Lifeboat Foundation

You are probably familiar with graphics depicting the double helix structure of DNA. But have you ever seen a single DNA molecule standing straight?

New measurements from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope confirm that the universe is expanding roughly 9 percent faster than expected based on its trajectory observed shortly after the Big Bang, according to a new study.

The Hubble Space Telescope measurements, which were published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters on Thursday, minimize the chances that the disparity is an accident from 1 in 3,000 to only 1 in 100,000 and suggest new physics might be needed to better comprehend the cosmos, said a Johns Hopkins University press release.

Continue reading “New Hubble Measurements Confirm Universe Is Expanding at a Faster Rate” »

It was a freezing cold morning just before Christmas 1980 when cattle rancher, Wally Nelson, came across the frozen form of a woman in his front yard.

Wally knew who the woman was. It was his friend, 19-year-old Jean Hilliard who had been dating his best friend at the time. The night was 22 below zero, and the teenager had fallen while looking for shelter after a car accident.

Continue reading “Woman Found Frozen Solid Makes Incredible Full Recovery” »

Here are the possible ways that the universe could meet its maker.

A simple injection that can help regrow damaged tissue has long been the dream of physicians and patients alike. A new study from researchers at UBC Okanagan moves that dream closer to reality with a device that makes encapsulating cells much faster, cheaper and more effective.

The human body is held together by an intricate cable system of tendons and muscles, engineered by nature to be tough and highly stretchable. An injury to any of these tissues, particularly in a major joint like the shoulder or knee, can require surgical repairs and weeks of limited mobility to fully heal.

Physicists thought this was impossible, until now.

Deep inside a mountain in central Italy, scientists are laying a trap for dark matter. The bait? A big metal tank full of 3.5 tons (3,200 kilograms) of pure liquid xenon. This noble gas is one of the cleanest, most radiation-proof substances on Earth, making it an ideal target for capturing some of the rarest particle interactions in the universe.

It all sounds vaguely sinister; said Christian Wittweg, a doctoral candidate at the University of Münster in Germany, who has worked with the so-called Xenon collaboration for half a decade, going to work every day feels like “paying a Bond villain a visit.” So far, the mountain-dwelling researchers haven’t captured any dark matter. But they recently succeeded in detecting one of the rarest particle interactions in the universe. [11 Biggest Unanswered Questions About Dark Matter]

According to a new study published today (April 24) in the journal Nature, the team of more than 100 researchers measured, for the first time ever, the decay of a xenon-124 atom into a tellurium 124 atom through an extremely rare process called two-neutrino double electron capture. This type of radioactive decay occurs when an atom’s nucleus absorbs two electrons from its outer electron shell simultaneously, thereby releasing a double dose of the ghostly particles called neutrinos.

Continue reading “Researchers Just Measured an Atom with a Half-Life of 18 Sextillion Years” »

You’ve never heard Dean Martin like this.

Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences transmitted a recording of Martin’s classic “Volare” wirelessly via a semiconductor laser—the first time a laser has been used as a radio frequency transmitter.

In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers demonstrated a laser that can emit microwaves wirelessly, modulate them, and receive external radio frequency signals.

Continue reading “Researchers transmit data via a semiconductor laser, opening the door to ultra-high-speed Wi-Fi” »