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Sep 27, 2020

Seismic sound waves crossing the deep ocean could be a new thermometer

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

It’s no problem atoll

To show that this works, the researchers used a seismometer station on Diego Garcia, a small atoll in the Indian Ocean about 3,000 kilometers from Sumatra. The tectonic plate boundary there is incredibly active, so there’s no shortage of earthquakes to work with. Between 2004 and 2016, there were over 4,000 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or higher that occurred near the Nias Island area of Sumatra. The researchers carefully processed all of these events to find repeaters similar enough to do the temperature calculation. They found over 2,000 such pairs based on 900 earthquakes.

If this portion of the Indian Ocean were to warm 1° C, T-waves from those earthquakes would take 5.4 seconds longer to reach this seismometer. The observed changes are smaller than that but they are coherent—there’s both an annual cycle and a gradual warming trend that look similar to other, more traditional datasets.

Sep 27, 2020

Astrophysicists Prove That Water Ice Is Trapped in Star Dust

Posted by in categories: chemistry, particle physics, space travel

Astrophysicists at the University of Jena (Germany) prove that dust particles in space are mixed with ice.

The matter between the stars in a galaxy – called the interstellar medium – consists not only of gas, but also of a great deal of dust. At some point in time, stars and planets originated in such an environment, because the dust particles can clump together and merge into celestial bodies. Important chemical processes also take place on these particles, from which complex organic – possibly even prebiotic – molecules emerge. However, for these processes to be possible, there has to be water. In particularly cold cosmic environments, water occurs in the form of ice. Until now, however, the connection between ice and dust in these regions of space was unclear. A research team from Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy has now proven that the dust particles and the ice are mixed. They report their findings in the current issue of the research journal Nature Astronomy.

Better modelling of physico-chemical processes in space.

Sep 27, 2020

Taiwan’s armed forces strain in undeclared war of attrition with China

Posted by in category: military

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan (Reuters) — Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen visited a low-key but critical maintenance base for fighter jet engines on Saturday, offering encouragement as the Chinese-claimed island’s armed forces strain in the face of repeated Chinese air force incursions.

This month alone, China’s drills have included its jets crossing the mid-line of the sensitive Taiwan Strait and exercising near the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands in the South China Sea.

Sep 27, 2020

A Physicist Has Come Up With Math That Makes ‘Paradox-Free’ Time Travel Plausible

Posted by in categories: mathematics, physics, space, time travel

No one has yet managed to travel through time – at least to our knowledge – but the question of whether or not such a feat would be theoretically possible continues to fascinate scientists.

As movies such as The Terminator, Donnie Darko, Back to the Future and many others show, moving around in time creates a lot of problems for the fundamental rules of the Universe: if you go back in time and stop your parents from meeting, for instance, how can you possibly exist in order to go back in time in the first place?

It’s a monumental head-scratcher known as the ‘grandfather paradox’, but now a physics student Germain Tobar, from the University of Queensland in Australia, says he has worked out how to “square the numbers” to make time travel viable without the paradoxes.

Sep 27, 2020

Harvard Professor Wants to Slow Down & Reverse Aging: David Sinclair’s Approach For a Longer Life

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics, information science, life extension, robotics/AI

David Sinclair wants to slow down and ultimately reverse aging. Sinclair sees aging as a disease and he is convinced aging is caused by epigenetic changes, abnormalities that occur when the body’s cells process extra or missing pieces of DNA. This results in the loss of the information that keeps our cells healthy. This information also tells the cells which genes to read. David Sinclair’s book: “Lifespan, why we age and why we don’t have to”, he describes the results of his research, theories and scientific philosophy as well as the potential consequences of the significant progress in genetic technologies.

At present, researchers are only just beginning to understand the biological basis of aging even in relatively simple and short-lived organisms such as yeast. Sinclair however, makes a convincing argument for why the life-extension technologies will eventually offer possibilities of life prolongation using genetic engineering.

Continue reading “Harvard Professor Wants to Slow Down & Reverse Aging: David Sinclair’s Approach For a Longer Life” »

Sep 27, 2020

Scientists Have Found The Molecule That Allows Bacteria to ‘Exhale’ Electricity

Posted by in category: futurism

For mouthless, lungless bacteria, breathing is a bit more complicated than it is for humans.

We inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide; Geobacter — a ubiquitous, groundwater-dwelling genus of bacteria — swallow up organic waste and ‘exhale’ electrons, generating a tiny electric current in the process.

Those waste electrons always need somewhere to go (usually into a plentiful underground mineral like iron oxide), and Geobacter have an unconventional tool to make sure they get there.

Sep 27, 2020

First Compelling Evidence of Organisms That Eat Viruses as a Food Source

Posted by in categories: biological, food

Eat or be eaten: It’s an edict of Mother Nature that connects every corner of the biosphere in a sprawling web of producers, consumers, detritivores, and scavengers.

Every corner but one, it seems. Just what the hell dines on viruses?

Scientists may have just discovered the answer.

Sep 27, 2020

No Internet, No Problem. Venezuela Gets Bitcoin Satellite Node

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, internet

Venezuela has poor internet infrastructure. Using Blockstream’s satellite technology to broadcast Bitcoin transactions could get around that.

Sep 27, 2020

Theology of Digital Physics: The Universe of Conscious Minds

Posted by in categories: computing, cosmology, genetics, mathematics, neuroscience, quantum physics

#DigitalTheology #TheologyofDigitalPhysics #PhenomenalConsciousness #CosmicSelf #HolographicPrinciple #DigitalPhysics #theology #pantheism #consciousness


Since we live in a world which isn’t random, but organized at every level, a role for consciousness seems unavoidable. The ‘digital theologian’ shows us compelling evidence from quantum mechanics, mathematics and computer sciences, which not only aligns with a philosophical worldview of the Primacy of Consciousness, but which also assigns a role to information as its modus operandi.

It is quantum mechanics which appears to connect the Universe as a whole to consciousness. A whole, which is more than the sum of its parts and irreducible to mere assumptions deriving from the anatomizing dissection into mental confabulations. Drawing from the holographic principle, perceptroniums and noocentrism, Alex provides crucial keys to unlock the mystery of consciousness to show us how our local consciousness can arise from a non-local cosmic consciousness network.

Continue reading “Theology of Digital Physics: The Universe of Conscious Minds” »

Sep 27, 2020

Meet the quantum fridge — at three atoms in size, it’s much smaller than a minibar

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

Researchers in Singapore have built a refrigerator that’s just three atoms big.

This quantum fridge won’t keep your drinks cold, but it’s cool proof of physics operating at the smallest scales. The work is described in a paper published in Nature Communications (“Quantum absorption refrigerator with trapped ions”).

Researchers have built tiny ‘heat engines’ before, but quantum fridges existed only as proposals until the team at the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore chilled with their atoms.