developed a new method to construct three-dimensional acoustic lenses with axial symmetry that could have medical applications especially in surgery not incisive in ultrasonic biomedical research in developing high-precision ultrasound, physiotherapy or other areas of interest such as popular science and the fight against noise pollution. Artificial intelligence methods inspired by biological evolution are the key to this patented invention.

It is important to note that conventional acoustic lens design based on two dimensions under the assumption that its construction will be carried out with cylinders of infinite length have a much reduced power for the inaccuracy of the model itself (! Not be built infinite cylinders !) and by focusing not on a point, but in an infinite line parallel to the cylinders that compose it and passing through the focus.

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(Spanish and French researchers created a new method to use methane as a feedstock. Picture: Marco Crocoli)

Methane is a gaseous substance whose main characteristic is stability: the atoms in this molecule (CH4) are tightly and turn it into another substance is one of the challenges of modern chemistry.

A team of researchers at the University of Huelva and the University of Valencia, with the collaboration of scientists from Toulouse (France), was awarded for the first time, to convert methane to propionate. To do this, have used a substance (containing silver) as catalyst, reacted to methane and other reactive-diazo-compound to give rise to the final product, ethyl propionate.

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(A bicycle comprises a frame and a rear wheel, and handlebars and a wheel in the same plane and rotating around an axis direction. The experimental bike built by researchers is a special case of this general principle, where two additional wheels contra cancel the gyroscopic effect, and where the axis of the fork meets the floor four millimeters behind the point of wheel-ground contact . Mass placed in front of the bike and another above the front wheel makes this stable construction. The assembly behaves like a machine rolling, nine parameters are sufficient to describe the dynamics.)

You think you know cycling? In fact, the bike can do, with or without you, because it stabilizes spontaneously from a minimum speed. Why? We thought that this stability resulted from a collaboration between two couples mechanical: the gyroscopic torque and one related to soil reaction on the front wheel, called flushing effect. Gold J. Kooijman, University of Delft, Holland, and Dutch and American colleagues have built a bike stable without these two effects.

When a moving bike leans, gyroscopic torque due to the simultaneous rotation of the handlebars and front wheel tends to straighten the front wheel, and therefore helps to straighten the bike. Moreover, the effect of hunting also tends to straighten the front wheel when the intersection of the axis of the handlebar with the ground is in front of the wheel-soil contact.

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(Figure 1: Seismicity of the region of Murcia. In blue earthquakes of 2011. Source: Elisa Buforn Peiro.)

The joint action of three factors has been responsible for the extensive damage caused by these earthquakes despite its moderate magnitude, the proximity to the epicenter to the center of the city, its shallow, less than five miles, and the occurrence followed by two earthquakes and multiply the effects on buildings. A few buildings have collapsed, others have suffered structural damage and many cracks and damage to the facades. Most victims have been due precisely to the fall of material onto the streets, smashing too many vehicles.

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(img:-Researchers have studied a layer of water about a nanometer in height, confined between two hydrophobic plates. Subsequently, hydrophobic nanoparticles were added to the water table in random positions in order to generate nanochannels of varying size.)

Water is a fluid with an atypical. One of its characteristics is that its heat capacity increases upon cooling, and this anomalous behavior is what allows us, for example, regulate our body temperature. Furthermore, when water is supercooled, ie when it remains in liquid form but its temperature is below its melting point, “the anomalies increase. This behavior has generated an intense scientific debate over the last twenty years and could provide the key to understanding why water is so different from other liquids and why is it so important for biological organisms.

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