Lifeboat Foundation

Black holes are regions in space characterized by extremely strong gravity, which prevents all matter and electromagnetic waves from escaping it. These fascinating cosmic bodies have been the focus of countless research studies, yet their intricate physical nuances are yet to be fully uncovered.

Researchers at University of California–Santa Barbara, University of Warsaw and University of Cambridge recently carried out a theoretical study focusing on a class of black holes known as extremal Kerr black holes, which are uncharged stationary black holes with a coinciding inner and outer horizon. Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, shows that these black holes’ unique characteristics could make them ideal “amplifiers” of new, unknown physics.

“This research has its origin in a previous project started during my visit to UC Santa Barbara,” Maciej Kolanowski, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. “I started discussing very cold (so called, extremal) black holes with Gary Horowitz (UCSB) and Jorge Santos (at Cambridge). Soon we realized that in fact, generic extremal black holes look very different than it was previously believed.”

A research team led by Prof. Wang Qun from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has made significant progress in the theoretical study of vector meson spin physics, specifically regarding the intriguing behavior of ϕ mesons generated during collisions between gold nuclei.

Their results, published in Physical Review Letters, titled “Spin Alignment of Vector Mesons in Heavy-Ion Collisions,” represent a significant milestone that challenges conventional theoretical models.

Vector fields are an effective representation of strong interactions between exotic quarks. In the hadronization phase of relativistic heavy-ion collisions, where chiral symmetry is spontaneously broken, the strongly interacting matter can be described by quarks and by the SU pseudo-Goldstone boson field surrounding the quarks.

Researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China(USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have developed an ultra-cold atom quantum simulator to study the relationship between the non-equilibrium thermalization process and quantum criticality in lattice gauge field theories. The research was led by Pan Jianwei and Yuan Zhensheng, in collaboration with Zhai Hui from Tsinghua University and Yao Zhiyuan from Lanzhou University.

Their findings reveal that multi-body systems possessing gauge symmetry tend to thermalize to an equilibrium state more easily when situated in a quantum phase transition critical region. The results were published in Physical Review Letters.

Gauge theory and statistical mechanics are two foundational theories of physics. From the Maxwell’s equations of classical electromagnetism to quantum electrodynamics and the Standard Model, which describe the interactions of fundamental particles, all adhere to specific gauge symmetries. On the other hand, statistical mechanics connects the microscopic states of large ensembles of particles (such as atoms and molecules) to their macroscopic statistical behaviors, based on the principle of maximum entropy proposed by Boltzmann and others. It elucidates, for instance, how the energy distribution of microscopic particles affects macroscopic quantities like pressure, volume, or temperature.

A previously unknown threat actor dubbed ‘Sandman’ targets telecommunication service providers in the Middle East, Western Europe, and South Asia, using a modular info-stealing malware named ‘LuaDream.’

This malicious activity was discovered by SentinelLabs in collaboration with QGroup GmbH in August 2023, who named the threat actor and malware after the backdoor’s internal name of ‘DreamLand client.’

The operational style of Sandman is to keep a low profile to evade detection while performing lateral movement and maintaining long-term access to breached systems to maximize its cyberespionage operations.

The developers of Free Download Manager (FDM) have published a script to check if a Linux device was infected through a recently reported supply chain attack.

Free Download Manager is a popular cross-platform download manager that offers torrenting, proxying, and online video downloads through a user-friendly interface.

Last week, Kaspersky revealed that the project’s website was compromised at some point in 2020, redirecting a portion of Linux users who attempted to download the software to a malicious site.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) disclosed a cyberattack on Tuesday after discovering last week that its systems had been breached.

“At the end of last week, the International Criminal Court’s services detected anomalous activity affecting its information systems,” the ICC said.

“Immediate measures were adopted to respond to this cybersecurity incident and to mitigate its impact.”

Amazon moves to stop people from posting AI-generated books on its marketplace, though a three-books-per-day limit still seems high given how long it takes to write an actual book.

Renewable energy generation, from sources like wind and solar, is rapidly growing. However, some of the energy generated needs to be stored for when weather conditions are unfavourable for wind and sun. One promising way to do this is to save the energy in the form of hydrogen, which can be stored and transported for later use.

To do this, the renewable energy is used to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, with the energy stored in the hydrogen atoms. This uses platinum catalysts to spur a reaction that splits the water molecule, which is called electrolysis. However, although platinum is an excellent catalyst for this reaction, it is expensive and rare, so minimising its use is important to reduce system cost and limit platinum extraction.

Now, in a study published this week in Nature, the team have designed and tested a catalyst that uses as little platinum as possible to produce an efficient but cost-effective platform for water splitting.

Continue reading “Cheap and efficient catalyst could boost renewable energy storage” »

This is the third part in a series on deep brain stimulation for depression. Read from the beginning.

Early in the morning on August 22, 2022, Jon’s medical team told him that neurologist Helen Mayberg would check in with him just before his deep brain stimulation surgery.