Lifeboat Foundation

Ingenuity phones home after being silen for two months.

Elusive neutrinos reveal a portrait of our galaxy unlike any before.

Astronomers for the first time detected neutrinos that originated within our local galaxy using a new technique.

2018 Finally after a decade an infinite space hard exists with infinite data speeds.

Semiconductor microcavities can host polaritons formed by strong exciton-photon coupling, yet they may be plagued by scalability issues. Here, the authors demonstrate a sub-wavelength-thick, one-dimensional photonic crystal platform for strong coupling with atomically thin van der Waals crystals.

It is much louder than previously believed possible and its discovery will alter our understanding of the universe.

Scientists have heard the “chorus” of gravitational waves emanating throughout the universe for the very first time, and it’s louder than they expected, a press statement reveals.

The new discovery was made by scientists using the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav).

Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have used two-dimensional condensed matter physics to understand the quark interactions in neutron stars, simplifying the study of these densest cosmic entities. This work helps to describe low-energy excitations in dense nuclear matter and could unveil new phenomena in extreme densities, propelling advancements in the study of neutron stars and comparisons with heavy-ion collisions.

Understanding the behavior of nuclear matter—including the quarks and gluons that make up the protons and neutrons of atomic nuclei—is extremely complicated. This is particularly true in our world, which is three dimensional. Mathematical techniques from condensed matter physics that consider interactions in just one spatial dimension (plus time) greatly simplify the challenge. Using this two-dimensional approach, scientists solved the complex equations that describe how low-energy excitations ripple through a system of dense nuclear matter. This work indicates that the center of neutron stars, where such dense nuclear matter exists in nature, may be described by an unexpected form.

Using machine learning, scientists discovered the ‘first statistically robust evidence for neutrino emissions from the inner parts of the Milky Way.’

Scientists detected a high-energy neutrino emission from within the Milky Way for the very first time using the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a press statement reveals.

“Confirming the existence of this long-sought signal paves the way for the future of astroparticle physics in our galaxy,” explained Luigi Antonio Fusco in a related Perspective.

Scientists have made an important step toward developing computers advanced enough to simulate complex natural phenomena at the quantum level. While these types of simulations are too cumbersome or outright impossible for classical computers to handle, photonics-based quantum computing systems could provide a solution.

A team of researchers from the University of Rochester’s Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences developed a new chip-scale optical quantum simulation system that could help make such a system feasible. The team, led by Qiang Lin, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and optics, published their findings in Nature Photonics.

Lin’s team ran the simulations in a synthetic space that mimics the physical world by controlling the frequency, or color, of quantum entangled photons as time elapses. This approach differs from the traditional photonics-based computing methods in which the paths of photons are controlled, and also drastically reduces the physical footprint and resource requirements.

As sci-fi fans will attest, scenes of the distant future aren’t too difficult to imagine. We’ve got fleets of intergalactic ships exploring the inscrutable vastness of space. We’ve got legions of hardy settlers terraforming strange, new worlds. There’s a great galactic chain of humanity forged through will, knowledge, and intellect stretching across the Milky Way and beyond. At least, that’s one version. Some would describe a brutal, militaristic future for humanity, or one of disembodied consciousnesses and networks of planet-spanning artificial intelligence. But in each version, there’s one crucial element that humanity can’t do without: energy.

Energy is such a fundamental, critical component to civilization — off-world or not — that Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964 labeled spacefaring civilizations based on how much energy they consumed; the higher the ranking, the more advanced, as Space.com explains. We’re talking far, far beyond crude fuel like oil and coal. Earth isn’t even a Type I civilization because we haven’t harnessed all the energy available on our own planet. By contrast, a Type II civilization would be able to build an energy-harnessing structure like a Dyson sphere around its own sun, as described in Popular Mechanics. After all, all those intergalactic ships, stations, settlements, etc., need power from somewhere, same as they need materials.

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