Lifeboat Foundation

Initial reports said the space station spun 45 degrees. The actual figure is far scarier.

The jewels of the microbial world, when seen with new nano-scale imaging techniques, look like little modernist cathedrals.

Using a technique called optogenetics, researchers added light-sensitive proteins to the man’s retina, giving him a blurry view of objects.

Polymer semiconductors—materials that have been made soft and stretchy but still able to conduct electricity—hold promise for future electronics that can be integrated within the body, including disease detectors and health monitors.

Yet until now, scientists and engineers have been unable to give these polymers certain advanced features, like the ability to sense biochemicals, without disrupting their functionality altogether.

Researchers at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) have developed a new strategy to overcome that limitation. Called “click-to-polymer” or CLIP, this approach uses a chemical reaction to attach new functional units onto polymer semiconductors.

The skies of Venus may contain signatures of alien life, according to scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In the search for alien life, the second planet from our Sun has long been ignored. It’s easy to see why: the Venusian surface reaches temperatures exceeding 800 degrees Fahrenheit; its dense atmosphere applies nearly 100 times more pressure to objects than Earth’s atmosphere; and the planet rains sulfuric acid, a corrosive chemical that causes severe burns to humans.

As such, most scientists have focused on finding signs of ancient alien life on Mars, or current life on moons like Europa or Enceladus. But Earth’s closest neighbor might have been the place to look all along.

Mathematicians have proved that a geometric object called the Fargues-Fontaine curve can connect arithmetic and geometry. The work is a major advance in one of the most ambitious projects in mathematics.

The grandest project in mathematics has received a rare gift, in the form of a mammoth 350-page paper posted in February that will change the way researchers around the world investigate some of the field’s deepest questions. The work fashions a new geometric object that fulfills a bold, once fanciful dream about the relationship between geometry and numbers.

Continue reading “New Shape Opens ‘Wormhole’ Between Numbers and Geometry” »

An Australian mathematician has discovered what may be the oldest known example of applied geometry, on a 3700-year-old Babylonian clay tablet.

Known as Si.427, the tablet bears a field plan measuring the boundaries of some land.

Chinese upstart companies and IT goliaths hope to turn country’s artificial intelligence prowess into world-leading drug innovation. Do they have an edge over Western players?

The use of Artificial Intelligence in warfare has ballooned, and the United States wants to use it to crack the data received from globally deployed sensors.