Lifeboat Foundation

Unless you’re a physicist or an engineer, there really isn’t much reason for you to know about partial differential equations. I know. After years of poring over them in undergrad while studying mechanical engineering, I’ve never used them since in the real world.

But partial differential equations, or PDEs, are also kind of magical. They’re a category of math equations that are really good at describing change over space and time, and thus very handy for describing the physical phenomena in our universe. They can be used to model everything from planetary orbits to plate tectonics to the air turbulence that disturbs a flight, which in turn allows us to do practical things like predict seismic activity and design safe planes.

The catch is PDEs are notoriously hard to solve. And here, the meaning of “solve” is perhaps best illustrated by an example. Say you are trying to simulate air turbulence to test a new plane design. There is a known PDE called Navier-Stokes that is used to describe the motion of any fluid. “Solving” Navier-Stokes allows you to take a snapshot of the air’s motion (a.k.a. wind conditions) at any point in time and model how it will continue to move, or how it was moving before.

Only a few years ago, scientists the world over celebrated as the first-ever gravitational waves were detected—confirming a long-held scientific theory and opening up an entirely new field of research.

Now, the international research team responsible for detecting gravitational waves has announced a further 39 gravitational wave events, bringing the total number of confirmed detections to 50.

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo Collaborations, which include researchers from the University of Portsmouth, have today published a series of papers that record events including the mergers of binary black holes, binary neutron stars and, possibly, neutron star-black holes.

The discovery puts a nail in the coffin of a long-held assumption about the limits of where the essential process can occur.

Security flaw lets attackers escape sandboxes designed to contain malicious code.

The result is a science park and university campus that offers degrees at all levels. It hosts more than 300 labs and advanced research equipment, such as the SOLEIL synchrotron. About 100 companies and 6 of France’s public research organizations, including the national research agency CNRS, have a presence there. That combination — of the university with national facilities — is powerful, says Price. The park accounts for an estimated 15% of France’s public and private research. About 30,000 people work or study at Saclay, and this is projected to rise to 80,000 by 2030.

The lab has no overall scientific project, and has added an extra layer of management, says Fayard, although he concedes that the coronavirus pandemic has complicated the lab’s first months. “I fear the lab will have to work hard not to fall between two stools — it is too big to be efficient, but not big enough to invest alone in major local infrastructures.”

But Oliver Brüning, a particle physicist at CERN, Europe’s particle physics lab near Geneva, Switzerland, who spent time working at LAL, says he thinks the new lab has greater weight and influence than did LAL alone.

Continue reading “How France overcame the odds to build a research mega-campus” »

The potential for life to emerge around long-lived red dwarf stars may have been oversold.

🌔 An agreement with ESA — European Space Agency to collaborate on #Artemis
💧 Our SOFIA Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy finds water molecules on the Moon’s sunlit surface
🛰️ NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Mission successfully stows the sample it captured from asteroid Bennu.

Watch: youtu.be/XkzB4UZe1JE

Shrinking Down

In a bid to sell more than “several dozen” models, the company is now working on a more accessible, miniature version that records and transmits holograms without taking up the entire height of a room. And, company founder David Nussbaum tells TechCrunch, it comes with new subscription features.

Continue reading “This ‘Portal’ Lets You Beam a Hologram of Yourself Into Video Calls” »

You can buy Universe Sandbox 2 here: http://amzn.to/2yJqwU6
Or get a shirt: https://teespring.com/stores/whatdamath

Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about some of the new discoveries about Venus Flytrap — the most well known carnivorous plant.
Little Shop of Horrors: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/TheLittl…ebmhd.webm
Video used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-fFqCkZfGE
Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-020-00773-1