Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 10

A team of physicists at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, in Menlo Park, California, generated the highest-current, highest-peak-power electron beams ever produced. The team has published their paper in Physical Review Letters.

For many years, scientists have been finding new uses for high-powered laser light, from splitting atoms to mimicking conditions inside other planets. For this new study, the research team upped the power of electron beams, giving them some of the same capabilities.

The idea behind the newer, more powerful beams was pretty simple, the team acknowledges; it was figuring out how to make it happen that was difficult. The basic idea is to pack as much charge as possible into the shortest amount of time. In their work, they generated 100 kiloamps of current for just one quadrillionth of a second.

Read more | >

Vanishing atoms can ruin quantum calculations. Scientists have a new plan to locate leaks.

Quantum computers face a major challenge: atoms, which serve as their qubits, can vanish without warning, corrupting calculations. Researchers have developed a groundbreaking method to detect this problem in neutral-atom quantum systems without disrupting their state. This discovery helps overcome a key hurdle in making quantum computing.

Performing computation using quantum-mechanical phenomena such as superposition and entanglement.

Read more | >

Using lattice quantum chromodynamics, researchers have created what is likely the smallest force field map ever generated. Their findings reveal astonishingly powerful interactions, akin to the weight of 10 elephants squeezed into a space smaller than an atomic nucleus.

Mapping the Forces Inside a Proton

Scientists have successfully mapped the forces inside a proton, revealing in unprecedented detail how quarks—the tiny particles within—react when struck by high-energy photons.

Read more | >

For years, scientists were baffled by a peculiar problem: why do platinum electrodes, usually stable, corrode so quickly in electrochemical devices? A collaboration between SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Leiden University cracked the case by using cutting-edge X-ray techniques.

They found that platinum hydrides, not sodium ions as once suspected, were responsible for the degradation. This discovery could revolutionize hydrogen production and electrochemical sensor durability, potentially slashing costs and improving efficiency.

Unraveling a Costly Mystery.

Read more | >

In the Milky Way’s central bulge, about 24,000 light-years from Earth, a peculiar pair of objects appears to be hurtling through space at breakneck speed.

Evidence suggests these objects are a high-velocity star and its accompanying exoplanet, a new study reports. If that’s confirmed, it would set a new record as the fastest-moving exoplanet system known to science.

Stars are on the move throughout the Milky Way, typically at a few hundred thousand miles per hour. Our Solar System’s average velocity through the galaxy’s Orion Arm is 450,000 miles per hour, or 200 kilometers per second.

Read more | >

In 1974, science fiction author Larry Niven wrote a murder mystery with an interesting premise: could you kill a man with a tiny black hole?

I won’t spoil the story, though I’m willing to bet most people would argue the answer is clearly yes. Intense gravity, tidal forces, and the event horizon would surely lead to a messy end.

But it turns out the scientific answer is a bit more interesting.

Read more | >

Summary: A new international study reveals that schizophrenia manifests differently in the brain, reflecting the wide range of symptoms among patients. Researchers analyzed imaging data from over 6,000 individuals and found that while some brain structures vary significantly, others remain highly uniform.

Brain folding patterns in the mid-frontal region were consistently similar across patients, suggesting a less flexible developmental process in early childhood. These findings highlight the need for precision medicine approaches tailored to each patient’s neurobiological profile.

Read more | >

Summary: A new study reveals how prenatal infections followed by early-life stress—known as “two-hit stress”—can lead to brain dysfunction and psychiatric-like behaviors. Researchers found that affected mice showed abnormal cerebellar activity, increased microglial turnover, and impaired brain-wide connectivity.

Notably, microglia replacement therapy successfully reversed these effects, offering a potential new approach for mental health treatments. The findings suggest that sex differences may influence stress resilience, highlighting the need for personalized treatments for psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.

Read more | >