Surrogate optimization of variational quantum circuits.

Variational quantum eigensolvers are touted as a near-term algorithm capable of impacting many applications. However, the potential has not yet been realized, with few claims of quantum advantage and high resource estimates, especially due to the need for optimization in the presence of noise. Finding algorithms and methods to improve convergence is important to accelerate the capabilities of near-term hardware for variational quantum eigensolver or more broad applications of hybrid methods in which optimization is required.

Physicochemical Properties of α‑Pinene in Water Ice Analogs under Energetic Heavy-Ion Irradiation.

Studying the physicochemical properties of ice in astronomical environments is crucial to understanding the chemical processes involved in cosmic events such as comet and planet formation. The physical characteristics and chemical evolution on the surfaces of cosmic objects such as comets or interstellar grains offer key insights into these processes. This study focuses on α-pinene, a carbon- and hydrogen-rich molecule, which serves as a model for investigating radical-driven synthesis of more complex molecules under space-like conditions.

Critical investments in bioregenerative life support systems for bioastronautics and sustainable lunar exploration.

NASA and the CNSA have both released plans for lunar human exploration. This paper reviews those plans through the lens of strategic capability development. It examines the history of NASA's development of bioregenerative space habitation systems and shows how past research and policy decisions, including funding cuts and program discontinuations, have led to critical gaps in current NASA capabilities.

Gender Bias in the Perception of Others' Fatigue: Women Report More Fatigue Than Men But Have Their Fatigue Underestimated by Others.

Fatigue is one of the most common health complaints, yet assessing it can be difficult when perceptions of others' fatigue are distorted by gender bias. This research is the first to examine whether such a bias is present in the perception of men's and women's fatigue. Across two studies (total = 201), perceivers viewed silent videoclips of men and women targets in a social interaction and were asked to estimate each targets' fatigue.

Photochemical Haze Formation on Titan and Uranus: A Comparative Review.

The formation and evolution of haze layers in planetary atmospheres play a critical role in shaping their chemical composition, radiative balance, and optical properties. In the outer solar system, the atmospheres of Titan and the giant planets exhibit a wide range of compositional and seasonal variability, creating environments favorable for the production of complex organic molecules under low-temperature conditions. Among them, Uranus-the smallest of the ice giants-has, since Voyager 2, emerged as a compelling target for future exploration due to unanswered questions regarding the composition and structure of its atmosphere, as well as its ring system and diverse icy moon population (which includes four possible ocean worlds).

Maize rough endosperm6 is a predicted RNA helicase required for miRNA processing and endosperm cell patterning.

Molecular genetic analysis of maize (Zea mays) rough endosperm mutants has identified multiple RNA processing proteins critical to endosperm development. Here, we report that rough endosperm6 (rgh6) encodes a predicted DEAD-box RNA helicase required for miRNA processing. Mutant rgh6 kernels show reduced grain fill and increased relative transcript levels of markers specific to proliferating cells as well as epidermal endosperm cell types.

Characterization of ferric hydroxysulfate on Mars and implications of the geochemical environment supporting its formation.

Sulfate minerals are significant components of the martian surface and provide clues about the martian geochemical environment. One unusual Fe-sulfate phase has been intriguing Mars scientists for over a decade due to its unique spectral bands that are distinct from any known minerals and its occurrence in layered sedimentary rocks. We describe here detection of ferric hydroxysulfate (FeSOOH) and its implications for the geochemical history of Mars.

Gas and Aqueous Phase Computations on the Keto-Enol Tautomerization of Pyruvic and Zymonic Acids: Implications for Prebiotic Enol Phosphates.

Keto-enol tautomerism plays a very important role in pyruvate chemistry and metabolic transformations. The enol form of pyruvate is thermodynamically much less stable, and its tautomerization to the keto form is one of the strongly favored energetic single rearrangements, endowing phosphoenolpyruvate as one of the most potent phosphate donors in biology. In this work, we report the keto-enol rearrangement of pyruvate and pyruvate-derived compounds, such as zymomate, using high-quality density functional theory for the gas phase and molecular dynamics methods for the aqueous phase.

Space-driven ROS in cells: a hidden danger to astronaut health and food safety.

Astronaut nutrition faces supply, logistics, and cost challenges, making space farming a solution. While plants adapt to space microgravity may trigger oxidative stress. Research shows space-grown plants achieve Earth-like growth, but ROS accumulation remains a concern.

A Review of Abrupt Permafrost Thaw: Definitions, Usage, and a Proposed Conceptual Framework.

Purpose Of Review: We review how 'abrupt thaw' has been used in published studies, compare these definitions to abrupt processes in other Earth science disciplines, and provide a definitive framework for how abrupt thaw should be used in the context of permafrost science.

Recent Findings: We address several aspects of permafrost systems necessary for abrupt thaw to occur and propose a framework for classifying permafrost processes as abrupt thaw in the future. Based on a literature review and our collective expertise, we propose that abrupt thaw refers to thaw processes that lead to a substantial persistent environmental change within a few decades.

Crystal Habits as Potential Biosignatures.

Our understanding of crystalline structures within terrestrial planetary analog environments can shed light on how these features can be interpreted on rocky planets and icy moons in our solar system. The ability to distinguish biogenic and abiotic components within the mineral, crystal, and structural features allows us to inform future life detection missions, science payloads, and instrument measurement resolutions. Moreover, having these terrestrial reference measurements in a review format allows the measurement rationale to be understood in the context of mission concepts and geomicrobiological assessment of life in extreme environments.

Perceived and observed biases within scientific communities: a case study in movement ecology.

Who conducts biological research, where they do it and how results are disseminated vary among geographies and identities. Identifying and documenting these forms of bias by research communities is a critical step towards addressing them. We documented perceived and observed biases in movement ecology, a rapidly expanding sub-discipline of biology, which is strongly underpinned by fieldwork and technology use.

A transiting giant planet in orbit around a 0.2-solar-mass host star.

Planet formation models indicate that the formation of giant planets is substantially harder around low-mass stars due to the scaling of protoplanetary disc masses with stellar mass. The discovery of giant planets orbiting such low-mass stars thus imposes strong constraints on giant planet formation processes. Here we report the discovery of a transiting giant planet orbiting a 0.

Feeding the cosmos: tackling personalized space nutrition and the leaky gut challenge.

Long-duration space missions pose serious challenges to astronaut nutrition and health due to the altered environment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO). This study examines the nutritional composition of crops grown in space, identifying deficiencies in key nutrients such as calcium and magnesium, along with variable antioxidant profiles. These imbalances may impact astronaut physiology, particularly bone health and immune function, and are potentially linked to altered gene expression pathways in microgravity.

Reparameterized Semiempirical Anharmonic IR Spectra of Neutral PAHs: Benchmarking and Predictions for PAHs with More than Five Rings.

Recently developed, reparameterized PM6 methods can reproduce experimental polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) IR spectra with nearly the same accuracy as state-of-the-art quantum chemical methods but for notably less computational cost. The use of the () semiempirical method (as opposed to () for density functional theory or () for the most accurate coupled cluster theory) allows for full, explicit, quartic force field (QFF), anharmonic computations on PAHs. The anharmonicity also predicts the combination band and overtone frequencies in addition to the fundamentals.

Carbon Fiber Oxidation in 4D.

The oxidation of carbon fibers at high temperatures is the primary degradation process in the thermal protection system of many hypersonic flight vehicles. Predicting the rate and the extent of oxidation is critical to ensure a safe and effective design. An oversized thermal protection system adds unnecessary mass, while an under-designed one risks system failure and mission loss.

Laminae as Potential Biosignatures.

Laminae are millimeter-scale features in rocks created by physiochemical processes that can be influenced by the presence and activities of communities of organisms that occur as biofilms and microbial mats. The structure and composition of laminae reflect the processes involved in their formation and can be preserved in the rock record over geologic time; however, diagenetic and metamorphic alteration can lead to the loss of primary information and confusion over the interpretation of their origins. As potential records of ancient life, laminae can preserve evidence of microbial activity over billions of years of Earth's history.

Synthetic biology for space exploration.

Human space exploration faces different challenges. Topics like Bioregenerative Life Support Systems, In Situ Resource Utilization, and radiation protection, still require for more suitable solutions to be applied in long-term space exploration. Synthetic biology could be a powerful tool for enabling human exploration of space and planets.

Enhancing outcomes in medically inoperable early-stage NSCLC with gut-targeted antibiotics and stereotactic body radiotherapy: results from a randomized pilot study.

Background: Gut microbiota modulation is an emerging strategy to improve cancer therapy outcomes. This study evaluated the safety and therapeutic potential of combining oral vancomycin-a non-absorbed, gut-restricted antibiotic with primary activity against gram-positive bacteria-with stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The underlying hypothesis was that vancomycin-induced changes in gut microbiota could enhance the antitumor effects of SBRT.

Life Detection Knowledge Base: Taxonomy of Potential Biosignatures.

The Life Detection Knowledge Base (LDKB) is a community webtool developed to test and evaluate strategies to search for evidence of life beyond Earth, with an emphasis on recognizing potential false-positive and false-negative results. As part of the LDKB framework, we developed a taxonomy of potential biosignatures. The taxonomy brings together a broad array of life-detection strategies into a common and systematic structure that allows for equitable evaluations based on a specific set of criteria, chosen to assess the likelihood of false-positive and false-negative interpretations.

Structural Biosignatures-A Category of Potential Biosignatures in the Life Detection Knowledge Base.

The Life Detection Knowledge Base (LDKB) is part of the Life Detection Forum suite of web tools developed for life detection mission planners. This article details the development of one of its categories of biosignatures, the category. The category includes physical attributes of objects and their spatial relationships (e.

Carbonate formation and fluctuating habitability on Mars.

The cause of Mars's loss of surface habitability is unclear, with isotopic data suggesting a 'missing sink' of carbonate. Past climates with surface and shallow-subsurface liquid water are recorded by Mars's sedimentary rocks, including strata in the approximately 4-km-thick record at Gale Crater. Those waters were intermittent, spatially patchy and discontinuous, and continued remarkably late in Mars's history-attributes that can be understood if, as on Earth, sedimentary-rock formation sequestered carbon dioxide as abundant carbonate (recently confirmed in situ at Gale).

A better multi-reference Davidson correction for internally contracted and uncontracted multi-reference configuration interaction calculations.

We propose a new multi-reference Davidson correction and show that it gives a much better prediction of the role of quadruple excitations compared to existing corrections. However, due to the neglect of triple excitations, our most promising correction is a hybrid scheme whereby the average of the new correction and a conventional correction is used. This hybrid correction performs well in a wide variety of cases, including the avoided crossing of two roots of the same symmetry.

Life Detection Knowledge Base: A Community Tool for Knowledge Management and Representation.

The Life Detection Knowledge Base (LDKB; https://lifedetectionforum.com/ldkb) is a community-owned web resource that is designed to facilitate the infusion of astrobiology knowledge and expertise into the conceptualization and design of life detection missions. The aim of the LDKB is to gather and organize diverse knowledge from a range of fields into a common reference frame to support mission science risk assessment, specifically in terms of the potential for false positive and false negative results when pursuing a particular observation strategy.