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Moving at eight kilometers (five miles) per second, the International Space Station (ISS) circles our planet every 90 minutes. In a 24-hour period, crew members on the ISS experience 16 sunrises and sunsets. Despite how often the station passes directly between Earth and the Sun, capturing an image of the ISS transiting our nearest star is rare.

On June 24, 2020, NASA photographer Joel Kowsky captured such an occurrence from Fredericksburg, Virginia. The image above is a composite, made from six frames, and shows the ISS in silhouette as it moved from right to left across the solar disk while orbiting 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Earth.

The image below shows the position of the ISS in its orbit as Kowsky snapped his photos at approximately 1:15 p.m. U.S. Eastern Daylight Time. The transit lasted approximately 0.54 seconds and was captured while his camera was shooting at 10 frames per second. Watch a video of the transit below.

Happy birthday to the World most important Entrepreneur (Olorogun Elon Musk). We at the Ogba Educational Clinic and Artificial intelligence Hub celebrate and wish to immortalize you by Setting up a club after you (The Elon Musk Club). This is in line with our vision to create small Elon’s that would eventually outdo you from Africa.

Updated mathematical techniques that can distinguish between two types of ‘non-Gaussian curve’ could make it easier for researchers to study the nature of quantum entanglement.

Quantum entanglement is perhaps one of the most intriguing phenomena known to physics. It describes how the fates of multiple particles can become entwined, even when separated by vast distances. Importantly, the probability distributions needed to define the quantum states of these particles deviate from the bell-shaped, or ‘Gaussian’ curves which underly many natural processes. Non-Gaussian curves don’t apply to quantum systems alone, however. They can also be composed of mixtures of regular Gaussian curves, producing difficulties for physicists studying quantum entanglement. In new research published in EPJ D, Shao-Hua Xiang and colleagues at Huaihua University in China propose a solution to this problem. They suggest an updated set of equations that allows physicists to easily check whether or not a non-Gaussian state is genuinely quantum.

As physicists make more discoveries about the nature of quantum entanglement, they are rapidly making progress towards advanced applications in the fields of quantum communication and computation. The approach taken in this study could prove to speed up the pace of these advances. Xiang and colleagues acknowledge that while all previous efforts to distinguish between both types of non-Gaussian curve have had some success, their choices of Gaussian curves as a starting point have so far meant that no one approach has yet proven to be completely effective. Based on the argument that there can’t be any truly reliable Gaussian reference for any genuinely quantum non-Gaussian state, the researchers present a new theoretical framework.

Summary: Neurons created as a result of adult neurogenesis mature for longer and grow larger than those created during infancy. Findings suggest adult-born neurons may have a more powerful function than those created during infancy and may play a critical role in neuroplasticity.

Source: SfN

Adult-born neurons keep growing and contributing to brain flexibility long after neurogenesis declines, according to research in rats published in Journal of Neuroscience.

In the strange field of quantum physics, quantum entanglement – what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance” – stands out as one of the most intriguing phenomena. And now scientists just managed to successfully demonstrate it again, this time onboard a CubeSat satellite orbiting Earth.

Quantum entanglement is where two particles become inextricably linked across a distance, so that one serves as an indicator of the other in a certain aspect. That unbreakable link might one day form the basis of a super-fast, super-secure quantum internet.

While a quantum internet is still some way off, if we want to make it work, it’s going to require something other than optical fibres.