Lifeboat Foundation

Today, only about 6% of the observable Universe is reachable due to cosmic expansion.

The Universe is a vast, wondrous, and strange place. From our perspective within it, we can see out for some 46 billion light-years in all directions. Everywhere we look, we see a Universe filled with stars and galaxies, but are they all unique? Is it possible, perhaps, that if you look far enough in one direction and see a galaxy, that you’d also see that same galaxy, from a different perspective, in the opposite direction? Could the Universe actually loop back on itself? And if you traveled far enough in a straight line, would you eventually return to your starting point, just as if you traveled in any one direction for long enough on the surface of the Earth? Or would something stop you?

Fermilab is tackling the extreme conditions generated in neutrino experiments to ensure the success of future research.

“Researchers need to overcome three challenges to make a lasting target: radiation damage, high temperatures and stress from thermal expansion,” remarked the press release.

Nanofibers, incredibly thin threads with exceptional strength and flexibility, are being investigated for their ability to better absorb the shock of the proton beam.

Continue reading “US tests materials for neutrino targets to endure proton bombardment” »

There is a massive black hole with millions of times more mass than our sun is plunging towards Earth and will one day annihilate life as we know it. This particular black hole is coming towards us at 110 kilometres per second and is at the center of the Great Andromeda Galaxy – the Milky Way’s closest and much larger neighbor.

At the center of the most known galaxies, there exist a supermassive black hole which stars spin around and helps keep everything in formation. But such is the powerful gravitational pull of the Milky Way and Andromeda that they are being drawn toward each other and will one day crash.

MIT researchers have developed a miniature, chip-based “tractor beam,” like the one that captures the Millennium Falcon in the film “Star Wars,” that could someday help biologists and clinicians study DNA, classify cells, and investigate the mechanisms of disease.

Small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, the device uses a beam of light emitted by a silicon-photonics chip to manipulate particles millimeters away from the chip surface. The light can penetrate the glass cover slips that protect samples used in biological experiments, enabling cells to remain in a sterile environment.

Traditional optical tweezers, which trap and manipulate particles using light, usually require bulky microscope setups, but chip-based optical tweezers could offer a more compact, mass-manufacturable, broadly accessible, and high-throughput solution for optical manipulation in biological experiments.

MIAMI – Residents in Florida reported feeling the ground move after two powerful earthquakes struck off the coast of Cuba late Sunday morning, prompting brief fears that a tsunami could impact areas closest to the epicenter in the Caribbean.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the two earthquakes were reported within an hour of each other.

For our AI industry people, if you werent aware, some kind of research prizes for solving technical challenges related to AI.

Prize information, rules, and key dates.

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A strong 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck off Cuba’s coast, south of Santiago de Cuba around noon local time on Sunday.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake’s epicenter was about 24 miles south of Bartolomé Masó which is part of Cuba’s Granma Province.

The combined results also speak to a more fundamental goal. For decades, the quantum computing community has been trying to establish quantum advantage —a task that quantum computers can do that a classical one would struggle with. Usually, researchers understand quantum advantage to mean that a quantum computer can do the task in far fewer steps.

The new papers show that quantum memory lets a quantum computer perform a task not necessarily with fewer steps, but with less data. As a result, researchers believe this in itself could be a way to prove quantum advantage. “It allows us to, in the more near term, already achieve that kind of quantum advantage,” said Hsin-Yuan Huang, a physicist at Google Quantum AI.

But researchers are excited about the practical benefits too, as the new results make it easier for researchers to understand complex quantum systems.

Shaking hands with a character from the Fortnite video game. Visualizing a patient’s heart in 3D—and “feeling” it beat. Touching the walls of the Roman Coliseum—from your sofa in Los Angeles. What if we could touch and interact with things that aren’t physically in front of us? This reality might be closer than we think, thanks to an emerging technology: the holodeck.

The name might sound familiar. In Star Trek’s Next Generation, a holodeck was an advanced 3D virtual reality world that created the illusion of solid objects. Now, immersive technology researchers at USC and beyond are taking us one step closer to making this science fiction concept a science fact.

Continue reading “International Conference on Holodecks: Five Key Takeaways” »