The identity of the invisible stuff that holds galaxies together has long been a mystery. Now it might have been unmasked – and it’s not what we expected.
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Category: space – Page 1,026
More on the UN’s concern on the next gen technologies.
UN Photo/Rick Bajornas
Of all the initiatives and developments in the 3D printing world, none have caused as much headaches as 3D printed guns. And regardless of where you stand on the issue of gun rights in America, it’s no secret that completely untraceable plastic guns are bringing security issues to the table. Especially law makers in the US have been scratching their heads about what to do with them. Among others, the US State Department has been trying to limit the spread of 3D printable gun designs, while a new law passed in California last month requires 3D printed guns to be registered.
But the issue of 3D printed guns transcends second amendment debates, according to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. During a speech on the global proliferation of weapons, he listed 3D printing alongside a number of technologies that can be used by terrorists and that facilitate the production of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and other biological and technological threats.
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Asteroid Redirect
Posted in space
Fantastic news! (for once)
Paris (AFP) — Scientists Wednesday announced the discovery of an Earth-sized planet orbiting the star nearest our Sun, opening up the glittering prospect of a habitable world that may one day be explored by robots.
Named Proxima b, the planet is in a “temperate” zone compatible with the presence of liquid water — a key ingredient for life.
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I am ready to go any time.
An earth-like planet has been discovered orbiting the closest star to our solar system, according to CNN.
The planet, Proxima b, “is the closest exoplanet to us in the universe.”
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CISO & CSO at many companies are certainly going to have their work cut out for them in the long-term future as more and more new tech such as 3D Printing, Synthetic Bio, etc. are adopted into companies; really brings a new level of security concerns not only in government; but also the private sector.
He pointed out that while there were international organisations to prevent the spread of nuclear and chemical weapons, there was no such agency to deal with biological weapons.
Speaking at the Council debate on weapons of mass destruction (WMD), he sought to expand its definition beyond nuclear, chemical and biological to embrace the threats arising from 21st century science, technology and globalisation.
Information and communication technologies, artificial intelligence, 3D printing and synthetic biology have the potential massive destruction, he said. “The nexus between these emerging technologies and WMD needs close examination and action.”
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In what’s being hailed as one of the biggest astronomical discoveries of the century, scientists with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) today confirmed the discovery of an Earth-like exoplanet in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri-our nearest neighboring star. Details of the team’s discovery were just published in Nature.
Rumors of a possible Earth-like exoplanet first surfaced on August 12 in the German weekly Der Spiegel. Citing an anonymous source with the La Silla Observatory research team, the magazine claimed the rumored planet “is believed to be Earth-like and orbits at a distance to Proxima Centauri that could allow it to have liquid water on its surface-an important requirement for the emergence of life.”
Now we know those rumors were true: There is clear evidence for a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, a small red dwarf star located just 4.25 light years away, slightly closer to Earth than the famous binary pair of Alpha Centauri A and B. It’s been dubbed Proxima b, and the ESO team pegs its mass as being roughly 1.3 times that of Earth.
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Although this is true (speed of communication via entanglement is not at the speed of light); like other early stage technologies this will also evolve and improve in time.
China recently launched a satellite to test quantum entanglement in space. It’s an interesting experiment that could lead to “hack proof” satellite communication. It’s also led to a flurry of articles claiming that quantum entanglement allows particles to communicate faster than light. Several science bloggers have noted why this is wrong, but it’s worth emphasizing again. Quantum entanglement does not allow faster than light communication.
This particular misconception is grounded in the way quantum theory is typically popularized. Quantum objects can be both particles and waves, They have a wavefunction that describes the probability of certain outcomes, and when you measure the object it “collapses” into a particular particle state. Unfortunately this Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory glosses over much of the subtlety of quantum behavior, so when it’s applied to entanglement it seems a bit contradictory.
The most popular example of entanglement is known as the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) experiment. Take a system of two objects, such as photons such that their sum has a specific known outcome. Usually this is presented as their polarization or spin, such that the total must be zero. If one photon is measured to be in a +1 state, the other must be in a −1 state. Since the outcome of one photon affects the outcome of the other, the two are said to be entangled. Under the Copenhagen view, if the entangled photons are separated by a great distance (in principle, even light years apart) when you measure the state of one photon you immediately know the state of the other. In order for the wavefunction to collapse instantly the two particles must communicate faster than light, right? A popular counter-argument is that while the wavefunction does collapse faster than light (that is, it’s nonlocal) it can’t be used to send messages faster than light because the outcome is statistical.
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Astronomers have today confirmed the existence of a planet orbiting the sun’s nearest neighbour, Proxima Centauri, which has the potential to host liquid water, and therefore life.
The exoplanet in question, Proxima b, is thought to be the Earth’s closest potentially habitable neighbour, making this discovery a major landmark in humanity’s exploration of the universe.
“We’ve found an exoplanet orbiting Proxima Centauri. It’s the nearest exoplanet we will ever find, because it’s the nearest star to the Sun, and we are very excited about it,” explained a delighted Dr Guillem Anglada-Escudé, from the School of Physics and Astronomy, Queen Mary, University of London, who participated in the epic research project.
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