Lifeboat Foundation

In a revolutionary scientific endeavor, researchers are using 5,000 miniature robots perched atop a mountaintop telescope to peer an astonishing 11 billion years into the past. This cutting-edge instrument, known as the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), is capturing light from distant objects in space, allowing scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to map our cosmos as it was in its infancy and trace its evolution to the present day.

Why is this so important? Understanding how our universe has evolved is intrinsically linked to predicting its ultimate fate and unraveling one of the biggest mysteries in physics: dark energy. This enigmatic force is causing our universe to expand at an ever-increasing rate, and DESI is providing us with unprecedented insights into its effects over the past 11 billion years.

Continue reading “5,000 Tiny Robots Unveil Secrets Of Universe’s Dark Energy” »

The medical breakthrough will have to wait a bit longer.

Nothing makes a mess of quantum physics quite like those space-warping, matter-gulping abominations known as black holes. If you want to turn Schrodinger’s eggs into an information omelet, just find an event horizon and let ‘em drop.

According to theoretical physicists and chemists from Rice University and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the US, basic chemistry is capable of scrambling quantum information almost as effectively.

The team used a mathematical tool developed more than half a century ago to bridge a gap between known semiclassical physics and quantum effects in superconductivity. They found the delicate quantum states of reacting particles become scrambled with surprising speed and efficiency that comes close to matching the might of a black hole.

The idea of growing functioning human brain-like tissues in a dish has always sounded far-fetched, even to researchers in the field. Towards the future goal, a Japanese and French research team has developed a technique for connecting lab-grown brain-mimicking tissue in a way that resembles circuits in our brain.

The work appears in Nature Communications.

It is challenging to study exact mechanisms of the brain development and functions. Animal studies are limited by differences between species in brain structure and function, and brain cells grown in the lab tend to lack the characteristic connections of cells in the human brain. What’s more, researchers are increasingly realizing that these interregional connections, and the circuits that they create, are important for many of the brain functions that define us as humans.

A first-ever dataset bridging molecular information about the poplar tree microbiome to ecosystem-level processes has been released by a team of Department of Energy scientists led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The project aims to inform research regarding how natural systems function, their vulnerability to a changing climate, and ultimately how plants might be engineered for better performance as sources of bioenergy and natural carbon storage.

The data, described in Nature Publishing Group’s Scientific Data, provides in-depth information on 27 genetically distinct variants, or genotypes, of Populus trichocarpa, a poplar tree of interest as a bioenergy crop. The genotypes are among those that the ORNL-led Center for Bioenergy Innovation previously included in a genome-wide association study linking genetic variations to the trees’ physical traits. ORNL researchers collected leaf, soil and root samples from poplar fields in two regions of Oregon — one in a wetter area subject to flooding and the other drier and susceptible to drought.

Details in the newly integrated dataset range from the trees’ genetic makeup and gene expression to the chemistry of the soil environment, analysis of the microbes that live on and around the trees and compounds the plants and microbes produce.

Tesla has been building Prefabricated Supercharger Units (PSUs) for at least a year at its Giga New York facility, and now the company released a video claiming it can deploy the pre-built EV fast chargers in just four days after getting them delivered to the installation site.

The company’s PSUs have up to four Supercharger stalls installed on a concrete base, with all the wiring in place and everything ready to be hooked up to the utilities. Up to three units–that’s 12 stalls in total–can be loaded onto the back of a truck with a crane and delivered to a new Supercharger location in the United States.

Chasing ever-higher qubit counts in near-term quantum computers constantly demands new feats of engineering.

Machine learning techniques may appear ill-suited for application in fields that prioritize rigor and deep understanding; however, they have recently found unexpected uses in theoretical physics and pure mathematics. In this Perspective, Gukov, Halverson and Ruehle have discussed rigorous applications of machine learning to theoretical physics and pure mathematics.

Here’s why he believes the landmark law he helped to shepherd through will change the AI sector for the better.