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Jun 17, 2020

Observation of excess events in the XENON1T dark matter experiment

Posted by in categories: cosmology, particle physics

Scientists from the international XENON collaboration, an international experimental group including the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), University of Tokyo; the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research (ICRR), University of Tokyo; the Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research (ISEE), Nagoya University; the Kobayashi-Maskawa Institute for the Origin of Particles and the Universe (KMI), Nagoya University; and the Graduate School of Science, Kobe University, announced today that data from their XENON1T, the world’s most sensitive dark matter experiment, show a surprising excess of events. The scientists do not claim to have found dark matter. Instead, they have observed an unexpected rate of events, the source of which is not yet fully understood. The signature of the excess is similar to what might result from a tiny residual amount of tritium (a hydrogen atom with one proton and two neutrons), but could also be a sign of something more exciting—such as the existence of a new particle known as the solar axion or the indication of previously unknown properties of neutrinos.

XENON1T was operated deep underground at the INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy, from 2016 to 2018. It was primarily designed to detect dark matter, which makes up 85% of the matter in the universe. So far, scientists have only observed indirect evidence of dark matter, and a definitive, direct detection is yet to be made. So-called WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) are among the theoretically preferred candidates, and XENON1T has thus far set the best limit on their interaction probability over a wide range of WIMP masses. In addition to WIMP dark matter, XENON1T was also sensitive to different types of new particles and interactions that could explain other open questions in physics. Last year, using the same detector, these scientists published in Nature the observation of the rarest nuclear decay ever directly measured.

The XENON1T detector was filled with 3.2 tons of ultra-pure liquefied , 2.0 t of which served as a target for particle interactions. When a particle crosses the target, it can generate tiny signals of light and free electrons from a xenon atom. Most of these interactions occur from particles that are known to exist. Scientists therefore carefully estimated the number of background events in XENON1T. When data of XENON1T were compared to known backgrounds, a surprising excess of 53 events over the expected 232 events was observed.

Jun 17, 2020

Type Infinite Civilization

Posted by in category: futurism

Type 3000.0 tion is beyond the Universeverse. The only things that might become one of these are hings beyond the Universeverse. In fact, it allows you to control things beyond imagination and knowledge of yours. To make it short, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to understand the powers of such type of civilization.

Retrieved from “https://beyond-universe.fandom.com/wiki/Type_Infinite_Civilization?oldid=21451”.

Jun 17, 2020

How to land a job at Elon Musk’s SpaceX, according to the rocket company’s software team

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, space travel

SpaceX software team members who helped “develop and deploy software that flew” the Crew Dragon capsule used to launch NASA astronauts into orbit in May, held a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session on June 6. They answered questions about how to land a job at Elon Musk’s rocket company.

Jun 17, 2020

Mars orbiter spots green glow over Red Planet

Posted by in category: space

Turns out the Red Planet is a little more green than we thought. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) has detected a tinge of green in the atmosphere, making it the first time this aurora-like glow has been spotted around a planet other than Earth.

Here at home, green glows in the sky are caused by glowing oxygen, excited by collisions with electrons that stream into the atmosphere from solar wind. While aurora are the most dramatic examples, the sky glows almost constantly. At night it can appear green as molecules previously ripped apart by solar winds begin to recombine.

It was predicted that this same effect should be visible around other planets, but it’s hard to spot since the bright surfaces of planets can wash out the color. Now, astronomers from ESA have managed to detect it around Mars for the first time.

Jun 17, 2020

Quasar jets are particle accelerators thousands of light-years long

Posted by in categories: cosmology, particle physics

An international collaboration bringing together over 200 scientists from 13 countries has shown that the very high-energy gamma-ray emissions from quasars, galaxies with a highly energetic nucleus, are not concentrated in the region close to their central black hole, but in fact, extend over several thousand light-years along jets of plasma. This discovery shakes up current scenarios for the behavior of such plasma jets. The work, published in the journal Nature on June 18, 2020, was carried out as part of the H.E.S.S collaboration, involving in particular the CNRS and CEA in France, and the Max Planck society and a group of research institutions and universities in Germany.

Over the past few years, scientists have observed the universe using gamma rays, which are very high-energy photons. Gamma rays, among the that constantly bombard the Earth, originate from regions of the universe where particles are accelerated to huge energies unattainable in human-built accelerators. Gamma rays are emitted by a wide range of cosmic objects such as quasars, which are active with a highly energetic nucleus.

The intensity of the radiation emitted from these systems can vary over very short timescales of up to one minute. Scientists therefore believed that the source of this radiation was very small and located in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole, which can have a mass several billion times that of the sun’s. The black hole is thought to gobble up the matter spiraling down into it and eject a small part of it in the form of large jets of plasma at relativistic speeds, close to the speed of light, thus contributing to the redistribution of matter throughout the universe.

Jun 17, 2020

Netflix ‘Pandemic’ Star Just Showed His Covid-19 Antibody Drug Works In Hamsters. How Quickly Could It Treat Humans?

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Via Jacob Gunn Glanville

Here’s the Forbes article on our program. Press release and some media to follow. We will be publishing our manuscript within a week to bioarxiv.


Jacob Glanville is an admirer of the human immune system — but he thinks we can do better.

Continue reading “Netflix ‘Pandemic’ Star Just Showed His Covid-19 Antibody Drug Works In Hamsters. How Quickly Could It Treat Humans?” »

Jun 17, 2020

Technological Singularity Will Be Late But Antiaging and Advanced Biotech is Near

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, Ray Kurzweil, robotics/AI, singularity

A rejuvenation roadmap, and some info on Rejuvenate Bio.


Ray Kurzweil predicted the Technological Singularity will be reached in 2045. This actually means there will be strong AI, something like AGI that is 1 billion times more capable than the human brain in many aspects.

Jun 17, 2020

BREAKING: Physicists announce first direct evidence for ‘axions’

Posted by in category: particle physics

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An experiment buried underground in Italy has turned up a mysterious result, and a never-before-seen “axion” particle seems like the most likely explanation.

Jun 17, 2020

A dark matter experiment’s unexpected result may signal new particles

Posted by in categories: cosmology, particle physics

An excess of events spotted in the XENON1T experiment could be signs of solar axions or weird, new properties of neutrinos, but not dark matter itself.

Jun 17, 2020

The Boring Company: map shows Elon Musk’s big plans for Las Vegas

Posted by in category: Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s tunnel-digging firm is currently completing a tunnel at the Las Vegas Convention Center.