Lifeboat Foundation

Within days of each other back in 1998, two teams published the results of the first real-world quantum computations. But the first quantum computers weren’t computers at all. They were biochemistry equipment, relying on the same science as MRI machines.

You might think of quantum computing as a hyped-up race between computer companies to build a powerful processing device that will make more lifelike AI, revolutionize medicine, and crack the encryption that protects our data. And indeed, the prototype quantum computers of the late 1990s indirectly led to the quantum computers built by Google and IBM. But that’s not how it all began—it started with physicists tinkering with mathematics and biochemistry equipment for curiosity’s sake.

Rice University physicists have created the world’s first laser-cooled neutral plasma, completing a 20-year quest that sets the stage for simulators that re-create exotic states of matter found inside Jupiter and white dwarf stars.

The findings are detailed this week in the journal Science and involve new techniques for laser cooling clouds of rapidly expanding plasma to temperatures about 50 times colder than deep space.

Continue reading “Next up: Ultracold simulators of super-dense stars” »

A pair of researchers, one with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the other Harvard University, has found evidence of deep ocean cooling that is likely due to the Little Ice Age. In their paper published in the journal Science, Jake Gebbie and Peter Huybers describe their study of Pacific Ocean temperatures over the past 150 years and what they found.

Prior research has suggested that it takes a very long time for water in the Pacific Ocean to circulate down to its lowest depths. This is because it is replenished only from the south, which means it takes a very long time for water on the surface to make its way to the bottom—perhaps as long as several hundred years. That is what Gebbie and Huber found back in 2012. That got them to thinking that water temperature at the bottom of the Pacific could offer a hint of what surface temperatures were like hundreds of years ago. To find out if that truly was the case, the researchers obtained data from an international consortium called the Argo Program—a group of people who together have been taking ocean measurements down to depths of approximately two kilometers. As a comparative reference, the researchers also obtained data gathered by the crew of the HMS Challenger—they had taken Pacific Ocean temperatures down to a depth of two kilometers during the years 1872 to 1876.

A rare, massive cloud of pure hydrogen gas could tell scientists what the universe looked like minutes after the Big Bang.

New Horizons Rhapsody

An international team of researchers has, for the first time, demonstrated that by fixing a common glitch in photosynthesis, a crop’s yield could be improved by around 40 percent. The landmark study suggests optimizing a plant’s photosynthetic efficiency could significantly increase worldwide food productivity.

As if battered post-Christmas finances, a looming disorderly Brexit and the prospect of a fresh nuclear arms race were not enough to dampen spirits, astronomers have declared that a nearby galaxy will slam into the Milky Way and could knock our solar system far into the cosmic void.

The unfortunate discovery was made after scientists ran computer simulations on the movement of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), one of the many satellite galaxies that orbits the Milky Way. Rather than circling at a safe distance, or breaking free of the Milky Way’s gravitational pull, the researchers found the LMC is destined to clatter into the galaxy we call home.

At the moment, the LMC is estimated to be about 163,000 light years from the Milky Way and speeding away at 250 miles per second. But simulations by astrophysicists at Durham University show that the LMC will eventually slow down and turn back towards us, ultimately smashing into the Milky Way in about 2.5 billion years’ time.

Continue reading “Nearby galaxy set to collide with Milky Way, say scientists” »

The growing understanding of the link between the gut and brain inflammation is perhaps one of the most exciting new avenues in modern medical research. An incredible new study from researchers at the University of Toronto and UC San Francisco has provided a novel insight into the gut-brain connection, revealing the intestine may be the source of immune cells found to reduce brain inflammation in multiple sclerosis (MS) sufferers.

The single-celled Mesodinium chamaeleon harnesses algae, which lives inside it, for energy.