Lifeboat Foundation

A Mars invasion, a climate meeting and human–animal hybrids are set to shape the research agenda.

In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. The reason: The country applies the “Housing First” concept. Those affected by homelessness receive a small apartment and counselling – without any preconditions. 4 out of 5 people affected thus make their way back into a stable life. And: All this is cheaper than accepting homelessness.

Read this article in German here.

Finland is the only country in Europe where homelessness is in decline.

Ford is no longer taking orders for the first edition of its new electric Mustang, the Mach-E.

The company will still be taking pre-orders for other versions of the crossover, including premium and GT, according to a press release.

Ford unveiled the Mustang Mach-E in November and began taking $500 refundable reservations before the Mach-E makes its debut next year.

UPDATED: After more than four decades in operation, a nuclear power plant reactor in southern Sweden closed for good on Monday.

Zero Zero Robotics has publically released its latest product, the V-Coptr Falcon, a v-shaped bi-copter. The drone can achieve a flight time of 50 minutes thanks to its two motors, which are attached via tilting arms. The V-Coptr Falcon also has a 4K 3-axis stabilized camera, obstacle avoidance, and a 7km transmission distance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_fgI-VoYEw

On Dec. 30, 1930, the first-ever photo of the Earth’s curvature was taken.

This photo was taken by Lieutenant Colonel Albert William Stevens, who was an officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps and an aerial photographer. He also happened to be a balloonist, and he once broke a world record for a high-altitude balloon flight. Stevens took this photo while flying in a balloon over South Dakota.

Continue reading “On This Day in Space! Dec. 30, 1930: 1st Photo of the Curvature of the Earth” »

Integrated optics provides a versatile platform for quantum information processing and transceiving with photons^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}. The implementation of quantum protocols requires the capability to generate multiple high-quality single photons and process photons with multiple high-fidelity operators^9,10,11. However, previous experimental demonstrations were faced by major challenges in realizing sufficiently high-quality multi-photon sources and multi-qubit operators in a single integrated system^4,5,6,7,8, and fully chip-based implementations of multi-qubit quantum tasks remain a significant challenge^1,2,3. Here, we report the demonstration of chip-to-chip quantum teleportation and genuine multipartite entanglement, the core functionalities in quantum technologies, on silicon-photonic circuitry. Four single photons with high purity and indistinguishablity are produced in an array of microresonator sources, without requiring any spectral filtering. Up to four qubits are processed in a reprogrammable linear-optic quantum circuit that facilitates Bell projection and fusion operation. The generation, processing, transceiving and measurement of multi-photon multi-qubit states are all achieved in micrometre-scale silicon chips, fabricated by the complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor process. Our work lays the groundwork for large-scale integrated photonic quantum technologies for communications and computations.

There may be as many as 80,000 American prisoners currently locked-up in a SHU, or segregated housing unit. Solitary confinement in a SHU can cause irreversible psychological effects in as little as 15 days. Here’s what social isolation does to your brain, and why it should be considered torture.

There’s no universal definition for solitary confinement, but the United Nations describes it as any regime where an inmate is held in isolation from others, except guards, for at least 22 hours a day. Some jurisdictions allow prisoners out of their cells for one hour of solitary exercise each day. But meaningful contact with others is typically reduced to a bare minimum. Prisoners are also intentionally deprived of stimulus; available stimuli and the fleetingly rare social contacts are rarely chosen by the prisoners, and are are typically monotonous and inconsiderate of their needs.

China is poised to launch the first national digital currency. There will be no counting the disruption.