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The universe is almost devoid of antimatter, and physicists haven’t yet figured out why. Discovering any slight difference between the behaviour of antimatter and matter in Earth’s gravitational field could shed light on this question. Positronium atoms, which consist of an electron and a positron, are one type of antimatter atoms being considered to test whether antimatter falls at the same rate as matter in Earth’s gravitational field. But they are short-lived, lasting a mere 142 nanoseconds – too little to perform an antimatter gravity experiment. Researchers are therefore actively seeking tricks to make sources of positronium atoms that live longer. In a paper published today in the journal Physical Review A, the AEgIS collaboration at CERN describes a new way of making long-lived positronium.

To be useful for gravity experiments, a source of atoms needs to produce long-lived atoms in , and with known velocities that can be controlled and are unaffected by disturbances such as electric and magnetic fields. The new AEgIS source ticks all of these boxes, producing some 80 000 positronium atoms per minute that last 1140 nanoseconds each and have a known velocity (between 70 and 120 kilometres per second) that can be controlled with a high precision (10 kilometres per second).

The trick? Using a special positron-to-positronium converter to produce the atoms and a single flash of ultraviolet laser light that kills two birds with one stone. The laser brings the atoms from the lowest-energy electronic state to a long-lived higher-energy state and can select among all of the atoms only those with a certain velocity.

Two researchers at Emercoin, a decentralized peer-to-peer (p2p) network providing secure blockchain business services, have recently developed a new technology called Randpay that only allows users to complete payments and transactions with a recipient’s consent. Using this new technology, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, users can also safely and easily micropay specific data values derived from sensors, individual stock quotes, downloaded pictures, search engine results, road tolls and other sources.

“Randpay opens a new niche in the ,” Oleg Khovayko, one of the researchers who developed the technology, told TechXplore. “All other micropayment technologies have minimal sum limitations because of the low bound limit of fees. With Randpay, transaction fees are reduced along with amounts. As a result, there is no payment minimum and payments can be as small as 1/100000 part of cent, if needed.”

The protocol developed by the researchers draws inspiration from a system of electronic lottery tickets based on micropayments invented by Ronald Rivest in 1997. In his work, Rivest introduced the concept of electronic lottery tickets, where there is a centralized system and payments can only go through in the presence of a trusted third party and, where possible, a ‘lottery facilitator’.

#Starliner is “go” for launch!

The launch of The Boeing Company’s Orbital Flight Test to the International Space Station, as part of our NASA Commercial Crew Program, is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 20.

Tune in starting at 5:30 a.m. EST to see the uncrewed flight test launch at 6:36 a.m. EST for the spacecraft’s maiden mission to our orbiting laboratory.

Can A.I. make music? Can it feel excitement and fear? Is it alive? Will.i.am and Mark Sagar push the limits of what a machine can do. How far is too far, and how much further can we go?

The Age of A.I. is a 8 part documentary series hosted by Robert Downey Jr. covering the ways Artifial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Neural Networks will change the world.

You choose — watch all episodes uninterrupted with YouTube Premium now, or wait to watch new episodes free with ads.

Check out YouTube Premium at: https://www.youtube.com/premium/originals

With Artemis, men and women will sustainably work and live on another world for the first time! Using the Moon as a proving ground for living on Mars, this next chapter in lunar exploration will forever establish our presence in the stars. ✨

We are returning to the Moon – to stay – and this is how we’re going.