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Feb 10, 2024

Humanity’s Quest to Find New Physics Hinges on a Controversial Particle Smasher

Posted by in category: particle physics

This next-gen collider could redefine the boundaries of physics, but it comes with an astronomical cost.

Feb 10, 2024

First-ever images of heat ‘sloshing’ like sound waves captured by MIT in a superfluid

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics, space

The researchers applied the higher resonant radio frequency, which prompted any normal, “hot” fermions in the liquid to ring in response. The researchers then could zero in on the resonating fermions and track them over time to create “movies” that revealed heat’s pure motion — a sloshing back and forth, similar to sound waves.

“For the first time, we can take pictures of this substance as we cool it through the critical temperature of superfluidity, and directly see how it transitions from being a normal fluid, where heat equilibrates boringly, to a superfluid where heat sloshes back and forth,” Zwierlein says.

The experiments mark the first time scientists have been able to image second sound directly and the pure motion of heat in a superfluid quantum gas. The researchers plan to extend their work to map heat’s behavior more precisely in other ultracold gases. Then, they say their findings can be scaled up to predict how heat flows in other strongly interacting materials, such as high-temperature superconductors and neutron stars.

Feb 10, 2024

MGIE: Apple’s new AI tool launches prompt-based image editing

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Apple has released an open-source AI model named ‘MGIE’ that can edit images based on natural language instructions.

Feb 10, 2024

Hydrogen engine to power hard-to-electrify vehicles for long-haul transit

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, transportation

Advanced technology and engineering breathe new life into opposed-piston engines, potentially pivotal in zero-carbon transportation evolution.

Feb 10, 2024

Telescopes Reveal Rapid Spin of Milky Way’s Black Hole Warping Spacetime

Posted by in categories: cosmology, materials

Black holes have two fundamental properties: their mass (how much they weigh) and their spin (how quickly they rotate). Determining either of these two values tells scientists a great deal about any black hole and how it behaves. In the past, astronomers made several other estimates of Sgr A*’s rotation speed using different techniques, with results ranging from Sgr A* not spinning at all to it spinning at almost the maximum rate.

The new study suggests that Sgr A* is, in fact, spinning very rapidly, which causes the spacetime around it to be squashed down. The illustration shows a cross-section of Sgr A* and material swirling around it in a disk. The black sphere in the center represents the so-called event horizon of the black hole, the point of no return from which nothing, not even light, can escape.

Continue reading “Telescopes Reveal Rapid Spin of Milky Way’s Black Hole Warping Spacetime” »

Feb 10, 2024

Scientists Find Optimal Balance of Data Storage and Time

Posted by in categories: computing, innovation

Seventy years after the invention of a data structure called a hash table, theoreticians have found the most efficient possible configuration for it.

Feb 10, 2024

Explosion Light-Years Away Could Obliterate Life on Earth, Scientists Find

Posted by in categories: cosmology, neuroscience, space travel

Even if they were dozens of light-years away, two colliding neutron stars could create a powerful enough explosion to wipe out life on Earth.

At least, that’s according to a recent paper published in The Astrophysical Journal, in which a team of researchers concluded that a kilonova could pose a major threat to Earth-like planets, even at formidable interstellar distances.

A kilonova is usually the result of a collision involving two neutron stars within a binary system, or when a neutron star and a black hole merge. These collisions release brain-melting amounts of electromagnetic radiation in the form of gamma-ray bursts.

Feb 10, 2024

Scientists gene-edit tomatoes to need less water

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, food, genetics

Climate change and increasingly extreme weather conditions are predicted to wreak havoc with humanity’s food security. But hopefully, at least tomatoes will stay safe.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University have succeeded in cultivating tomato varieties that consume less water as they grow without compromising on yield, quality or taste, using CRISPR genome editing technology.

Their study, which contributes to growing efforts to ensure food security in a world of diminishing freshwater resources, was recently published in the journal PNAS.

Feb 10, 2024

Paleontologists Discover Two New Shark Species From Fossils in Mammoth Cave National Park

Posted by in category: futurism

The ‘active predators’ prowled the oceans more than 325 million years ago, before the time of Pangea.

Feb 10, 2024

Iceland volcano update as webcams show lava fountains up to 260 feet tall

Posted by in category: futurism

The new eruption marks the third time a volcano has erupted in the same region of Iceland in the past three months.