#magnetism
Heated magnetic nanoparticles may be the future of eradicating cancer cells without harming healthy tissue, according to research from the University of Buffalo, USA. The nanoparticles strike tumours with significant heat under a low magnetic field.
Hao Zeng, Professor of Physics at Buffalo, said, ‘The main accomplishment of our work is the greatly enhanced heating performance of nanoparticles under low-field conditions suitable for clinical applications. The best heating power we obtained is close to the theoretical limit, greatly surpassing some of the best performing particles that other research teams have produced.’
Targeting technologies would first direct nanoparticles to tumours within the patient’s body. Exposure to an alternating magnetic field would prompt the particles’ magnetic orientation to flip back and forth hundreds of thousands of times a second, causing them to warm up as they absorb energy from the electromagnetic field and convert it to thermal energy.
Two particles have been tested – manganese-cobalt-ferrite and zinc ferrite. While the manganese particle reached maximum heating power under high magnetic fields, the biocompatible zinc ferrite was efficieny under an ultra-low field.
While this form of treatment, known as magnetic nanoparticle hyperthermia, is not new, the Buffalo-designed particles are able to generate heat several times faster than the current standard.
Despite their ubiquity in consumer electronics, rare-earth metals are, as their name suggests, hard to come by. Mining and purifying them is an expensive, labor-intensive and ecologically devastating process. Starting with the two elements as a mixed powder, a metal-binding molecule known as a…
Electrons (e−)
Mass: 0.51099895 MeV/c^2
Charge: -1 e ( 1.60217662 × 10-19 C)
Spin: ½
Color:None
Antiparticle:positron
The electron is a first generation fermionand a lepton. Fermions are particles with have half-integer spinthat follow Fermi-Dirac statistics and obey the Pauli exclusion principle. The Pauli exclusion principle states that two identical fermions can’t occupy the same quantum state (i.e. have the same quantum numbers within a quantum system). Leptons are a subcategory within fermions that can exist independently (without binding together) and do not interact through the strong force unlike quarks. Lastly the generations of the fermions loosely refers to the higher masses for particles in higher generations.
The existence of electrons was first discovered by J.J. Thompson in 1897 when he experimented with cathode ray tubes like the one depicted above. By applying electric and magnetic fields across the cathode ray Thompson was able to determine the mass-to-charge ratio of the particles in the cathode ray. With this he found that the particles were much smaller than any atom and by testing different sources, these negatively charged particles exist in every element.
Electrons are one of the primary charge carriers in atoms alongside protons but are the primary contributors to electric current. Electrons also have an intrinsic property known as spin which contributes to paramagnetismin certain materials.
Above is a video of an electron riding a light wave. The video was taken using a stroboscope which captures. More on it here (article)andhere (video).
Research involving electrons covers almost every corner of modern physics from high energy particle physics to condensed matter physics and even quantum computing. I have linked articles on recent research with a focus on electrons below for further reading.
Geometry of an electron determined for the first time
Machine learning unlocks mysteries of quantum physics
Sources:(1) & Image 1 -(2) -Image 2-(3)
As someone who used to play the bass guitar, I can’t believe I didn’t know how a guitarpickup works. The basic idea is actually relatively simple but the complexity comes when engineering the sound we hear from Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and B.B. King.
The mechanism is centered around Faraday’s Law of Induction. The guitar pickup in its simplest form is a permanent magnet(s) wrapped in a coil of wire. A permanent magnet is made from a ferromagnetic material (like iron) which is a special type of material where the “magnetic domains” are aligned with an external applied magnetic field.
The role of the permanent magnet is to magnetize the guitar string because it is also a ferromagnetic material like nickel or steel. When you pluck the string it vibrates and results in an oscillating(changing)magnetic flux through the coil. Because of Faraday’s Law of Induction this induces a signal(changing voltage) and thus current which is read by the amp to reverse engineer it into sound. Check out thisappletfrom the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory for a visual.
Since the string’s movement determines the signal picked up, the pickups receive a strong signal when directly under a part of the string moving with a large amplitude and frequency. So when it is directly under a node(where the string doesn’t move) like in the above picture (for the 7th harmonic), one of the pickups gets a very weak or possibly no signal. So in a way the pickups act as filtersfor the different harmonics depending on their placements which is key to the sounds we hear in the music. So as you can see the exact engineering can become extremely complicated
Read more…National Mag Lab…Guitar World…more on harmonics here