Lifeboat Foundation

A radical research program in deep design.

Scientists have accidentally discovered a particle that has mass when it’s traveling in one direction, but no mass while traveling in a different direction. Known as semi-Dirac fermions, particles with this bizarre behavior were first predicted 16 years ago.

The discovery was made in a semi-metal material called ZrSiS, made up of zirconium, silicon and sulfur, while studying the properties of quasiparticles. These emerge from the collective behavior of many particles within a solid material.

“This was totally unexpected,” said Yinming Shao, lead author on the study. “We weren’t even looking for a semi-Dirac fermion when we started working with this material, but we were seeing signatures we didn’t understand – and it turns out we had made the first observation of these wild quasiparticles that sometimes move like they have mass and sometimes move like they have none.”

Researchers show that large language models exhibit social identity biases similar to humans, having favoritism toward ingroups and hostility toward outgroups. These biases persist across models, training data and real-world human–LLM conversations.

Researchers say they’ve discovered a new class of magnetism called ‘Altermagnetism,’ which could revolutionize digital devices.

Resting and activated T cell states are established by context-specific regulators and dynamic gene circuits.

Diamonds aren’t quite forever… but they’re damn close.

Real life modern Frankenstein.

World-leading scientists have called for a halt on research to create “mirror life” microbes amid concerns that the synthetic organisms would present an “unprecedented risk” to life on Earth.

The international group of Nobel laureates and other experts warn that mirror bacteria, constructed from mirror images of molecules found in nature, could become established in the environment and slip past the immune defences of natural organisms, putting humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections.

Continue reading “‘Unprecedented risk’ to life on Earth: Scientists call for halt on ‘mirror life’ microbe research” »

China has reached a new milestone in quantum computing with the development of Tianyan-504, a powerful 504-qubit quantum computer.

The Tianyan-504 quantum computer was developed through collaboration between the China Telecom Quantum Group (CTQG), the Center for Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and QuantumCTek, a quantum technology company based in Anhui Province.

Continue reading “China develops record-breaking 504-qubit quantum computer Tianyan-504” »

Photosynthesis is one of the most efficient natural processes for converting light energy from the sun into chemical energy vital for life on earth. Proteins called photosystems are critical to this process and are responsible for the conversion of light energy to chemical energy.

Combining one kind of these proteins, called photosystem I (PSI), with platinum nanoparticles, microscopic particles that can perform a chemical reaction that produces hydrogen — a valuable clean energy source — creates a biohybrid catalyst. That is, the light absorbed by PSI drives hydrogen production by the platinum nanoparticle.

In a recent breakthrough, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and Yale University have determined the structure of the PSI biohybrid solar fuel catalyst. Building on more than 13 years of research pioneered at Argonne, the team reports the first high-resolution view of a biohybrid structure, using an electron microscopy method called cryo-EM. With structural information in hand, this advancement opens the door for researchers to develop biohybrid solar fuel systems with improved performance, which would provide a sustainable alternative to traditional energy sources.

Continue reading “Unveiling the structure of a photosynthetic catalyst that turns light into hydrogen fuel” »