Lifeboat Foundation

An international team of researchers has demonstrated an innovative technique for increasing the intensity of lasers.

In a paper that made the cover of the journal Applied Physics Letters, an international team of researchers has demonstrated an innovative technique for increasing the intensity of lasers. This approach, based on the compression of light pulses, would make it possible to reach a threshold intensity for a new type of physics that has never been explored before: quantum electrodynamics phenomena.

Researchers Jean-Claude Kieffer of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), E. A. Khazanov of the Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences and in France Gérard Mourou, Professor Emeritus of the Ecole Polytechnique, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, have chosen another direction to achieve a power of around 10²³ Watts (W). Rather than increasing the energy of the laser, they decrease the pulse duration to only a few femtoseconds. This would keep the system within a reasonable size and keep operating costs down.

In a development that could finally shed light on dark matter, an international team of scientists have detected neutral hydrogen atoms, from a galaxy other than our own, for the very first time.

The finding came thanks to the enormous Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), which sits in a hilly, green natural basin in southwest China’s Guizhou Province.

The researchers detected the hydrogen coming from three extragalactic galaxies with only five minutes of exposure, a feat that demonstrates the exceptional sensitivity of the telescope. It is the first time neutral hydrogen from outside the Milky Way has been detected.

Rosenbauer has looked to Volvo for a heavy-duty battery-electric powertrain to suit emergency duty—although there’s still a diesel engine on board.

When humans leave Earth to explore planets like Mars and other hostile environments in outer space, they’ll need to supply their own breathable oxygen.

But as Michael Gazarik, associate administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, says, “You just can’t bring all the air with you.”

Scientists at the University of Tsukuba use computer calculations to propose a new way to rearrange the carbon atoms in a diamond to make it even harder, which may be useful in industrial applications that rely on synthetic cutting diamonds.

Researchers at the University of Tsukuba used computer calculations to design a new carbon-based material even harder than diamond. This structure, dubbed “pentadiamond” by its creators, may be useful for replacing current synthetic diamonds in difficult cutting manufacturing tasks.

Diamonds, which are made entirely of carbon atoms arranged in a dense lattice, are famous for their unmatched hardness among known materials. However, carbon can form many other stable configurations, called allotropes. These include the familiar graphite in pencil lead, as well as nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes. The mechanical properties, including hardness, of an allotrope depend mostly on the way its atoms bond with each other. In conventional diamonds, each carbon atom forms a covalent bond with four neighbors. Chemists call carbon atoms like this as having sp³ hybridization. In nanotubes and some other materials, each carbon forms three bonds, called sp² hybridization.

The weather forecast looks mostly favorable for the Space Coast’s next launch, a mission slated to see a 230-foot SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket take flight from Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday.

Conditions are shaping up to be 70% “go” for the 11:59 a.m. liftoff from pad 39A, the Space Force said Sunday, thanks to the movement of drier air. Teams will have until 12:05 p.m. to launch.

“On Wednesday, some drier mid-level air will likely move into the area, helping to limit shower and storm coverage compared to earlier in the week,” the 45th Weather Squadron said. “The primary concern for the launch window is the cumulus cloud rule.”

Via Modobag.

NASA is bringing the smell of space to Earth with a new fragrance called Eau de Space. The fragrance was developed by chemist Steve Pearce, who was contracted by NASA in 2008 to recreate the scent of space.

With his knowledge of flavor and fragrance chemistry, Pearce used astronauts’ descriptions of the smell of space to come up with combinations to match what was described as “ozone, hot metal, and fried steak,” CNN reports.

“It’s a bitter kind of smell in addition to being smoky and burned, kind of like a smell from a gun, right after you fire the shot,” astronaut Peggy Whitson told CNN. Eau de Space product manager, Matt Richmond, said he has struggled to accurately describe the fragrance’s scent, adding that astronauts have also likened the smell to “a mix of gunpowder, seared steak, raspberries, and rum.”

A better deal than any supernaturalist religion can offer; that seems to me what Julian Huxley intended. Some relief from fear of death. Morality self judged and perhaps situational – but not ethical codes forced on you by an imaginary invisible bullying tyrant(s) or a human calling upon His name…

A lot – possibly most- individuals on trans/ singul/ posthuman lists are drawn to radical futurism for specific reasons of extending life and attaining immortality (continuation of awareness) after physical death by technology. Different groups are working on different projects, but posthuman.org is concentrating on MVT analog circuits with Zenet interface. This is much less ambitious than approaches involving whole brain/ personality/ memory preservation, since there is only need to retain signals relating to game decision making. But who wants to be particularly aware of being dead?