Lifeboat Foundation

It’s a game changer.

What – one vast, ancient and mysterious universe isn’t enough for you? Well, as it happens, there are others. Among physicists, it’s not controversial. Our universe is but one in an unimaginably massive ocean of universes called the multiverse.

If that concept isn’t enough to get your head around, physics describes different kinds of multiverse. The easiest one to comprehend is called the cosmological multiverse. The idea here is that the universe expanded at a mind-boggling speed in the fraction of a second after the big bang. During this period of inflation, there were quantum fluctuations which caused separate bubble universes to pop into existence and themselves start inflating and blowing bubbles. Russian physicist Andrei Linde came up with this concept, which suggests an infinity of universes no longer in any causal connection with one another – so free to develop in different ways.

Cosmic space is big – perhaps infinitely so. Travel far enough and some theories suggest you’d meet your cosmic twin – a copy of you living in a copy of our world, but in a different part of the multiverse. String theory, which is a notoriously theoretical explanation of reality, predicts a frankly meaninglessly large number of universes, maybe 10 to the 500 or more, all with slightly different physical parameters.

New research from the University of Rochester will enhance the accuracy of computer models used in simulations of laser-driven implosions. The research, published in the journal Nature Physics, addresses one of the challenges in scientists’ longstanding quest to achieve fusion.

In laser-driven inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments, such as the experiments conducted at the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE), short beams consisting of intense pulses of light—pulses lasting mere billionths of a second—deliver energy to heat and compress a target of hydrogen fuel cells. Ideally, this process would release more energy than was used to heat the system.

Laser-driven ICF experiments require that many laser beams propagate through a plasma—a hot soup of free moving electrons and ions—to deposit their radiation energy precisely at their intended target. But, as the beams do so, they interact with the plasma in ways that can complicate the intended result.

Space stations are expensive, but can we fix that? Yes, we can! (If this mission goes right.)

Inferencing will become the biggest driver of growth in artificial intelligence.

Cyrus Biotechnology has teamed up with the Broad Institute to optimize CRISPR for use in humans. Feng Zhang, who had a hand in developing CRISPR, will serve as the Broad’s principal investigator for the collaboration.

One concern with using CRISPR-Cas9 to perform in vivo genome editing stems from the risk that the body will mount an immune response against the system. Those concerns have grown as researchers have shown that many people have antibodies against Cas9, reflecting the fact that the homologs of the protein used in genome editing systems are derived from bacteria that commonly infect people.

Cyrus, which lists Johnson & Johnson among its customers, thinks its technology can mitigate the risk of an immune reaction. That confidence reflects Cyrus’ experience of using software to identify and work around the epitopes in protein therapeutics that cause immunogenicity.

An open-source stack is helping create practical drones for life-saving missions.

The goal is to change the trajectory of a city-killer asteroid.

NASA and the ESA are going to try to reroute an asteroid.

An intelligence startup warns that China is exploiting Western quantum scientists for military ends. The evidence is thin, but tensions are rising.