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Dec 25, 2020

How ‘spooky’ is quantum physics? The answer could be incalculable

Posted by in categories: information science, mathematics, quantum physics

Proof at the nexus of pure mathematics and algorithms puts ‘quantum weirdness’ on a whole new level.

Dec 25, 2020

New Mineral Discovered in United Kingdom: Kernowite

Posted by in category: futurism

Kernowite is a new mineral that has been found only in an old specimen collected at a single location in Cornwall, UK.

It became part of the Natural History Museum, London’s geological collections in 1964.

Dec 25, 2020

DeepMind’s New AI Masters Games Without Even Being Taught the Rules

Posted by in categories: media & arts, robotics/AI

It’s the next step toward self-directed learning about the real world. Cue the shark music.

Dec 25, 2020

New Experiment Reveals How Light Can Push Things Around

Posted by in categories: electronics, particle physics

O,.o Circa 2018


Light might have no mass, but it can still push things around. This is known as radiation pressure. Light particles (photons) carry a momentum with them, but how this momentum is transferred is not exactly clear. However, new research has come up with a way to actually study these interactions between light and matter.

An international team constructed a very special experiment to study the momentum of light. Photons carry a tiny momentum and their effect can only be studied cumulatively. Still, there were no devices sensitive enough to measure the effect. This is why it has been so difficult to study how radiation pressure is converted into force or movement.

Continue reading “New Experiment Reveals How Light Can Push Things Around” »

Dec 25, 2020

Scientists Invent a Flexible Device That Converts Wi-Fi Signals Into Electricity

Posted by in categories: energy, internet

We can probably all agree that charging cables are just the worst, and that we’d love to have fewer of them in our lives. Now, a new invention might give us just that: engineers have developed a flexible device that harvests energy from Wi-Fi signals.

And not just harvest. It can then convert it into electricity that could be used to power devices, wire-and battery-free.

The device is what is known as a rectenna — a portmanteau of ‘rectifying antenna’ — which is a type of antenna that converts electromagnetic energy into direct current (DC).

Dec 25, 2020

Soon We Can All Join Paul Rudd in Mastering Quantum Chess

Posted by in categories: internet, quantum physics

Last week the Internet learned that “Anyone Can Quantum,” when actor Paul Rudd faced off against Stephen Hawking in a game of quantum chess. The 12-minute video has racked up more than 1.5 million views, with Fast Company declaring it one of the best ads of the week. And soon we’ll all be mastering the rules of the subatomic realm, with today’s launch of a Kickstarter campaign to create a commercial version of quantum chess.

Dec 25, 2020

Suspicions grow that nanoparticles in Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine trigger rare allergic reactions

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, nanotechnology

Severe allergy-like reactions in at least eight people who received the COVID-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech (and Moderna now) over the past 2 weeks may be due to a compound in the packaging of the messenger RNA (mRNA) that forms the vaccine’s main ingredient, scientists say. A similar mRNA vaccine developed by Moderna, which was authorized for emergency use in the United States on Friday, also contains the compound, polyethylene glycol (PEG) PEG has never been used before in an approved vaccine, but it is found in many drugs that have occasionally triggered anaphylaxis—a potentially life-threatening reaction that can cause rashes, a plummeting blood pressure, shortness of breath, and a fast heartbeat. Some allergists and immunologists believe a small number of people previously exposed to PEG may have high levels of antibodies against PEG, putting them at risk of an anaphylactic reaction to the vaccine.


Life-threatening responses seen in at least eight people could be linked to polyethylene glycol, known to trigger reactions to some drugs.

Dec 25, 2020

Consciousness: Redefining the Mind-Body Problem

Posted by in categories: neuroscience, physics

Consciousness is fundamental, pre-exists our Universe and manifests in everything that we think of as real. A brain, as important as it seems, is nothing more than the way that non-local consciousness operates at an “avatar” level during a lifetime. The evidence that all of this is true is consistent and overwhelming. But mainstream science is still bound by the centuries-old “materialist dogma” and stuck with the “hard problem” of consciousness. ​If we assume that consciousness doesn’t arise from the brain activity, as some neuroscientists still presume to be true, where does it come from? #consciousness #mind #self #theology #physics


Discussion of the hard problem of consciousness with certain solutions in phenomenology, possibilities of mind-uploading and implications…

Dec 25, 2020

MIT’s quantum entangled atomic clock could still be ticking after billions of years

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

Famous medieval poet and author Geoffrey Chaucer once wrote that “‘time and tide wait for no man,” and that certainly rings true whether you’ve still got a ’90s Swatch watch strapped to your wrist, your name is Doc Brown, or you’re a brilliant scientist working on the latest atomic clock design — which employs lasers to trap and measure oscillations of quantum entangled atoms to maintain precise timekeeping.

The official time for the United States is set at the atomic clock located at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, where this Cesium Fountain Atomic Clock remains accurate to within one second every 300 million years. Its cesium-133 atom vibrates exactly 9, 192, 631, 770 times per second, a permanent statistic that has officially measured one second since the machine’s inception and operational rollout back in 1968.

Dec 25, 2020

600-Year-Old Starlight Bolsters Einstein’s ‘Spooky Action at a Distance’

Posted by in category: quantum physics

In an effort to strengthen experiments that examine quantum entanglement — also known as spooky action at a distance — a group of researchers used centuries-old starlight.