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Jul 1, 2022

Lab denies opening portals into parallel universes despite everyone thinking so

Posted by in categories: cosmology, government, nuclear energy, particle physics

A lab in Tennesee that does research in neutron, nuclear and clean energy had to debunk the myth that they were somehow attempting to open portals to other dimensions. Though if I ever learned anything from popular science fiction, if a research lab says they aren’t opening portals to parallel universes, my instinct tells me that they are totally opening portals to other dimensions. So you can imagine why folks would be skeptical.

Research scientist Leah Broussard explains in the video above that the experiments they are doing at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (which is managed by the US Department of Energy) aren’t exactly about building portals to other dimensions. Instead, they involved “looking for new ways that matter we know and understand, that makes up our universe, might interact with the dark matter that makes up the majority of our universe, which we don’t understand.”

Broussard also explains when a particle physicist says portal, they mean it in a figurative sense. All this talk of parallel universes came when her research was released and people started making connections to the Netflix show, Stranger Things. A show that, coincidentally, features kids stumbling across a shady government agency opening portals to other dimensions full of monsters, in the ’80s.

Jul 1, 2022

Hyundai gives first look at Ioniq 6 EV as market share surges

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, transportation

Hyundai is offering an early look at its upcoming all-electric sedan, the Ioniq 6. It comes as Bloomberg reports that the company’s EV market share is quietly surging in Europe and the US, causing even Tesla’s Elon Musk to take notice.


Hyundai has revealed an early look at its upcoming all-electric sedan, the Ioniq 6. It draws inspiration from the kind of streamlined car designs that were popular in the 20s and 30s with vehicles like the Stout Scarab.

Jul 1, 2022

Michelle Simmons: quantum machines at the atomic limit | The Royal Society

Posted by in categories: biological, nanotechnology, particle physics, quantum physics

Join Professor Michelle Simmons to find out how scientists are delivering Richard Feynman’s dream of designing materials at the atomic limit for quantum machines. 🔔Subscribe to our channel for exciting science videos and live events, many hosted by Brian Cox, our Professor for Public Engagement: https://bit.ly/3fQIFXB

#Physics #Quantum #RichardFeynman.

Continue reading “Michelle Simmons: quantum machines at the atomic limit | The Royal Society” »

Jul 1, 2022

This Energy Is Floating All Around Space. Can We Harness it?

Posted by in categories: energy, space

Space is a deep, dark, vast abyss that exists between the cosmos, separating them from each other. But is it truly as empty as we think it is? Or is the vacuum that spans everywhere hiding something from us? Something mysterious, and perhaps the most powerful source of energy?

Zero-point energy, also known as vacuum energy, has been touted as a potentially limitless and ubiquitous source of energy, if one could only find the means to harness it.

Continue reading “This Energy Is Floating All Around Space. Can We Harness it?” »

Jul 1, 2022

Smart Camera System Saves Eagles from Wind Turbine Deaths

Posted by in categories: electronics, sustainability

An AI-powered camera system reduces wind turbine bird fatalities by stopping the turbine as soon as it spots birds. Read it here.

Jul 1, 2022

The struggle to find the origins of time

Posted by in categories: cosmology, mathematics, quantum physics

What is time? Why is it so different from space? And where did it come from? Scientists are still stumped by these questions — but working harder than ever to answer them.


St. Augustine said of time, “If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain to him who asks, I don’t know.” Time is an elusive concept: We all experience it, and yet, the challenge of defining it has tested philosophers and scientists for millennia.

It wasn’t until Albert Einstein that we developed a more sophisticated mathematical understanding of time and space that allowed physicists to probe deeper into the connections between them. In their endeavors, physicists also discovered that seeking the origin of time forces us to confront the origins of the universe itself.

Continue reading “The struggle to find the origins of time” »

Jul 1, 2022

As these bacteria eat, they generate an unusual triangular molecule that can be used to make jet fuel

Posted by in categories: chemistry, energy, food, military

Aircrafts transport people, ship goods, and perform military operations, but the petroleum-based fuels that power them are in short supply. In research publishing on June 30 in the journal Joule, researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab have found a way to generate an alternative jet fuel by harvesting an unusual carbon molecule produced by the metabolic process of bacteria commonly found in soil.

“In chemistry, everything that requires to make will release energy when it’s broken,” says lead author Pablo Cruz-Morales, a microbiologist at DTU Biosustain, part of the Technical University of Denmark. When petroleum jet is ignited, it releases a tremendous amount of energy, and the scientists at the Keasling Lab at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory thought there must be a way to replicate this without waiting millions of years for new fossil fuels to form.

Jay Keasling, a at University of California, Berkeley, approached Cruz-Morales, who was a postdoc in his lab at the time, to see if he could synthesize a tricky molecule that has the potential to produce a lot of energy. “Keasling told me: it’s gonna be an explosive idea,” says Cruz-Morales.

Jul 1, 2022

Algorithm predicts crime a week in advance, but reveals bias in police response

Posted by in categories: information science, robotics/AI

Advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence have sparked interest from governments that would like to use these tools for predictive policing to deter crime. Early efforts at crime prediction have been controversial, however, because they do not account for systemic biases in police enf…

Jul 1, 2022

Dissolving implantable device relieves pain without drugs

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

A Northwestern University-led team of researchers has developed a small, soft, flexible implant that relieves pain on demand and without the use of drugs. The first-of-its-kind device could provide a much-needed alternative to opioids and other highly addictive medications.

Jul 1, 2022

Defects Control Silica’s Viscosity

Posted by in category: particle physics

The quirky temperature dependence of liquid silica’s viscosity comes from the liquid equivalent of crystal defects, according to new simulations.


Using radioactive tritium, scientists improve laboratory constraints on the overdensity signal of cosmic relic neutrinos by a factor of 100, an advance that should improve the chances of spotting this elusive particle.