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Scientists claim to have found a portal to the fifth dimension

In a new study, scientists say they can explain dark matter by positing a particle that links to a fifth dimension.

(Updated version of the previous article.)

While the “warped extra dimension” (WED) is a trademark of a popular physics model first introduced in 1999, this research, published in The European Physical Journal C, is the first to cohesively use the theory to explain the long-lasting dark matter problem within particle physics.

New measurements of galaxy rotation lean toward modified gravity as an explanation for dark matter

Although dark matter is a central part of the standard cosmological model, it’s not without its issues. There continue to be nagging mysteries about the stuff, not the least of which is the fact that scientists have found no direct particle evidence of it.

Despite numerous searches, we have yet to detect . So some astronomers favor an alternative, such as modified Newtonian dynamics (MoND) or modified . And a new study of galactic rotation seems to support them.

The idea of MoND was inspired by galactic rotation. Most of the visible matter in a galaxy is clustered in the middle, so you’d expect that stars closer to the center would have faster orbital speeds than stars farther away, similar to the planets of our solar system. What we observe is that stars in a galaxy all rotate at about the same speed. The rotation curve is essentially flat rather than dropping off. The dark matter solution is that galaxies are surrounded by a halo of invisible matter, but in 1983 Mordehai Milgrom argued that our gravitational model must be wrong.

How China is building a parallel generative AI universe

Chinese tech companies rush to match Stable Diffusion and DALL-E 2, but roadblocks lie ahead.

The gigantic technological.


The gigantic technological leap that machine learning models have shown in the last few months is getting everyone excited about the future of AI — but also nervous about its uncomfortable consequences. After text-to-image tools from Stability AI and OpenAI became the talk of the town, ChatGPT’s ability to hold intelligent conversations is the new obsession in sectors across the board.

In China, where the tech community has always watched progress in the West closely, entrepreneurs, researchers, and investors are looking for ways to make their dent in the generative AI space. Tech firms are devising tools built on open source models to attract consumer and enterprise customers. Individuals are cashing in on AI-generated content. Regulators have responded quickly to define how text, image, and video synthesis should be used. Meanwhile, U.S. tech sanctions are raising concerns about China’s ability to keep up with AI advancement.

As generative AI takes the world by storm towards the end of 2022, let’s take a look at how this explosive technology is shaking out in China.

First results from LHAASO place tighter constraints on dark matter’s lifetime

Scientists from the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) have presented roughly 1.5 years of observational data, calculating new limits on the lifetime of heavy dark matter particles that have masses between 105 and 109 giga-electron volts.

The study, titled “Constraints on heavy decaying dark matter from 570 days of LHAASO observations,” was recently published in Physics Review Letters.

The gravitational model of the Milky Way shows that there is a very high density of dark matter in the galactic center, and the gamma rays produced by the decay of this dark matter will radiate from the to the surroundings for hundreds of light-years or even thousands of light-years. However, for a long time, the observation of ultra-high-energy gamma rays produced by heavy dark matter has been complicated by the presence of other background radiation.

Scientists have recreated the first matter of the universe

What were the first moments of the Universe like? It’s a mystery that scientists have been trying to unravel for decades. The ALICE collaboration at CERN is a specialist in the subject: this detector (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) was designed to study quark-gluon plasma, a phase of matter that would have existed just after the Big Bang. And the team recently succeeded in recreating and characterizing this very first hypothetical material, using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

A Dune-inspired spacecraft could finally reveal what dark matter is made of

Instead, this nimble satellite will punch hugely above its weight and try to track down one of the most elusive and mysterious substances in the universe: dark matter. This is the term given to the hypothetical invisible matter that is thought to be more abundant than normal matter and has a similar gravitational effect on its surroundings.

The mission is classified as fast (F), which means it is smaller, more focused, and has a quicker turnaround (less than 10 years to launch) than other types of ESA missions. The agency’s previous F-mission, selected in 2019, is called the Comet Interceptor. Already parked at a stable point in the Solar System, this probe is waiting for a comet to show up and fly by it, something that’s due to happen around the time that Arrakhis launches in the early 2030s.

Since dark matter still eludes detection, the mission will target sources of light that are sensitive to it. We expect normal matter — the stuff that actually emits light, such as stars in galaxies — to move primarily under the influence of dark matter, which is more abundant.

NASA Telescopes Reveal Black Hole Tearing Apart Star

Observations from NASA reveal how complex and catastrophic an event it can be when a star gets too close to a black hole, CBS News reported on Wednesday.

Such an event does not occur in a single moment but, according to NASA, can take several months as the black hole’s gravity slowly sucks in the star’s being.

The latest such observation, which took place over a period of more than five months, was watched by multiple telescopes, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported.