Wednesday, January 26
Nuclear Quantum Computing
A trio of separate research teams from three different continents published individual papers indicating similar quantum computing breakthroughs yesterday. All three were funded in part by the US Army and each paper appears to be a slam dunk for the future of quantum computing.
But only one of them heralds the onset of the age of nuclear quantum computers.
Maybe it’s the whole concept of entanglement, but for a long time it’s felt like we were suspended in a state where functional quantum machines were both “right around the corner” and “decades or more away.”
But the past few years have seen a more rapid advancement toward functional quantum systems than most technologists could have imagined in their wildest dreams.
The likes of IBM, Microsoft, D-Wave, and Google putting hybrid quantum systems on the cloud coupled with the latter’s amazing time crystal breakthrough have made 2018-2021 the opening years of what promises to be a golden age for quantum computing.
Despite this amazing progress, there are still holdouts who believe we’ll never have a truly useful, fully-functional, qubit-based quantum computing system.
The main reason given by these cynics is usually because quantum systems are incredibly error-prone. READ MORE...
Tuesday, January 25
Multiple Universes
If the multiverse exists, there could be another you somewhere out there, doing exactly what you're doing now. (Image credit: Getty Images)
The multiverse is a hypothetical group of multiple universes. Together, these universes comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that describe them. The different universes within the multiverse are called "parallel universes", "other universes", "alternate universes", or "many worlds". SOURCE: Wikipedia
Multiverse Theory
...suggests that our universe, with all its hundreds of billions of galaxies and almost countless stars, spanning tens of billions of light-years, may not be the only one. Instead, there may be an entirely different universe, distantly separated from ours — and another, and another. Indeed, there may be an infinity of universes, all with their own laws of physics, their own collections of stars and galaxies (if stars and galaxies can exist in those universes), and maybe even their own intelligent civilizations.
It could be that our universe is just one member of a much grander, much larger multitude of universes: a multiverse.
The concept of the multiverse arises in a few areas of physics (and philosophy), but the most prominent example comes from something called inflation theory. Inflation theory describes a hypothetical event that occurred when our universe was very young — less than a second old. In an incredibly brief amount of time, the universe underwent a period of rapid expansion, "inflating" to become many orders of magnitude larger than its previous size, according to NASA.
Inflation of our universe is thought to have ended about 14 billion years ago, said Heling Deng, a cosmologist at Arizona State University and an expert in multiverse theory. "However, inflation does not end everywhere at the same time," Deng told Live Science in an email. "It is possible that as inflation ends in some region, it continues in others."
Thus, while inflation ended in our universe, there may have been other, much more distant regions where inflation continued — and continues even today. Individual universes can "pinch off" of larger inflating, expanding universes, creating an infinite sea of eternal inflation, filled with numerous individual universes. READ MORE...
It could be that our universe is just one member of a much grander, much larger multitude of universes: a multiverse.
The concept of the multiverse arises in a few areas of physics (and philosophy), but the most prominent example comes from something called inflation theory. Inflation theory describes a hypothetical event that occurred when our universe was very young — less than a second old. In an incredibly brief amount of time, the universe underwent a period of rapid expansion, "inflating" to become many orders of magnitude larger than its previous size, according to NASA.
Inflation of our universe is thought to have ended about 14 billion years ago, said Heling Deng, a cosmologist at Arizona State University and an expert in multiverse theory. "However, inflation does not end everywhere at the same time," Deng told Live Science in an email. "It is possible that as inflation ends in some region, it continues in others."
Thus, while inflation ended in our universe, there may have been other, much more distant regions where inflation continued — and continues even today. Individual universes can "pinch off" of larger inflating, expanding universes, creating an infinite sea of eternal inflation, filled with numerous individual universes. READ MORE...
Bitcoin Explained
How Crypto Currency works... an analogy in Layman’s terms.
Not long ago a merchant found a lot of monkeys that lived near a certain Village .
One day he came to the Village saying he wanted to buy these monkeys !
He announced that he would buy the monkeys at $100 each.
The Villagers thought that this man must be crazy - How can somebody buy Stray Monkeys at $100 each ?
Still some People caught some monkeys and gave it to this merchant and he gave $100 for each monkey.
This News spread like wildfire and People caught monkeys and sold them to the merchant.
After a few days, the merchant announced that he will buy monkeys at $200 each.
The lazy villagers also ran around to catch the remaining monkeys!
They sold the remaining monkeys at $200 each.
The merchant then announced that he will buy monkeys for $500 each!
The villagers start to lose sleep!.....They caught six or seven monkeys, which was all that was left and got $500 each.
The Villagers were waiting anxiously for the next announcement.
Then the merchant announced that he is going on Holiday for a week, but when he returns, he will buy monkeys at $1000 each!
He also said that his employee will be in charge, and would take care of the monkeys he bought pending his return.
The Merchant went on holiday!
The Villagers were frantic and very sad as there were no more monkeys left for them to sell it at $1000 each as was promised by the Merchant.
Then the Merchant’s Employee contacted them and told them that he would secretly sell them some monkeys at $700 each.
The news spread like wildfire. As the Merchant promised on his return that he would buy monkeys at $1000 each, they would achieve a $300 profit for each monkey.
The next day The Villagers queued up near the Monkey Cage.
The Employee sold all the monkeys at $700 each. The Rich bought monkeys in large lots. The poor borrowed money from money lenders and bought the rest of the monkeys!
The Villagers took care of their monkeys & waited for the Merchant to return!
However nobody came ! ..... Then they ran to Find the Employee ....However he was not to be found!
The Villagers then realized that they have been duped buying the useless Stray monkeys at $700each, and were now unable to sell them!
This Monkey Business is now known as Bitcoin !
It will make a-lot of People bankrupt and a very few People filthy rich in this kind of Monkey Business.
Zodiacal Light on Exoplanets
Watch the sun set from a particularly dark patch of Earth and you may spot a triangle of what scientists call zodiacal light extending from where our star passed below the horizon.
Zodiacal light in Earth's skies is created when sunlight bounces off the dust that fills the solar system, the remains of pulverized asteroids and flurry left by passing comets.
And according to new research by a team of astronomers and high school students based in China, a similar phenomenon occurs in the skies of at least a few potentially habitable exoplanets. The light could be one more clue for scientists seeking to puzzle out what those exotic neighborhoods might look like.
"If we can detect zodiacal light from a distant planet system, then this system likely has components like asteroids and comets, which can't be easily detected directly in other ways," lead author Jian Ge, an astronomer at Shanghai Astronomical Observatory in China, said during a news conference held virtually on Jan. 13 by the American Astronomical Society.
"If we can detect zodiacal light from a distant planet system, then this system likely has components like asteroids and comets, which can't be easily detected directly in other ways," lead author Jian Ge, an astronomer at Shanghai Astronomical Observatory in China, said during a news conference held virtually on Jan. 13 by the American Astronomical Society.
Ge had been scheduled to present the research at a meeting organized by the group that was canceled due to COVID-19. TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS, CLICK HERE...
Antartic Megaberg
Scientists have been keeping a close eye on the 'megaberg' designated as A68a since it split off from Antarctica back in July 2017 – and new research highlights just how much freshwater it's released into the ocean during its late melting process.
Satellite monitoring systems indicate that for three months at the end of its lifetime, up to March 2021, the iceberg released an astonishing 152 billion tons of freshwater around the remote island of South Georgia – that's the equivalent of 61 million Olympic-sized swimming pools.
There are worries about how this sudden injection of freshwater and the nutrients flowing off the iceberg could affect marine habitats around the island in terms of both ocean circulation and the biological food chain.
"This is a huge amount of meltwater, and the next thing we want to learn is whether it had a positive or negative impact on the ecosystem around South Georgia," says Anne Braakmann-Folgmann, a glaciologist from the University of Leeds in the UK and the study's lead author.
A total of five satellites were employed to keep tabs on the position, area, thickness, and volume change of A68a. At its peak, the iceberg was melting at a rate of 7 meters ror 23 feet per month. READ MORE...
Whales Don't Drown
Baleen whales are heavy drinkers. In just ten seconds, these giant mammals can down over five hundred bathtubs of ocean water, filtering out roughly 10 kilograms of krill in a single swig.
All they have to do is open their mouths and lunge forward at roughly 10 kilometers an hour (6 miles per hour).
The pressure of all that water rapidly hitting a whale's throat would surely be immense. So how does this group of creatures – which includes right whales, the humpback whale, and the monumental blue whale, amongst several others – make sure their lungs aren't suddenly flooded with water?
The dissection of several fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) has now revealed a fatty and muscular sac that stops the species from choking. When the whale opens its mouth to feed, this sac swings upwards and plugs the lower respiratory tract.
No such structure has ever been identified in any other animal, but the authors suspect it is probably present in other lunge-feeding whales (called rorquals), like humpbacks and blue whales.
"There are very few animals with lungs that feed by engulfing prey and water, so the oral plug is likely a protective structure specific to rorquals that is necessary to enable lunge feeding," explains zoologist Kelsey Gil from the University of British Columbia, Canada. READ MORE...
National Democratic Training Committee
Subject: re: Joe Biden's 2nd Year in Office
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Monday, January 24
Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana
Here are some examples:
"It is like a frog calling you ugly” - Comment about Cuomo lecturing us.
"This election in GA will be the most important in history, you have nothing to worry about unless you are a tax payer, parent, gun owner, cop, person of faith, or an unborn baby!"
Democrats are the "well intended arugula and tofu crowd."
"You can only be young once, but you can always be immature."
"Americans are thinking, there are some good members of Congress but we can’t figure out what they are good for. Others are thinking, how did these morons make it through the birth canal."
"It’s as dead as four o’clock"
"Always follow your heart... but take your brains with you"
"The short answer is 'No' The long answer is 'Hell No.'"
"It must suck to be that dumb."
"When the Portland mayor's IQ gets to 75, he oughta sell."
"I keep trying to see Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer's point of view, but I can't seem to get my head that far up my ass."
"Go sell your crazy somewhere else... we are all stocked up here."
"She has a Billy goat brain and a mockingbird mouth!"
Sen. John Kennedy (R., La.) said that he trusted Middle Eastern countries "as much as gas station sushi, with the exception being Israel."
"You can get a goat to climb a tree, but you'd be better off hiring a squirrel."
"This has been going on since Moby Dick was a minnow."
"Don't stand between a dog and a fire hydrant."
"Our country was founded by geniuses, but it's being run by idiots."
"It appears that he might do the right thing, but only when supervised and cornered like a rat."
"This is why aliens won't talk to us."
"Democrats are running around like they found a hair in their biscuit."
"Chuck Schumer just moo's and follows Nancy Pelosi into the cow chute."
"What planet did you parachute in from?"
"Just because you CAN sing doesn’t mean you should”
Senator John Kennedy on Nancy Pelosi: "She can strut sitting down!"
"He has more screws loose than a 1942 Studebaker".
"It is like a frog calling you ugly” - Comment about Cuomo lecturing us.
"This election in GA will be the most important in history, you have nothing to worry about unless you are a tax payer, parent, gun owner, cop, person of faith, or an unborn baby!"
Democrats are the "well intended arugula and tofu crowd."
"You can only be young once, but you can always be immature."
"Americans are thinking, there are some good members of Congress but we can’t figure out what they are good for. Others are thinking, how did these morons make it through the birth canal."
"It’s as dead as four o’clock"
"Always follow your heart... but take your brains with you"
"The short answer is 'No' The long answer is 'Hell No.'"
"It must suck to be that dumb."
"When the Portland mayor's IQ gets to 75, he oughta sell."
"I keep trying to see Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer's point of view, but I can't seem to get my head that far up my ass."
"Go sell your crazy somewhere else... we are all stocked up here."
"She has a Billy goat brain and a mockingbird mouth!"
Sen. John Kennedy (R., La.) said that he trusted Middle Eastern countries "as much as gas station sushi, with the exception being Israel."
"You can get a goat to climb a tree, but you'd be better off hiring a squirrel."
"This has been going on since Moby Dick was a minnow."
"Don't stand between a dog and a fire hydrant."
"Our country was founded by geniuses, but it's being run by idiots."
"It appears that he might do the right thing, but only when supervised and cornered like a rat."
"This is why aliens won't talk to us."
"Democrats are running around like they found a hair in their biscuit."
"Chuck Schumer just moo's and follows Nancy Pelosi into the cow chute."
"What planet did you parachute in from?"
"Just because you CAN sing doesn’t mean you should”
Senator John Kennedy on Nancy Pelosi: "She can strut sitting down!"
"He has more screws loose than a 1942 Studebaker".
"Kunga" in Syria
PARIS, FRANCE—Science News reports that analysis of a genome obtained from a 4,500-year-old equine skeleton discovered in northern Syria’s royal burial complex at Umm el-Marra suggests the animal had a donkey for a mother and a hemippe, a type of Asiatic wild ass that went extinct in 1929, for a father.
The resulting hybrid animal could be a kunga, a horselike animal mentioned in texts written on clay tablets and depicted in Sumerian artwork several hundred years before horses arrived in the region.
Paleogeneticist Eva-Maria Geigl of Institut Jacques Monod explained that donkeys can be timid and the Asiatic wild ass was untamable, but a hybrid of the two could have been valuable in warfare and useful for pulling wagons.
Read the original scholarly article about this research in Science Advances. For more on kunga burials, go to "Mesopotamian War Memorial."
Tourist Site Rewrites History
(CNN) — It's world-famous for the Roman ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 C.E., but the latest tourist attraction in Naples shows a very different side of the city.
Opening in June, the Ipogeo dei Cristallini -- Hypogeum of Cristallini Street -- is part of an ancient cemetery, located just outside the walls of Neapolis, as the city was called 2,300 years ago.
Not only is the cemetery more than 400 years older than the ruins of Pompeii and the other Roman towns along the Bay of Naples, but it isn't Roman at all. In fact, it was built by the ancient Greeks, who founded Naples in the eight century B.C.E., and kept it a fully Greek city, even when it came under Roman control centuries later.
It's a game-changing opening, according to archaeologists, that promises to change how we think of Naples, the Mediterranean in ancient times, and even Greek artistry. It also, those involved with the project believe, has the potential to protect Naples from a tourism boom that, if it continues, could bring overtourism to the city.
In the bowels of the city
Forty feet below the garden of a 19th-century palazzo, in what's now the Sanità area of the city, a steep staircase burrowing underground leads to four tombs. Each with their own grand entrance -- one even has Ionic columns sculpted on its façade -- they open on to what is thought to have been the original pathway that mourners would have taken. READ MORE...
Filaments of Hydrogen
Roughly 13.8 billion years ago, our Universe was born in a massive explosion that gave rise to the first subatomic particles and the laws of physics as we know them.
About 370,000 years later, hydrogen had formed, the building block of stars, which fuse hydrogen and helium in their interiors to create all the heavier elements.
While hydrogen remains the most pervasive element in the Universe, it can be difficult to detect individual clouds of hydrogen gas in the interstellar medium (ISM).
This makes it difficult to research the early phases of star formation, which would offer clues about the evolution of galaxies and the cosmos.
This makes it difficult to research the early phases of star formation, which would offer clues about the evolution of galaxies and the cosmos.
An international team led by astronomers from the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy (MPIA) recently noticed a massive filament of atomic hydrogen gas in our galaxy.
This structure, named “Maggie,” is located about 55,000 light-years away (on the other side of the Milky Way) and is one of the longest structures ever observed in our galaxy.
The study that describes their findings, which recently appeared in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, was led by Jonas Syed, a Ph.D. student at the MPIA.
The study that describes their findings, which recently appeared in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, was led by Jonas Syed, a Ph.D. student at the MPIA.
He was joined by researchers from the University of Vienna, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIFR), the University of Calgary, the Universität Heidelberg, the Centre for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, the Argelander-Institute for Astronomy, the Indian Institute of Science, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). READ MORE...
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