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In a paper published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers demonstrated that the virus could infect human cells as well as the cells of cats and chickens. Even though PDCoV appears to be limited to pigs at the moment, scientists suspect that its sudden appearance in 2012 occurred as a result of a rapid “host switching” event in which the virus adapted to infect pigs, possibly from birds. It causes diarrhea and vomiting in pigs and can be fatal, especially in nursing young. The virus’s probable history, coupled with some specific aspects of how it infects cells, has scientists worried that it could become a threat to human health.

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Quantum theory is based heavily on probabilities, since measuring a quantum system doesn’t produce the same outcome every time, but instead yields one of many outcomes that each occur with a certain probability. Now in a new paper, physicists have presented a new quantum probability rule for assigning probabilities to measurement outcomes, or events, that essentially combines two of the most important quantum probability rules (the Born rule and the wave function collapse rule) into one.

The physicists, Sally Shrapnel, Fabio Costa, and Gerard Milburn, at The University of Queensland in Australia, have published a paper on the new rule in the New Journal of Physics.

One of the most important probability rules in quantum is the Born rule, which gives the probability that a measurement yields a certain event. However, things get a little bit more complicated when predicting consecutive events. Although in classical scenarios it’s possible to assign joint probabilities to consecutive events using conditioning, in quantum scenarios this is not possible since each measurement necessarily disturbs the system. So in quantum mechanics, the state must be updated with this new information after every measurement.

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Sometimes, scientists have the answers all along—they just don’t think to ask the question. For example, it appears that in 1997, the Galileo orbiter flew through a jet of water shooting out from Jupiter’s moon Europa without even trying.

Scientists think that Europa has an ocean below its icy surface, which could be a big deal. When we hear water, we think “life,” and maybe life found a way in Europa’s ocean. Recent Hubble space telescope images appeared to show evidence for this ocean in the form of plumes of water shooting forth from cracks in the moon’s surface ice. So, a team of researchers in the U.S. thought, maybe there’s more evidence for these plumes elsewhere, like in 20-year-old data from the Galileo orbiter.

“This wasn’t planned out,” study author Xianzhe Jia from the University of Michigan told Gizmodo. “It just so happened that the spacecraft passed through a region where we saw plumes. It was fortuitous.”

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According to the current dominant theory, if there are other universes out there, they’re not likely to have life. But now an international team of researchers has demonstrated that the Multiverse is more hospitable than we thought.

The Multiverse hypothesis — wherein our observable Universe is just one of many universes — is a proposed explanation for the not-large-enough amount of dark energy in the empty space in our Universe.

We don’t really know what dark energy is — it’s the name we give to the force that drives the expansion of our Universe, which, contrary to pretty much everything else we observe, accelerates over time instead of slowing down.

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Superconductors are among the most bizarre and exciting materials yet discovered. Counterintuitive quantum-mechanical effects mean that, below a critical temperature, they have zero electrical resistance. This property alone is more than enough to spark the imagination.

A current that could flow forever without losing any energy means transmission of power with virtually no losses in the cables. When renewable energy sources start to dominate the grid and high-voltage transmission across continents becomes important to overcome intermittency, lossless cables will result in substantial savings.

What’s more, a superconducting wire carrying a current that never, ever diminishes would act as a perfect store of electrical energy. Unlike batteries, which degrade over time, if the resistance is truly zero, you could return to the superconductor in a billion years and find that same old current flowing through it. Energy could be captured and stored indefinitely!

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An interview on rejuvenation science, advocacy, and more with Reason from the blog Fight Aging!.

Most people interested in rejuvenation and life extension are familiar with Fight Aging!, one of the very first rejuvenation advocacy blogs dating back all the way to the early 2000s; if you’re one of them, then you certainly are familiar with Reason, the man behind FA!.

Over the years, Reason has been a patient yet relentless advocate, acting not only as an information provider for the public but also helping out innumerable organizations and companies in the field of rejuvenation biotechnology in financial and other ways. Back in the day when SRF didn’t exist yet, Reason was a volunteer for Methuselah Foundation; eventually, he helped fund companies such as Oisìn Biotechnologies, CellAge, and LysoCLEAR; and, earlier this month, Reason and Bill Cherman co-founded Repair Biotechnologies, a company focused on gene therapy for rejuvenation, as announced on FA!.

Bill Cherman is an investor in the rejuvenation community who, just like Reason, has contributed to development of many ventures in the field. He is a holder of a gold medal in the Brazilian Mathematics Olympiad, a BA in economics, and a candidate in the Master of Biotechnology Enterprise and Entrepreneurship program at Johns Hopkins. He founded Front Seat Capital, a venture capital firm looking to invest in startups with the potential to change the world.

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