Lifeboat Foundation

Black holes and neutron stars are among the densest known objects in the universe. Within and around these extreme astrophysical environments exist plasmas, the fourth fundamental state of matter alongside solids, liquids, and gases. Specifically, the plasmas at these extreme conditions are known as relativistic electron-positron pair plasmas because they comprise a collection of electrons and positrons—all flying around at nearly the speed of light.

While such plasmas are ubiquitous in deep space conditions, producing them in a laboratory setting has proved challenging.

Now, for the first time, an international team of scientists, including researchers from the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE), has experimentally generated high-density relativistic electron-positron pair–plasma beams by producing two to three orders of magnitude more pairs than previously reported. The team’s findings appear in Nature Communications.

The exact empirical evidence for retrocausality does not exist yet, but the existing empirical data as those from Bell tests may be interpreted in a way to support the retrocausal framework.

Have you ever thought that future states could affect the events that have occurred in the past? Although this idea sounds quite bizarre, it is indeed possible according to a quantum mechanical effect called retrocausality. According to the concept, causality and time do not work in the conventional sense and remarkably, an effect can predate its cause, thus reversing the directionality of time as well.

Usually, in the classical world, this is not what we actually experience. For every cause, there is a corresponding effect, but they work sequentially rather than in the reverse way. Conventional thought process suggests that once a particular event has occurred, there’s almost zero probability that it can be reversed. The physical reason is simple, and it has to do with the arrow of time. In general, the arrow of time points in a single forward direction and this is one of the major unsolved challenges of the foundations of physics because physicists are uncertain of why the nature of time is such.

Read about NASA’s latest demonstration for its laser communication system!

NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik, Christina Koch, and Kjell Lindgren, and other NASA employees recently sent images and videos of their pets to the International Space Station (ISS) via the agency’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program to further test laser communications between ground-based stations and space-based systems, including the ISS. This demonstration holds the potential to further enhance laser communications systems that could be useful for long-term space missions.

For this demonstration, the SCaN program used its elaborate and coordinated system consisting of the High-Rate Delay Tolerant Networking (HDTN), which is run by NASA’s Glenn Research Center and capable of sending data at quadruple the speeds of current DTN technology; NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD), which orbits at 22,000 miles above the Earth; and the Integrated LCRD Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal (ILLUMA-T) payload attached to the ISS.

Continue reading “Astronauts Submit Pet Images for Space Laser Communication Demonstration” »

Four Russian warships including a nuclear submarine have reached Cuba, just 200 miles off the coast of Florida, ahead of a planned military exercise in the Atlantic. The fleet — made up of a frigate, a nuclear-powered submarine, an oil tanker and a rescue tug — arrived in Havana Bay on Wednesday, welcomed by a 21-cannon salute from Cuba. Dramatic images from the arrival show the ominous and massive vessels entering the bay as Cubans lined up on…

Most of the fires detected in this map are burning in grass or cropland areas. Reports assert the fires are the result of both large and small-scale farmers attempting to manage the land in the most cost-effective way possible. However, in Angola, 80% percent of farmers are smallholders, which could explain the extensive use of burning practices in the country.

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Researchers have demonstrated a new intelligent photonic sensing-computing chip that can process, transmit and reconstruct images of a scene within nanoseconds. This advance opens the door to extremely high-speed image processing that could benefit edge intelligence for machine vision applications such as autonomous driving, industrial inspection and robotic vision.

Edge computing, which performs intensive computing tasks like image processing and analysis on local devices, is evolving into edge intelligence by adding artificial intelligence (AI) driven analysis and decision-making.

“Capturing, processing and analyzing images for edge-based tasks such as autonomous driving is currently limited to millisecond-level speeds due to the necessity of optical-to-electronic conversions,” said research team leader Lu Fang from Tsinghua University in China. “Our new chip can perform all these processes in just nanoseconds by keeping them all in the optical domain. This could be used to significantly enhance, or even replace, the traditional architecture of sensor acquisition followed by AI post-processing.”

What connection does nicotine and cannabis use have on mental health stressors, including anxiety, depression, and discrimination, for young adults? This is what a recent study published in Addictive Behaviors hopes to address as a team of researchers led by Indiana University investigated how increased use of nicotine and cannabis in young adults also comes at a time when mental health stressors are also on the rise with them, as well. This study holds the potential to help researchers, medical professionals, and the public better understand the link between nicotine and cannabis use and mental health, especially with the legalization of recreational cannabis becoming more prevalent across the United States.

For the study, the researchers conducted a survey between 2019 and 2021 consisting of 2,478 young adults from Los Angeles between 18 to 29 years old with the following demographics: 57 percent Hispanic, 19 percent Asian, 15 percent White, 4 percent Black, and 3 percent as Multiracial. The participants were instructed to provide their mental health symptoms status (anxiety and depressions) and social stressors (discrimination), along with how much they use cannabis or nicotine, including vaping.

In the end, the researchers found a correlation between nicotine and cannabis use, along with some dual use, with higher rates of depression and anxiety with Hispanic young adults, with both Hispanic and Asian young adults having increased use of nicotine and cannabis correlating with higher rates of discrimination. For Black young adults, the researchers found increased use of nicotine products with higher anxiety while finding the opposite occurred for higher rates of depression and discrimination.

The life and achievements of the mathematician John Nash.