Lifeboat Foundation

The theory of evolution, worked out in the nineteenth century by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, with many tweaks since, is one of the most well-supported theories in science.

Evidence from a wide range of disciplines backs up the basics of the theory. Or, as paleontologist and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould put it in an essay in the May 1981 print issue of this magazine, the theory of evolution is “one of the best documented, most compelling and exciting concepts in all of science.”

For the rest of us, one interesting and sometimes confusing aspect of evolution is the difference between convergent and divergent evolution. Here’s a quick explanation.

Even space and time if it’s quantum.

What will be the ultimate fate of our universe? There are a number of theories and possibilities, but at present the most likely scenario seems to be that the universe will continue to expand, most mass will eventually find its way into a black hole, and those black holes will slowly evaporate into Hawking Radiation, resulting in what is called the “heat death” of the universe. Don’t worry, this will likely take 1.7×10¹⁰⁶ years, so we got some time.

But what about objects, like stellar remnants, that are not black holes? Will the ultimate fate of the universe still contain some neutron stars and cold white dwarfs that managed to never get sucked up by a black hole? To answer this question we have to back up a bit and talk about Hawking Radiation.

Continue reading “Everything Will Evaporate” »

UAE’s MBR Explorer aims to solve mystery of ultra-red celestial body in the asteroid belt beyond Mars.

University of Washington researchers have discovered they can detect atomic “breathing,” or the mechanical vibration between two layers of atoms, by observing the type of light those atoms emitted when stimulated by a laser. The sound of this atomic “breath” could help researchers encode and transmit quantum information.

The researchers also developed a device that could serve as a new type of building block for quantum technologies, which are widely anticipated to have many future applications in fields such as computing, communications and sensor development.

The researchers published these findings June 1 in Nature Nanotechnology.

Scientists have repurposed human stomach cells into tissues that release insulin in response to rising blood sugar levels in a breakthrough that promises an effective way to manage conditions such as type 1 diabetes.

The experiment, led by researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine in the US, revealed transplants of gastric insulin-secreting (GINS) cells reversed diabetes in mice.

Pancreatic beta cells normally do the job of releasing the hormone insulin in response to elevated sugar levels in the blood. In people with diabetes, these tissues are damaged or die off, compromising their ability to move glucose into cells for fuel.

Whether it’s baking a cake, building a house, or developing a quantum device, the quality of the end product significantly depends on its ingredients or base materials. Researchers working to improve the performance of superconducting qubits, the foundation of quantum computers, have been experimenting using different base materials in an effort to increase the coherent lifetimes of qubits.

The coherence time is a measure of how long a qubit retains quantum information, and thus a primary measure of performance. Recently, scientists discovered that using tantalum in superconducting qubits makes them perform better, but no one has been able to determine why—until now.

Scientists from the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), the Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA), and Princeton University investigated the fundamental reasons that these qubits perform better by decoding the chemical profile of tantalum.

In crisis, the nucleus calls antioxidant enzymes to the rescue. The nucleus being metabolically active is a profound paradigm shift with implications for cancer research.

Caltech’s recent breakthrough has moved us closer to achieving the transformative potential of space-based solar power.

Mindfulness-based awareness training can help people learn to better control brain-computer interfaces. But a new study has found that a single guided mindfulness meditation exercise isn’t enough to boost performance. The findings, published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, suggest that a longer period of meditation is needed in order for people to experience observable improvements.

The authors of the research are interested in exploring the potential benefits of using mindfulness meditation as a training tool to improve the performance of brain-computer interfaces, which allow individuals to control machines or computers directly from their brain, bypassing the traditional neuromuscular pathway. These devices have the potential to greatly benefit people with conditions such as spinal cord injuries, stroke, and neurodegenerative diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Previous studies have shown that one of the most effective signals for brain-computer interface control is the sensorimotor rhythm produced in the primary sensorimotor areas during motor imagery. However, not everyone is able to effectively control brain-computer interfaces, with approximately 20% of the population being “BCI-inefficient” even with extensive training. Therefore, researchers are looking for ways to improve performance, and one potential method is through meditation.