Lifeboat News: The Blog – Safeguarding Humanity

Earth might have hairy dark matter

Nov 23
2015

The solar system might be a lot hairier than we thought. A new study publishing this week in the Astrophysical Journal by Gary Prézeau of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, proposes the existence of long filaments of dark matter, or “hairs.”

Dark matter is an invisible, mysterious substance that makes up about 27 percent of all matter and energy in the universe. The regular matter, which makes up everything we can see around us, is only 5 percent of the universe. The rest is dark energy, a strange phenomenon associated with the acceleration of our expanding universe.

Neither dark matter nor dark energy has ever been directly detected, although many experiments are trying to unlock the mysteries of dark matter, whether from deep underground or in space.

Black hole batteries could power mysterious radio bursts

Posted by Andreas Matt in cosmology

Nov 23
2015

Just before a black hole and a neutron star collide, they may form a circuit that lights up for a few milliseconds – confirming Einstein’s theory.

Particle Accelerators Could Soon Fit In A Shoebox

Posted by Andreas Matt in computing, particle physics

Nov 23
2015

As the challenges of particle physics have become more and more complex, we’ve had to plan and build larger and larger machines to explore the tiny subatomic world. But now, an international group of physicists has developed a technology to miniaturize particle accelerators, which could revolutionize physics and the life sciences.

The team has received a $13.5 million (£9 million) grant to develop a prototype particle accelerator that will fit in a shoebox. The technology being developed is called “accelerator-on-a-chip”. Electrons are made to travel through a channel within a silica chip. Shining a laser onto the chip produces an electric field, and the field is modified by the ridges within the channel. This set-up dramatically accelerates the electrons moving through the channel.

The prototype is based on independent experiments from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California and Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) in Germany. Both teams discovered that these chips are capable of accelerating electrons to relativistic speed no matter the speed at which the electron was travelling before entering the channel. Also, the technology is capable of producing a larger acceleration gradient than current labs, which could reduce the size of particle accelerators – 100 meters (330 feet) of accelerator-on-a-chip would produce an acceleration equivalent to the 3.2-kilometer (two miles) SLAC linear accelerator, which is the longest in the world.

Get ready for CYBERPLANTS: Roses that can change colour

Posted by Klaus Baldauf in cyborgs

Nov 23
2015

Researchers in Sweden have developed fully functional cyberplants, living plants which are engineered to host analog and digital electronic circuits, and the leaves can change colors. Using the vascular system of living roses, which distributes water and nutrients, the researchers were able to build key components of electronic circuits inside of the plants.

There’s a mission to this mysterious water world that could detect the first alien life

Posted by Sean Brazell in alien life

Nov 23
2015

In February, NASA announced that it was investing in a $2 billion mission to Europa — a tiny moon of Jupiter that is one of the most likely places for life beyond Earth.

Their spacecraft, called the Europa Multi-Flyby Mission, would orbit Jupiter, taking frequent passes by Europa for a close look at its surface.

But there is another important piece of the puzzle that NASA is exploring, and in a recent conversation with US Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), Ars Technica’s senior space editor, Eric Berger, reported the details — it’s a lander and it could be the key to discovering the first extraterrestrial life.