Testing the Wave-Particle Duality with Gamma Rays

https://invidious.privacyredirect.com/watch?v=xrAGA8u9b2E

Everything on the electromagnetic spectrum has some properties of both waves and particles, but it’s difficult to imagine a radio wave, for example, behaving like a particle. The main evidence for a particle-like nature is quantization, the bundling of electromagnetic energy into discrete packets. One way around this is to theorize that quantization is due to the specific interaction between the electromagnetic field and matter, not intrinsic to the field itself. To investigate this theory, [Huygens Optics] conducted several experiments with gamma rays, including Compton scattering.

For these experiments, he used a Radiacode 110 X-ray and gamma ray detector, which uses...

In Space (Probably) Everyone Can Hear You.. Well, You Know

https://invidious.privacyredirect.com/watch?v=uQkfc-OSPiE

The news is full of reports from the moon-bound Integrity, otherwise known as Artemis II. Mostly, the news is good, but there has been one “Houston, we have a problem…” moment. The space toilet, otherwise known as the Universal Waste Management System or UWMS is making a burning smell while in use. While we would love to be astronauts, we really don’t want to go ten days without using the can, and it made us wonder how, exactly, the astronauts answered the call of nature.

Back in the Apollo-era, going to the bathroom was a messy business. The capsule...

Lab Gloves May be Skewing Microplastics Data

The topic of micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) has become increasingly prevalent over the past years, as amidst dismissal and panic, researchers attempt to distinguish just how much of a problem MNPs truly are. The most essential problem here is that we are still developing the tools to accurately measure the levels of MNP contamination. Recently, [Madeline E. Clough] et al. demonstrated in an article published in Analytical Methods how gloves worn in laboratory settings can create false positive MNP signals.

As we covered previously, detecting MNPs is tough due to the detection methods used, many of which rely on interpreting signals from...

With Affordable Storage Options Dwindling, Where to Store Our Data?

These days our appetite for more data storage is larger than ever, with video files larger, photo resolutions higher, and project files easily zipping past a few hundred MB. At the same time our options for data storage are becoming more and more limited. For the longest time we could count on there always being a newer, roomier, faster, and cheaper form of storage to come along, but those days would seem to be over.

We can look back and laugh at low capacity USB Flash drives of the early 2000s, yet the first storage drive to hit 1 TB capacity...

Simulating the AVR8 for a browser-based Arduino emulator

It’s always nice to simulate a project before soldering a board together. Tools like QUCS run locally and work quite well for analog circuits, but can fall short with programmable logic. Tools like Wokwi handle the programmable side quite well but may have license issues or require the cloud. The Velxio project by [David Montero Crespo] is quite an excellent example of an (online) circuit simulator with programmable logic and local execution!

It’s built largely around Wowki’s AVR8JS library for Arduino simulation. All CPU simulation occurs on the local computer, while sketch compilation happens on the backend using official Arduino tools....

Flying Cell Towers for Lower-Latency

When the inevitable Kessler Syndrome cascade sweeps Starlink and its competitors from Low Earth Orbit in what will doubtless be a spectacular meteor shower of debris, the people behind Sceye and its competitors are going to be laughing to the bank. That’s because they’re putting their connectivity rather lower than orbit — in the stratosphere, with high-altitude dirigibles.

The advantages are pretty obvious: for one, the dirigible isn’t disposable in the way the very-low-orbit satellites Starlink and its planned imitators use. For another, the time-of-flight for a signal to get to a dirigible 20 km up is less than a tenth...

Pocket-Sized e-Ink Gets a Firmware Upgrade

Not so long ago, e-ink devices were rare and fairly pricey. As they have become more common and cheaper, some cool form-factor devices have emerged that suffer from subpar software. [Concretedog] picked up just such a device, and that purchase led to the discovery of a cool open-source firmware project for this tiny gadget.

[Concretedog] described the process of loading the firmware, which is just about as easy a modification as one can make. You plug the e-ink display into your computer, visit a website, and can flash it right from there. Once the display is running the CrossPoint...

ESP32-S3 gets post-quantum encryption with Aethyr Edge Node open-source firmware

Aethyr Research has released post-quantum encrypted IoT edge node firmware for ESP32-S3 targets that boots in 2.1 seconds and supports full PQC (Post Quantum Cryptography) handshakes in 35ms. Public-key cryptographic algorithms such as RSA and ECC will soon have to be replaced due to the advance of quantum computers that will be able to crack such encryption within a few hours to days using Shor’s algorithm. While there’s still time, Google recently updated its timeline for post-quantum cryptography migration to 2029, mostly because it’s possible to store data now for an attack once sufficiently powerful quantum computers become available, and...

Velxio is an open-source, self-hosted Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and ESP32 simulator

Velxio is an open-source, self-hosted simulator for Arduino, ESP32, and Raspberry Pi boards that works directly in your web browser. You can drag-and-drop boards, connect components and modules, write and run code in Arduino or Python, and access the serial console, all without hardware. If it looks similar to what the Wokwi simulator has to offer, it’s because Velxio was inspired by it and even integrates the AVR8 CPU emulator, RP2040 emulator, and QEMU fork for ESP32 Xtensa emulation from the Wokwi project. But the key difference is that Velxio can be self-hosted, although there’s also an online demo. Velxio...

M5Stack Refreshes Lineup with CardKB2 Keyboard, ESP32-P4 Modules, and Core2 for AWS

M5Stack has introduced several new and updated products, including the CardKB2 keyboard unit, the Stamp-P4 module based on the ESP32-P4, a matching Wi-Fi expansion module, and an updated Core2 for AWS development kit. The lineup spans input devices, embedded modules, and IoT-focused development platforms. The CardKB2 is a compact 42-key keyboard built around the ESP32-C61HF4, […]