Scientific news reports, society updates, and weekly membership spotlight features from NSPS.
The Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences is pleased to celebrate ๐๐ซ. ๐๐ฒ๐๐ฌ๐จ๐ฅ๐๐ฉ๐ ๐๐๐ฌ๐ข๐ซ๐๐ญ ๐๐ค๐ข๐ง๐ฌ๐ข๐ฉ๐จ as our Spotlight Member of the Week.
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A recent study published in African Scientific Reports investigates the use of electrical resistivity surveying methods to assess subsurface conditions for safer foundation design. Using constant separation traversing with the Wenner array and vertical electrical sounding with the Schlumberger array at the Abubakar Abdulsalam Hall area, University of Ibadan, the study identified three major subsurface layers: topsoil, weathered basement, and fresh bedrock. The findings show that low-resistivity weathered, fractured, clayey, or saturated zones may pose risks to shallow foundations, while deeper high-resistivity layers offer better foundation-support potential. This work supports geotechnical evaluation, subsurface mapping, foundation stability assessment, and safer civil engineering site planning.
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Brain-inspired computers have shown they can solve complex physics equations once thought to require powerful supercomputers. The breakthrough could lead to faster, low-energy computing systems for science, engineering, and advanced simulations.
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Scientists have found that ancient rocks beneath Canada are naturally producing hydrogen gas, a potential clean energy source known as โwhite hydrogen.โ The discovery could help power industries, support remote communities, and reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
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A recent study published in the Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences investigates even vertex odd edge root square mean labeling for selected cycle-related graphs. The work assigns distinct even labels to vertices and distinct odd labels to edges using a root square mean condition, then applies this framework to ladder graphs, tadpole graphs, polygon-chain graphs, dumbbell graphs, cycle graphs joined by an edge, and sunlet graphs. Through constructive examples, the study shows that these graph families admit the required labeling under specified conditions, expanding the class of known EVOERSML graphs. This work contributes to graph labeling theory, combinatorial structures, algebraic graph theory, and future applications in network analysis and combinatorial design.
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Physicists have created a strange quantum state called a fractional Fermi sea, revealing a hidden order beyond established theory. Using ultracold cesium atoms, the team engineered a new phase of matter that could reshape how scientists explore quantum systems and exotic materials.
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Scientists have combined artificial intelligence with quantum physics to speed up the search for superconductorsโmaterials that carry electricity with zero resistance. The new method has already helped identify two new superconductors and could bring researchers closer to the long-sought goal of room-temperature superconductivity.
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A recent study published in the Proceedings of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences examines how digital money adoption is shaping youth spending behaviour in Ebonyi State, Nigeria. Using survey responses from 400 youths and 20 in-depth interviews, the study found a 72% adoption rate, driven by education, income, financial literacy, social influence, and trust. The findings show that digital money use increases spending on mobile data, airtime, and peer-to-peer transfers, while concerns such as fraud, hidden fees, transaction failures, and trust issues remain significant. This work supports digital finance policy, youth financial education, fintech adoption, consumer protection, and responsible financial inclusion.
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Astronomers have detected a strange โchirpingโ signal from a distant supernova, revealing the birth of a newborn magnetar, an extremely magnetic neutron star. The discovery provides direct evidence that magnetars can power some of the universeโs brightest stellar explosions and shows Einsteinโs general relativity at work inside a supernova.
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Astronomers studying the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS discovered unusual chemical signatures that suggest it formed in the outer regions of an ancient star system. By analyzing its isotopic composition, researchers found evidence that the comet may be far older than the Sun, offering a rare glimpse into the early history of planetary formation beyond our solar system.
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ESAโs Euclid space telescope has discovered 31 ancient quasars, including two of the oldest ever seen. These brilliant galaxy cores, powered by supermassive black holes, were already shining when the universe was only 670 million years old. The discovery gives scientists rare clues about how the first galaxies and giant black holes formed in the young cosmos.
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Chinaโs LineShine has become the worldโs fastest supercomputer, performing over 2 quintillion calculations per second. This milestone shows how supercomputers are driving breakthroughs in AI, climate science, medicine, and advanced research.
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A recent study published in African Scientific Reports examines how cognitive and emotional factors shape user experience in human-computer interaction. The study highlights that effective interface design should not only focus on functionality and efficiency but also consider perception, attention, memory, cognitive load, trust, satisfaction, engagement, frustration, and emotional appeal. Through its Cognitive-Emotional Integration framework, the paper explains how usersโ thoughts and feelings interact to influence usability, satisfaction, and long-term adoption of digital systems. This work supports human-centred design, affective computing, adaptive interfaces, cognitive ergonomics, and emotionally responsive technology development.
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A recent study published in African Scientific Reports investigates chaotic behaviour in solar activity across six solar cycles using daily sunspot number, equivalent planetary amplitude, and solar radio flux data. By applying nonlinear dynamical tools such as correlation dimension, Lyapunov exponents, approximate entropy, Hurst exponent, and the GottwaldโMelbourne 0โ1 test, the study confirms low-dimensional deterministic chaos in all three parameters. The findings show strong persistence, long-term autocorrelation, and increasing chaoticity from solar cycle 19 to cycle 24, with solar radio flux displaying the highest chaotic behaviour. This work supports solar physics, space-weather modelling, solar-cycle prediction, and better understanding of how solar variability affects satellites, communication, navigation, and terrestrial technologies.
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A recent study published in African Scientific Reports investigates stack-protection mechanisms for securing ARM Cortex-M4 microcontrollers used in agricultural IoT systems. The study compares six protection configurations against simulated stack-based attacks, including buffer-overflow and return-oriented programming threats, while assessing security effectiveness, performance overhead, energy impact, and battery-life suitability. Results show that the Hybrid MPUโShadow Stack mechanism prevented all simulated attacks with only 2.90% performance overhead and a 2.83% reduction in estimated battery life, making it suitable for rural smart-farming deployments. This work supports edge computing security, embedded-system resilience, agricultural IoT protection, and sustainable smart-farming infrastructure.
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Scientists have created a tiny quantum device that turns fast-moving electrons into controllable โquantum soundโ particles called phonons. The breakthrough could pave the way for phonon lasers, faster communication systems, advanced sensors, and future medical technologies.
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Life on Earth may remain habitable for far longer than previously believed, according to a new scientific study published in JGR Atmospheres. Using advanced climate and atmospheric...
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Imagine protecting Earth with a giant airbagโnot on the ground, but in space. Researchers have proposed an ambitious concept designed to shield our planet from destructive solar...
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Scientists have made tiny magnetic waves last nearly 100 times longer, bringing coin-sized quantum computers closer to reality. The breakthrough could help future quantum devices store and move information more reliably on ultra-small chips.
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The Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences is pleased to celebrate ๐๐ซ. ๐๐ญ๐ข๐๐จ ๐๐๐ญ๐ซ๐ข๐๐ค ๐๐ง๐ฒ๐๐ง๐ as our Spotlight Member of the Week.
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A recent study published in the Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences introduces CropGAN, a conditional Generative Adversarial Network framework for generating synthetic tabular data to improve crop recommendation systems. The study addresses limitations caused by scarce, imbalanced, and regionally biased agricultural datasets by combining class conditioning, minority-aware sampling, and Wasserstein loss with gradient penalty. Trained on 5,000 samples across 10 crop classes, CropGAN produced more diverse synthetic data and improved downstream classification performance, with a Support Vector Machine achieving 99.4% accuracy. This work supports precision agriculture, synthetic data generation, class-imbalance handling, and AI-driven crop decision support in data-scarce farming regions.
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A recent study published in the Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences develops a fuzzy semi-Markovian stochastic model to examine the effect of repairman arrival delay on the reliability and availability of single-unit systems. Using Lindley-distributed lifetime, failure, repair, and arrival-time variables with bell-shaped fuzzy membership functions, the study compares systems with immediate repair and those affected by repairman delay. The results show that immediate repairman availability improves system availability, while increasing the ฮฑ-cut reduces fuzziness and strengthens reliability estimates. This work supports reliability engineering, maintenance planning, fuzzy stochastic modelling, and performance evaluation of repairable engineering systems.
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A recent study published in the Proceedings of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences investigates how precursor concentration affects the crystallographic and FTIR properties of lead sulphide (PbS) thin films deposited using the SILAR technique. The films, grown at lead-ion concentrations of 0.3, 0.5, and 0.7 M, were confirmed by X-ray diffraction to be crystalline with a cubic structure and preferred orientation along the (111) plane. Results showed that increasing concentration improved crystallinity, PbS bond formation, absorbance intensity, surface coverage, and overall film quality. This work supports low-cost thin-film fabrication, semiconductor materials development, infrared detector research, and optoelectronic applications.
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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has provided astronomers with one of the clearest views yet of how some of the universe's largest galaxies began to form. Using its advanced i...
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Researchers from Harvard University analyzed the magnetic signatures preserved in more than 900 ancient rock samples from Western Australia's Pilbara Craton and found that sections...
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CERN has switched off the Large Hadron Collider for a major upgrade that will transform it into the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider by around 2030. It is the end of one powerful chapter and the beginning of another: after helping discover the Higgs boson, the worldโs largest particle accelerator is being rebuilt to produce far more collision dataโgiving scientists a sharper chance to uncover hidden clues about dark matter, the Higgs boson, and physics beyond the Standard Model.
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Artificial intelligence is giving scientists a new way to understand how the universe forges its heaviest elements, including gold and uranium, during violent events such as neutron star mergers. It is a cosmic breakthrough with a powerful message: by using deep learning to simulate complex nuclear reactions, researchers can now study how matter is transformed in the aftermath of stellar collisionsโrevealing how some of the most precious and powerful elements in the universe are born.
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Scientists have created a flexible artificial intelligence skin patch that can analyze health signals directly on the body in milliseconds, without sending the data to a remote server. It is a soft medical breakthrough with a powerful message: future wearable devices may not just track your healthโthey could understand warning signs instantly, helping detect heart problems and other risks before every second counts.
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Mount Etna has revealed a surprising secret: the same volcano can erupt in completely different ways depending on what happens deep underground. In one ancient eruption, magma rose slowly and stalled near the surface before exploding. In another, carbon dioxide-rich magma surged up from deep below and erupted within hours, showing that a volcanoโs hidden โplumbing systemโ can change the entire story of an eruption.
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Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Microsoft have developed Murakkab, a new system that makes artificial intelligence agents faster, cheaper, and more energy efficient. It is a behind-the-scenes breakthrough with a big message: as artificial intelligence workflows become more complex, Murakkab helps choose the best models, tools, hardware, and execution plan automaticallyโcutting wasted computation, reducing energy use, and keeping advanced artificial intelligence applications running smoothly.
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