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science

Quantum Computers Are Improving Spooky Fast

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quantum computers - pixabay

The era of quantum supremacy is nigh. Quantum computers, which make calculations with entangled particles, or qubits, are poised to overtake their conventional counterparts very, very fast. And it’s all captured by a new law of computing, known as Neven’s Law, according to a fascinating new article in Quanta Magazine. So, what exactly is Neven’s Law? Named after Hartmut Neven, the director of the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab at Google who first noticed the phenomenon, the law dictates how quickly quantum processors are improving, or getting faster at processing calculations, relative to regular computers. And it turns out, they’re gaining … Read more

SCIENCE: First Fireworks Created In Chinese Search for Immortality

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One thousand years before the first Fourth of July, the first fireworks exploded. It didn’t rain twinkling stars or light up the night sky — but to the complete surprise and misfortune of one Chinese chemist, it did go “bang.” This “bang” was the product of an ancient quest for immortality, according to Gunpowder, Explosives and the State: A History (Routledge, 2016) . In early-ninth-century China, alchemy was all the rage. The goal of alchemy was to produce a substance that would prolong life, or even cheat death. Alchemy never did uncover a death-defying concoction. But it did produce an … Read more

The Heat Is Coming

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heat - pixabay

When I say, “how about that heat wave,” perhaps you think of the western United States, where temperatures last week soared above 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius), smashing dozens of historical heat records from Oregon to Arizona. Or maybe you think of India — where intense heat has scorched the country for more than a month, killing at least 36 people and forcing hundreds of thousands to evacuate their villages — or perhaps Kuwait, where local media recently reported high temperatures of 145 F (63 C), potentially the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth. The point is, the Northern … Read more

Scientists Create tectonic Map of westeros

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Westeros Map - HBO

Scientists are among the millions of die-hard Game of Thrones fans digesting the show’s finale. The striking landscape of Game of Thrones has led some researchers to build climate simulations that explain the erratic seasons depicted in the show, and others to piece together the geological history. Inspired by this work, we have built the first plate tectonic reconstruction of the Game of Thrones continents. Tectonic plates are moving slabs that make up the outer layer of our planet, and behave like conveyor belts in the way they carry and drag continents around on the surface. Even in this fantasy … Read more

Extraterrestrial Life Could Look Like the Flying Spaghetti Monster

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To find life on Mars, scientists should keep their eyes peeled for pasta. Hot-spring-loving microbes create rock formations that look like fettuccini or capellini, according to a new NASA-funded study published online April 30 in the journal Astrobiology. Such pasta-shaped formations could be the first clues to life on other planets, said study author Bruce Fouke, a geobiologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “If we go to another planet with a rover, we would love to see living microbes or we’d love to see little green women and men in spacecraft,” Fouke told Live Science. “But the reality … Read more

Coming Soon – Mind-Controlled Weapons?

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DARPA, the Department of Defense’s research arm, is paying scientists to invent ways to instantly read soldiers’ minds using tools like genetic engineering of the human brain, nanotechnology and infrared beams. The end goal? Thought-controlled weapons, like swarms of drones that someone sends to the skies with a single thought or the ability to beam images from one brain to another. This week, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) announced that six teams will receive funding under the Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N3) program. Participants are tasked with developing technology that will provide a two-way channel for rapid and seamless communication … Read more

Zombie Science: Bringing People Back From the Dead?

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There are few things in life more permanent and guaranteed than death. Yet, that doesn’t stop us from imagining what life would be like if death was only temporary. In AMC’s “Fear the Walking Dead,” returning Sunday, June 2, at 9 p.m. EDT/8 p.m. CDT, reanimated human corpses roam the world, having avoided the permanent stillness of death only to devour the living. Now, we know zombies aren’t real, but reanimated corpses aren’t exactly a figment of the imagination. Scientists have been attempting to restore life to the dead for hundreds of years. In the 1800s, physicist Giovanni Aldini became … Read more

Let’s Move the Earth

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Earth - pixabay

In the Chinese science fiction film The Wandering Earth, recently released on Netflix, humanity attempts to change the Earth’s orbit using enormous thrusters in order to escape the expanding sun — and prevent a collision with Jupiter. The scenario may one day come true. In five billion years, the sun will run out of fuel and expand, most likely engulfing the Earth. A more immediate threat is a global warming apocalypse. Moving the Earth to a wider orbit could be a solution — and it is possible in theory. But how could we go about it and what are the … Read more

How to Find a Time Warp

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time warp

It may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but scientists have already detected a time warp. But what does this mean? Basically, a time warp is some phenomenon that changes the flow of time by speeding it up or making it run more slowly. Physicists have known about time warps for over 100 years: In fact, you’re standing on a kind of time warp right now. In 1905, Albert Einstein published his theory of special relativity, followed a decade later by his sequel on general relativity, which stated that gravity is a property of the curving of space and … Read more

“Steve” Has Finally Been Solved

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Steve - Live Science

Three years ago, a mysterious purplish glow arced across the Canadian skies. The light show was a completely unknown celestial phenomenon, so it was given a name befitting its beauty and grandeur: Steve. Now, scientists have finally pinpointed what causes the phenomenon’s glowing ribbons of reddish purple and green: magnetic waves, winds of hot plasma and showers of electrons in regions they normally never appear. While aurora glows occur when electrons and protons fall into Earth’s atmosphere, “the STEVE atmospheric glow comes from heating without particle precipitation,” study co-author Bea Gallardo-Lacourt, a space physicist at the University of Calgary in … Read more