Lifeboat Foundation

The most accurate distance measurement yet of ultra-diffuse galaxy (UDG) NGC1052-DF2 (DF2) confirms beyond any shadow of a doubt that it is lacking in dark matter. The newly measured distance of 22.1 +/-1.2 megaparsecs was obtained by an international team of researchers led by Zili Shen and Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University and Shany Danieli, a NASA Hubble Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study.

“Determining an accurate distance to DF2 has been key in supporting our earlier results,” stated Danieli. “The new measurement reported in this study has crucial implications for estimating the physical properties of the galaxy, thus confirming its lack of dark matter.”

The results, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters on June 9, 2021, are based on 40 orbits of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, with imaging by the Advanced Camera for Surveys and a “tip of the red giant branch” (TRGB) analysis, the gold standard for such refined measurements. In 2019, the team published results measuring the distance to neighboring UDG NGC1052-DF4 (DF4) based on 12 Hubble orbits and TRGB analysis, which provided compelling evidence of missing dark matter. This preferred method expands on the team’s 2018 studies that relied on “surface brightness fluctuations” to gauge distance. Both galaxies were discovered with the Dragonfly Telephoto Array at the New Mexico Skies observatory.

The most detailed observations of some of the most distant galaxies we have ever seen have revealed the timing of cosmic dawn, when the first stars began to shine.

Mesenchymal stem cells derived from adipose tissue appear to reverse some effects of aging in nearby somatic cells.

A new study published in the FASEB Journal shows how mesenchymal stem cells derived from adipose tissue (ADSCs) reverse some effects of aging in nearby cells.

It’s not the cells themselves, it’s what they secrete

Continue reading “How Stem Cells Promote the Health of Nearby Cells” »

The 2021 Space Renaissance Congress is going to kick-off today, June 26th, at 13:45 UTC!

5 days of intense discussion on the best strategy to bootstrap the Civilian Space Development before 2025.

Continue reading “SRIC3 Youtube LiveStream Sessions Space Renaissance” »

Exercise and supplements are both great, but if you are constantly feeding your system with home made stimulants that your body produces, you may be fighting an uphill battle. I experienced just that recently, I seemed to be forever on one social media platform or another constantly, under the excuse of promoting my videos, and it really took its toll. So, I just had a few weeks off, reading, exercising, relaxing outside, when the sun was out that is, and going for walks in nature…and now it is your turn. In Attention Span Is Decreasing, I look at how our modern lifestyles, with all their trappings and perks, can have the opposite effect to the one we are after, and how you can start to take back control. Mute alerts, use the flight mode, stick it in a drawer and embrace the 20−5−3 rule, to live not just longer, but happier, and healthier, both in body and mind, because they are inextricably linked. And if you want to know it all in a bit more depth, check out this video on my channel.

In Attention Span Is Decreasing, we will learn how our modern lifestyles, with all their trappings and perks, can have the opposite effect to the one we are…

SpaceX prepared for its first all-civilian flight and completed a mission for the U.S. Space Force the week of June 17–23, while scientists made surprising discoveries about insects and animals on Earth.

SpaceX’s Inspiration4 all-commercial crew remains in training for its flight in September, and discoveries from deep space and Earth’s ancient past abound this week.

Great new episode with former Fermilab physicist Gerald Jackson who chats about antimatter propulsion and the politics of advanced propulsion research. This one is out a bit later in the week than normal, but please listen. Good stuff.

Guest Gerald Jackson, former Fermilab physicist and advanced propulsion entrepreneur chats about his plans for an Antimatter Propulsion interstellar robotic probe. First stop would be Proxima Centauri. In a wide-ranging interview, Jackson talks about the politics and pitfalls of advance propulsion research. Too many people seem to think antimatter is something that is still science fiction. It’s not. It’s as real as the chair you’re sitting on.

The artificial intelligence revolution is just getting started. But it is already transforming conflict. Militaries all the way from the superpowers to tiny states are seizing on autonomous weapons as essential to surviving the wars of the future. But this mounting arms-race dynamic could lead the world to dangerous places, with algorithms interacting so fast that they are beyond human control. Uncontrolled escalation, even wars that erupt without any human input at all.

DW maps out the future of autonomous warfare, based on conflicts we have already seen – and predictions from experts of what will come next.

Continue reading “How AI is driving a future of autonomous warfare | DW Analysis” »

In fall of 2019, we demonstrated that the Sycamore quantum processor could outperform the most powerful classical computers when applied to a tailor-made problem. The next challenge is to extend this result to solve practical problems in materials science, chemistry and physics. But going beyond the capabilities of classical computers for these problems is challenging and will require new insights to achieve state-of-the-art accuracy. Generally, the difficulty in performing quantum simulations of such physical problems is rooted in the wave nature of quantum particles, where deviations in the initial setup, interference from the environment, or small errors in the calculations can lead to large deviations in the computational result.

In two upcoming publications, we outline a blueprint for achieving record levels of precision for the task of simulating quantum materials. In the first work, we consider one-dimensional systems, like thin wires, and demonstrate how to accurately compute electronic properties, such as current and conductance. In the second work, we show how to map the Fermi-Hubbard model, which describes interacting electrons, to a quantum processor in order to simulate important physical properties. These works take a significant step towards realizing our long-term goal of simulating more complex systems with practical applications, like batteries and pharmaceuticals.