Lifeboat Foundation

Using cutting-edge theoretical calculations performed at NERSC, researchers at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry have predicted fascinating new properties of lithium—a light alkali metal that has intrigued scientists for two decades with its remarkable diversity of physical states at high pressures.

“Under standard conditions, lithium is a simple metal that forms a textbook crystalline solid. However, scientists have shown that when you put a lithium crystal under pressure, the atomic structure changes and, somewhat counterintuitively, its conductivity drops, becoming less metallic,” said Stephanie Mack, a graduate student research assistant at Berkeley Lab and first author of the study, published in PNAS. “We’ve discovered it also becomes topological, with electronic properties similar to graphene.”

Topological materials are a recently discovered class of solids that display exotic properties, such as having insulating interiors yet highly conductive surfaces, even when deformed. They are exciting for potential applications in next-generation electronics and quantum information science. According to coauthors Sinéad Griffin and Jeff Neaton, lithium becomes topological at high but experimentally achievable pressures, comparable to one-quarter of the pressure at the Earth’s center.

Continue reading “Lithium doesn’t crack under pressure, it transforms” »

Researchers at Delft University of Technology have recently carried out a study investigating spin-orbit interaction in Majorana nanowires. Their study, published in Physical Review Letters, is the first to clearly show the mechanism that enables the creation of the elusive Majorana particle, which could become the building block of a more stable type of quantum computer.

“Our research is aimed at experimental verification of the theoretically proposed Majorana zero-mode,” Jouri Bommer, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org via email. “This particle, which is its own antiparticle, is of particular interest, because it is predicted to be useful for developing a topological quantum computer.”

Quantum computing is a promising area of computer science that explores the use of quantum-mechanical phenomena and quantum states to store information and solve computational problems. In the future, quantum computers could tackle problems that traditional computing methods are unable to solve, for instance enabling the computational and deterministic design of new drugs and molecules.

Continue reading “Study investigates how spin-orbit interaction protects Majorana nanowires” »

Cells in the body are wired like computer chips to direct signals that instruct how they function, research suggests.

Send your name to Mars and get your boarding pass! 😜.

Researchers have developed a brain-computer interface the size of a baby aspirin that can restore mobility to people with paralysis or amputated limbs.

How does it work? It rewires neural messages from the brain’s motor cortex to a robotic arm, or reroutes it to the person’s own muscles. In this video, Big Think contributor Susan Hockfield, president emerita of MIT, explains further.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQVfLYm3VEs&feature=share

Liz intends to take another gene therapy before the end of the year.

In a new study from the University of Illinois at Chicago, researchers examining post-mortem brain tissue from people ages 79 to 99 found that new neurons continue to form well into old age. The study provides evidence that this occurs even in people with cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease, although neurogenesis is significantly reduced in these people compared to older adults with normal cognitive functioning.

They publish their results in the journal Cell Stem Cell.

The idea that new neurons continue to form into middle age, let alone past adolescence, is controversial, as previous studies have shown conflicting results. The UIC study is the first to find evidence of significant numbers of neural stem cells and newly developing neurons present in the hippocampal tissue of older adults, including those with disorders that affect the hippocampus, which is involved in the formation of memories and in learning.

Continue reading “New neurons form in the brain into the tenth decade of life, even in people with Alzheimer’s” »

Frank Jennings Tipler is a mathematical physicist and cosmologist, holding a joint appointment in the Departments of Mathematics and Physics at Tulane University. He holds a BS in Physics from MIT and a PhD from the University of Maryland.

Watch his interview below on eternal life. To watch more interviews on this topic, click here: https://bit.ly/2wcTT1N

Relational quantum mechanics suggests physics might be a science of perceptions, not observer-independent reality.

• By Bernardo Kastrup on May 24, 2019