Lifeboat Foundation

New research into a very weird type of ice known as Ice VII has revealed how it can form at speeds over 1,000 miles per hour (1,610 kilometres per hour), and how it might be able to spread across yet-to-be-explored alien worlds.

This ice type was only discovered occurring naturally in March, trapped inside diamonds deep underground, and this latest study looks in detail at how exactly it takes shape – apparently in a way that’s completely different to how water usually freezes into ice.

Based on a mathematical model devised by researchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, there’s a certain pressure threshold across which Ice VII will spread with lightning speed. This process of near-instantaneous transformation is known as homogeneous nucleation.

Continue reading “This Bizarre Form of Ice Grows at Over 1,000 mph, And Now Physicists Know How” »

Physicists detail how “Ice VII” forms for the first time and what this means for life elsewhere in the galaxy.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell, astrophysicist extraordinaire who helped discover radio pulsars while a graduate student in 1967 (though only her adviser was recognized when the discovery snagged a Nobel Prize in physics in 1974), is getting long-overdue recognition.

Bell Burnell, now a visiting professor of astrophysics at the University of Oxford and chancellor of Scotland’s University of Dundee, was awarded the weighty Breakthrough Prize in physics in September for her pulsar discovery and science leadership.

Continue reading “Robbed of Nobel, Female Physicist Blazed Her Own Amazing Trail: Watch Her Speak Tonight” »

This discovery not only opened up an exciting new field of research, but has opened the door to many intriguing possibilities. One such possibility, according to a new study by a team of Russian scientists, is that gravitational waves could be used to transmit information. In much the same way as electromagnetic waves are used to communicate via antennas and satellites, the future of communications could be gravitationally-based.

The study, which recently appeared in the scientific journal Classical and Quantum Gravity, was led by Olga Babourova, a professor at the Moscow Pedagogical State University (MPSU), and included members from Moscow Automobile and Road Construction State Technical University (MADI) and the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN).

Continue reading “It Could be Possible to Transfer Data Through Gravitational Waves” »

Scientists believe they’ve discovered a new method to pin down just how fast our universe is expanding over time.

In a new study, a team of researchers from the University of Chicago found that studying the gravitational waves emitted by cosmic collisions could lead to more resolute predictions about how quickly the universe is expanding.

Continue reading “Gravitational waves could reveal how fast the universe is expanding” »

The dandelion is to gardeners a common, pesky weed. But its seeds have a unique approach to flight that physicists have never seen before and could inform design.

According to Einstein’s General Relativity, gravity travels at the speed of light. Proving it is far from simple, though: unlike light, gravity can’t simply be switched on and off, and is also extremely weak.

Over the years, various attempts have been made to measure the speed using studies of astronomical phenomena, such as the time delay of light as it passes through the huge gravitational field of Jupiter. While the results have been broadly in line with Einstein’s prediction, they’ve lacked the precision needed for compelling evidence. That’s now been provided by the celebrated detection of gravitational waves. Analysis of the signals picked up by the two giant LIGO instruments in the US has confirmed that gravity does indeed travel through space at the speed of light.

Maybe they’re not alien doppelgangers — mirror images of us.

But extraterrestrial life—should it exist—might look “eerily similar to the life we see on Earth,” says Charles Cockell, professor of astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Indeed, Cockell’s new book (The Equations of Life: How Physics Shapes Evolution, Basic Books, 352 pages) suggests a “universal biology.” Alien adaptations, significantly resembling terrestrial life—from humanoids to hummingbirds—may have emerged on billions of worlds.

Continue reading “Extraterrestrials Might Look Like Us, Says Astrobiologist” »

On October 16, 2017, an international group of astronomers and physicists excitedly reported the first simultaneous detection of light and gravitational waves from the same source—a merger of two neutron stars. Now, a team that includes several University of Maryland astronomers has identified a direct relative of that historic event.