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Mar 27, 2022

What the world’s most accurate clock can tell us about Earth and the cosmos

Posted by in category: quantum physics

It would take 15 billion years for the clock that occupies Jun Ye’s basement lab at the University of Colorado to lose a second—about how long the uni.


Using density functional theory calculations and the Greens’s function formalism, we report the existence of magnetic edge states with a non-collinear spin texture present on different edges of the 1T’ phase of the three monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs): MoS$_2$, MoTe$_2$ and WTe$_2$. The magnetic states are gapless and accompanied by a spontaneous breaking of the time-reversal symmetry. This may have an impact on the prospects of utilizing WTe$_2$ as a quantum spin Hall insulator. It has previously been suggested that the topologically protected edge states of the 1T’ TMDs could be switched off by applying a perpendicular electric field. We confirm with fully self-consistent DFT calculations, that the topological edge states can be switched off. The investigated magnetic edge states are seen to be robust and remains gapless when applying a field.

Mar 27, 2022

Elon Musk hints he might launch his own social media platform

Posted by in category: Elon Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk polled Twitter on Saturday, asking whether a new social media platform should be created to challenge Twitter and sparking speculation that the billionaire might be the one to do so.

In a series of tweets on Friday, the Space X founder asked if the time has come for a new platform to replace Twitter, and whether users thought the company ‘adhered to free speech principles.’

He said that, because Twitter serves as ‘the de factor public town square,’ a failure to promote free speech on the app would undermine democracy.

Mar 26, 2022

Black holes found to exert a pressure on their environment

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Physicists at the University of Sussex have discovered that black holes exert a pressure on their environment, in a scientific first.

In 1974 Stephen Hawking made the seminal discovery that emit thermal radiation. Previous to that, black holes were believed to be inert, the final stages of a dying heavy star.

The University of Sussex scientists have shown that they are in fact even more complex thermodynamic systems, with not only a temperature but also a .

Mar 26, 2022

One Lab’s Quest to Build Space-Time Out of Quantum Particles

Posted by in categories: cosmology, engineering, particle physics, quantum physics

The prospects for directly testing a theory of quantum gravity are poor, to put it mildly. To probe the ultra-tiny Planck scale, where quantum gravitational effects appear, you would need a particle accelerator as big as the Milky Way galaxy. Likewise, black holes hold singularities that are governed by quantum gravity, but no black holes are particularly close by — and even if they were, we could never hope to see what’s inside. Quantum gravity was also at work in the first moments of the Big Bang, but direct signals from that era are long gone, leaving us to decipher subtle clues that first appeared hundreds of thousands of years later.

But in a small lab just outside Palo Alto, the Stanford University professor Monika Schleier-Smith and her team are trying a different way to test quantum gravity, without black holes or galaxy-size particle accelerators. Physicists have been suggesting for over a decade that gravity — and even space-time itself — may emerge from a strange quantum connection called entanglement. Schleier-Smith and her collaborators are reverse-engineering the process. By engineering highly entangled quantum systems in a tabletop experiment, Schleier-Smith hopes to produce something that looks and acts like the warped space-time predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

Mar 26, 2022

I didn’t post this, but I have read about it

Posted by in categories: sustainability, transportation

I have read about how you refuel an electric car is different. You don’t want to power an electric car on a power grid that uses fossil fuel. The goal is to have fully green refueling. I have theorized many things from my posts, such as using solar or wind with hydrogen storage. Also the components used to make batteries have an impact on the environment, unless I am wrong, as I can be wrong. I guess what I read must be wrong and Facebooks independent fact checkers are right. They always are right, and we must follow them. So please do.

Mar 26, 2022

Revamped design could take powerful biological computers from the test tube to the cell

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing

Tiny biological computers made of DNA could revolutionize the way we diagnose and treat a slew of diseases, once the technology is fully fleshed out. However, a major stumbling block for these DNA-based devices, which can operate in both cells and liquid solutions, has been how short-lived they are. Just one use and the computers are spent.

Now, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) may have developed long-lived biological computers that could potentially persist inside . In a paper published in the journal Science Advances, the authors forgo the traditional DNA-based approach, opting instead to use the nucleic acid RNA to build computers. The results demonstrate that the RNA circuits are as dependable and versatile as their DNA-based counterparts. What’s more, living cells may be able to create these RNA circuits continuously, something that is not readily possible with DNA circuits, further positioning RNA as a promising candidate for powerful, long-lasting biological computers.

Much like the computer or smart device you are likely reading this on, biological computers can be programmed to carry out different kinds of tasks.

Mar 26, 2022

Study finds neurons responsible for encoding outcomes of actions

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

A new study led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found that a group of neurons in the brain’s striatum encodes information about the potential outcomes of different decisions. The study was published in the journal, ‘Nature Communications’.

A group of neurons in the brain become particularly active when a behaviour leads to a different outcome than what was expected, which the researchers believed helped the brain adapt to changing circumstances. “A lot of this brain activity deals with surprising outcomes because if an outcome is expected, there’s really nothing to be learned. What we see is that there’s a strong encoding of both unexpected rewards and unexpected negative outcomes,” said Bernard Bloem, a former MIT postdoc and one of the lead authors of the new study.

Impairments in this kind of decision-making are a hallmark of many neuropsychiatric disorders, especially anxiety and depression. The new findings suggested that slight disturbances in the activity of these striatal neurons could swing the brain into making impulsive decisions or becoming paralyzed with indecision, the researchers said. The striatum, located deep within the brain, is known to play a key role in making decisions that require evaluating the outcomes of a particular action. In this study, the researchers wanted to learn more about the neural basis of how the brain makes cost-benefit decisions, in which a behaviour can have a mixture of positive and negative outcomes.

Mar 26, 2022

Dyson to invest $1.1 billion in Singapore as part of global plan

Posted by in category: futurism

SINGAPORE (Reuters) — Dyson, the inventor of the bagless vacuum cleaner, said on Friday it would invest S$1.5 billion ($1.1 billion) in Singapore over the next four years, the newest phase of a S$4.9 billion global investment plan.

When Dyson announced the global investment plan in 2020, it said the money would be divided between the company’s global head office in Singapore, its two campuses in Wiltshire, southern England, and the Philippines.

On Friday, it launched its new global headquarters in a restored power station in the Southeast Asian city-state, where it plans to hire more than 250 additional engineers and scientists.

Mar 26, 2022

Dear everyone

Posted by in categories: education, existential risks, mathematics, robotics/AI

We — educators, scientists, psychologists — started an educational non-profit Earthlings Hub, to help out the kids, affected by the war. We talk to them about STEM, but also about the complexity of the world, philosophy of science, future, and existential risks. We also offer psychological help to their parents. Our advisory board includes NASA astronaut Greg Chamitoff, lead AI researcher Joscha Bach, Professor of Learning and Cognition, author of Netlogo language Uri Wilensky, lead early math educator Maria Droujkova and others. Please share, participate, donate! https://www.earthlingshub.org/

Mar 26, 2022

Elon Musk says people might download their personalities onto a humanoid robot Tesla is making, which he says could be in ‘moderate volume production’ next year

Posted by in categories: drones, Elon Musk, robotics/AI

Elon Musk discussed a humanoid robot Tesla is making called Optimus, saying, “We could download the things that we believe make ourselves so unique.”


The longest drone corridor in the world could be built in the U.K., linking multiple cities across the country and representing the most ambitious British transport project since the railway network in the 18th century.