Lifeboat Foundation

A mission more than a decade in the making, NASA’s Europa Clipper is slated to greatly expand our understanding of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, including whether it could support life. These findings will be conducted by a suite of powerful instruments contributed by a myriad of academic and research institutions across the United States. Recently, NASA JPL finished installing all these instruments on the pioneering spacecraft, bringing it one major step closer to its launch, which is currently scheduled for October of this year.

“The instruments work together hand in hand to answer our most pressing questions about Europa,” said Dr. Robert Pappalardo, who is the project scientist on Europa Clipper. “We will learn what makes Europa tick, from its core and rocky interior to its ocean and ice shell to its very thin atmosphere and the surrounding space environment.”

The nine instruments that will be responsible for accomplishing the fantastic science during the mission include the Europa Imaging System (EIS), Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System (E-THEMIS), Europa Ultraviolet Spectrograph (Europa-UVS), Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE), Europa Clipper Magnetometer (ECM), Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding (PIMS), Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface (REASON), MAss Spectrometer for Planetary EXploration/Europa (MASPEX), SUrface Dust Analyzer (SUDA).

A breakthrough plasmonic catalyst, stable in air, revolutionizes acetylene semi-hydrogenation, marking a significant advance in sustainable catalysis.

In a significant breakthrough, Prof. Polshettiwar’s group at TIFR, Mumbai has developed a novel “Plasmonic Reduction Catalyst Stable in Air,” defying the common instability of reduction catalysts in the presence of air. The catalyst merges platinum-doped ruthenium clusters, with ‘plasmonic black gold’. This black gold efficiently harvests visible light and generates numerous hot spots due to plasmonic coupling, enhancing its catalytic performance.

Superior Performance in Semi-Hydrogenation.

Window to the soul? Maybe, but the eyes are also a flashing neon sign for a new artificial intelligence-based system that can read them to predict what you’ll do next.

A University of Maryland researcher and two colleagues have used eye-tracking technology and a new deep-learning AI algorithm to predict study participants’ choices while they viewed a comparison website with rows and columns of products and their features.

The algorithm, known as RETINA (Raw Eye Tracking and Image Ncoder Architecture), could accurately zero in on selections before people had even made their decisions.

“Connectomes” among species provide chip-design inspiration.

New telescope detects more sources in six months than in the 60-year history of X-ray astronomy.

New nanocavities pave the way for enhanced nanoscale lasers and LEDs that could enable faster data transmission using smaller, more energy-efficient devices.

As we transition to a new era in computing, there is a need for new devices that integrate electronic and photonic functionalities at the nanoscale while enhancing the interaction between photons and electrons. In an important step toward fulfilling this need, researchers have developed a new III-V semiconductor nanocavity that confines light at levels below the so-called diffraction limit.

“Nanocavities with ultrasmall mode volumes hold great promise for improving a wide range of photonic devices and technologies, from lasers and LEDs to quantum communication and sensing, while also opening up possibilities in emerging fields such as quantum computing,” said the leading author Meng Xiong from the Technical University of Denmark. “For example, light sources based on these nanocavities could significantly improve communication by enabling faster data transmission and strongly reduced energy consumption.

Tencent releases

Real-Time Open-Vocabulary Object Detection

Discover amazing ML apps made by the community.

GeoMindGPT, a customized version of ChatGPT, powered by GPT-4, is p ioneering the frontier of AI-assisted understanding of complex scientific and philosophical concepts with a special focus on Global Superintelligence, Technological Singularity, Transhumanism & Posthumanism, Consciousness Studies, Quantum Gravity, Simulation Metaphysics.

A unique photograph of the Milky Way galaxy was captured using the IceCube detector, which observes high-energy neutrinos from space.