Scientists have warned that the planets in our solar system might crash if Neptune's orbit is altered by only 0.1 percent by a passing star.
The study, which was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, shows that a "stellar flyby" - a relatively typical occurrence in the cosmos - might be sufficient to cause planets to collide.
If Mercury and Jupiter's perihelion — the moment at which the planets are closest to the Sun — occur simultaneously, two outcomes are conceivable. Mercury's orbit might be perturbed, causing it to either exit the Solar System or collide with Venus, the Sun, or the Earth.
These alterations will occur over millions of years, but the researchers recreated the condition around three thousand times.
In over 2,000 of them, 26 concluded with the planets colliding, or Uranus, Neptune, or Mercury are entirely expelled from the Solar System.
“The full extent that stellar flybys play in the evolution of planetary systems is still an active area of research. For planetary systems that form in a star cluster, the consensus is that stellar flybys play an important role while the planetary system remains within the star cluster”, Garett Brown, a graduate student of computational physics from the Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences (PES) at the University of Toronto.
“This is typically the first 100 million years of planetary evolution. After the star cluster dissipates the occurrence rate of stellar flybys dramatically decreases, reducing their role in the evolution of planetary systems.”
In addition, given that the Sun will certainly expand and swallow the Earth in five billion years, the possibility that this would disturb our experience in the Solar System is "not an issue we need to worry about," according to Brown.
In 2016, scientists discovered time crystals, solids with an oscillating internal structure that repeats itself in time rather than in space.
Now, they have found another, in a regular crystal that can be easily made at home in one of those grow-your-own-crystal toys.
As reported in two studies published in Physical Review Letters and Physical Review B, researchers have identified the typical behavior of a discrete time crystal (DTC) in mono-ammonium phosphate. This discovery complicates the theory behind time crystals, as researchers have generally believed that these objects require a certain "internal disorder" to be able to act as time crystals.
The team had grown crystals for a different experiment but was curious to see if they could observe the expected DTC signal in them. They used nuclear magnetic resonance and were surprised to discover the signature as quickly as they did.
"Our crystal measurements looked quite striking right off the bat," the principal investigator for the two new studies Professor Sean Barrett, from Yale University, said in a statement. "Our work suggests that the signature of a DTC could be found, in principle, by looking in a children's crystal growing kit."
Time crystals have been likened to weird jiggling Jell-O. You start shaking it, but the gelatin oscillates with a frequency that doesn’t correspond to your movements. This is what happens with time crystals. No matter what your initial push might have been, the time crystal assumes a specific frequency. So even if your pulses are imperfect, the time crystal will oscillate with a clockwork tick.
How such structures come to be is unclear and the research challenges many of the expectations and ideas put forward over the last several years. "We realized that just finding the DTC signature didn't necessarily prove that the system had a quantum memory of how it came to be," said Yale graduate student Robert Blum, a co-author of the studies.
The team then pushed their investigation further. "This spurred us to try a time crystal 'echo,' which revealed the hidden coherence, or quantum order, within the system," lead author Jared Rovny, also a Yale graduate student, explained.
Time crystals could potentially improve well-established technologies like atomic clocks, magnetometers, and even the gyroscopes used in mobile phones to determine their orientation. They might even play an important role in emergent quantum technologies, an area of research that will likely see increased investment over the next few years.
An earlier version of this article was first published in May 2018.
Laurent Simons, a kid from the Belgian coastal town of Ostend, has just graduated from the University of Antwerp with a bachelor's degree in physics, making him the world's second-youngest graduate.
Eleven-year-old Simons only took a year to complete his bachelor’s degree, which usually takes at least three years.
In a conversation with the Dutch daily De Telegraaf, Simons said that, "I don't really care if I'm the youngest." "It's all about getting knowledge for me."
"This is the first puzzle piece in my goal of replacing body parts with mechanical parts," Simons said.
"Immortality" is his goal, the child prodigy said.
"I want to be able to replace as many body parts as possible with mechanical parts.I’ve mapped out a path to get there. You can see it as a big puzzle. Quantum physics – the study of the smallest particles – is the first piece of the puzzle," he said.
To solve that puzzle, he said, "I want to work with the best professors in the world, look inside their brains, and find out how they think."
He finished high school in just 1.5 years and received his diploma when he was eight years old.
He grew interested in classical mechanics and quantum physics last year, and he became consumed with learning everything he could about them.
He subsequently put all of his other projects on hold to focus only on this.
For the first time, one of the world's most prestigious mathematics prizes was given to a woman.
Karen Uhlenbeck, an emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Texas at Austin, is the first woman to receive the Abel Prize in mathematics.
According to the New York Times, the prize recognises "the basic importance of her work on analysis, geometry, and mathematical physics."
It is granted by the King of Norway to excellent mathematicians who have profoundly influenced their area, and includes a monetary prize of Norwegian kroner worth approximately $700,000. Since 2003, the prize has been given out, however all past winners have been men.
Dr. Uhlenbeck is widely recognised for her contributions to geometric partial differential equations, gauge theory, and integrable systems. According to the Times, she helped pioneer a branch known as geometric analysis, and her theories of predictive mathematics, inspired by soap bubbles, were among her most notable achievements.
“She did things nobody thought about doing, and after she did, she laid the foundations of a branch of mathematics,” said Sun-Yung Alice Chang, a mathematician at Princeton University who served on the prize committee.
According to the Times, Dr. Uhlenbeck found out about her history-making award on Sunday morning, via text message, and said that she has yet to decide what to do with the cash prize that comes with it.
“When I came out of church, I noticed that I had a text message from Alice Chang that said, Would I please accept a call from Norway?” she said. “When I got home, I called Norway back and they told me.”
When you were a kid, do you remember all the fun things you wanted to do and the adventures you wanted to go on?
Jonny Kim achieved his aspirations of becoming a doctor, NASA astronaut, and sniper for Navy. And he finished it all by the time he was 37.
We can hear you wondering, “But… how?” Kim enlisted at the age of 16 and eventually became a Navy Seal rather than enrolling in college. In an interview with NBC San Diego, Kim claimed that his decision to enlist caused his mother to sob in disappointment. She didn’t like it very much, he continued.
At least 20 years ago, when I was going through this process, I believe that many Asian Americans weren’t really comfortable with it.
History of Jonny Kim:
Jonny Kim, a Lieutenant Commander (LCDR), has been chosen by NASA to be a member of the 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class. In August 2017, he reported for service; in 2021 he was the Increment Lead for Expedition 65 of the International Space Station.
The Silver Star and Bronze Star with Combat “V” have been awarded to Kim, a U.S. Navy SEAL who has completed over 100 combat missions. Kim graduated from the University of San Diego with a degree in mathematics and the Harvard Medical School with a doctorate in medicine before being commissioned as a naval officer through an enlisted-to-officer program.
Personal information:
Jonny Kim is a Korean American immigrant who was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Enjoys spending time with his family, being outdoors, mentoring students and professionals, lifting weights, and continuing his education. Holds Advanced SCUBA certifications.
Santa Monica High School, Santa Monica, California, 2002; education 2012:
Jonny Kim and his mother at Harvard Medical School graduation./ Source: nbcsandiego.com
The University of San Diego, summa cum laud, mathematics bachelor’s degree. Harvard Medical School awarded me a doctorate in medicine in 2016. 2017 Boston, Massachusetts, Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital medical internship, Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency.
Experience:
After graduating high school in 2002, Kim joined the Navy as a Seaman recruit. He reported to Coronado, California’s Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training after finishing Hospital Corpsman “A” school training. Kim reported to the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School in Fort Bragg, North Carolina for the Special Operations Combat Medic Course after finishing his training at Naval Special Warfare.
Jonny Kim obtained various certifications, including those for Combatant Diver (closed circuit rebreather), Naval Special Warfare Special Reconnaissance Scout and Sniper, and Advanced Special Operations Techniques before being assigned as a Special Warfare Operator to SEAL Team Three Charlie Platoon in San Diego, California.
NASA
Over the course of two deployments to the Middle East, including Ramadi and Sadr City, Iraq, Kim participated in more than 100 combat missions as a Special Operations Combat Medic, sniper, navigator, and point person. After graduating from the University of San Diego in 2012, he was appointed as a naval officer through the Navy’s Seaman to Admiral-21 enlisted-to-officer commissioning program.
Kim did his internship with the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital before earning his medical degree from Harvard Medical School.
He stated, in an interview with Harvard Gazette:
“He got a pretty nasty wound to the face,” One of the worst helplessness’s I’ve ever experienced. I could only focus on positioning him correctly and ensuring that his blood wasn’t impeding his airway. He required a doctor. I eventually managed to get him to a doctor, but that feeling of powerlessness was intense for me.
He went on to say,
“The loss of many excellent friends inspired me, and many of my surviving colleagues made sure we lived lives that were meaningful. I continue to reflect on all the decent people who didn’t get the chance to return home every day, even today. I make an effort to make up for the lives and worthwhile effects they may have had if they had lived.”
Experience with NASA:
Kim completed two years of training as an astronaut candidate before reporting for duty in August 2017. Physiological training, expeditionary training, field geology, robotics, technical and operational education in International Space Station systems, water and wilderness survival training, and Russian language competence training were all included in the program.
Kim started working as a Capsule Communicator (Capcom) in Mission Control Center Houston in 2020 to assist the operations of the International Space Station. Kim was chosen to lead Expedition 65’s increment on the International Space Station in April 2021.
Honors:
Combat “V” on the Bronze Star Medal, Combat Action Ribbon, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, Silver Star Medal, and several campaign and service awards. HM “A” School, Navy Hospital Corpsman, Distinguished Honor Graduate. Commandant’s List, Joint Special Operations Medical Training Center, Special Operations Combat Medic Course (JSOMTC). Special Operations Medical Association’s Naval Special Warfare Medic of the Year award.
Pat Tillman Foundation Tillman Scholar Scholarship from the University of San Diego’s trustees. The University of San Diego’s Summa cum laude (Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps). the honor society Phi Beta Kappa. the honor society Kappa Gamma Pi. Society of Mortar Board Honor.
A successful and unconventional professional path:
After finishing his training at Naval Special Warfare at Coronado, Kim joined the elite Navy SEAL unit and was subsequently assigned to SEAL Team 3. Kim served as a Special Operation Combat Medic, a navigator, and a sniper during his two deployments, and throughout his military career, he performed over 100 combat operations.
As if that weren’t enough, he was also given the Silver and Bronze Stars for bravery. Kim enlisted after high school, delaying his plans for college, but in 2012, Later, Kim understood that his time spent in combat had inspired him to pursue a career in medicine.
He pursued his desire, attended Harvard Medical School, and earned his medical degree in 2016. Despite all his achievements, his desire to help humanity was not met. That is when he made the decision to aim high. Kim applied for astronaut candidacy in 2017 and was chosen by NASA to become the first Korean American astronaut. after an already distinguished military career, he returned to complete his bachelor’s degree in mathematics at the University of San Diego.
Scientists have employed a traditional field of mathematics in an entirely novel approach to investigate the anatomy of human brains.
They revealed that the brain is filled of multidimensional geometrical structures that operate in up to 11 dimensions.
We're used to seeing the world in three dimensions, so this may sound difficult, but the findings of this new study could be the next important step in understanding the fabric of the human brain - the most intricate structure we've discovered.
The Blue Brain Project, a Swiss scientific endeavour dedicated to developing a supercomputer-powered recreation of the human brain, created its latest brain model.
The team used algebraic topology, a branch of mathematics used to describe the properties of objects and spaces regardless of how they change shape. They found that groups of neurons connect into 'cliques', and that the number of neurons in a clique would lead to its size as a high-dimensional geometric object.
"We found a world that we had never imagined. There are tens of millions of these objects even in a small speck of the brain, up through seven dimensions. In some networks, we even found structures with up to 11 dimensions." says lead researcher, neuroscientist Henry Markram from the EPFL institute in Switzerland.
Human brains are estimated to have a staggering 86 billion neurons, with multiple connections from each cell webbing in every possible direction, forming the vast cellular network that somehow makes us capable of thought and consciousness. With such a huge number of connections to work with, it's no wonder we still don't have a thorough understanding of how the brain's neural network operates. But the new mathematical framework built by the team takes us one step closer to one day having a digital brain model.
To perform the mathematical tests, the team used a detailed model of the neocortex the Blue Brain Project team published back in 2015. The neocortex is thought to be the most recently evolved part of our brains, and the one involved in some of our higher-order functions like cognition and sensory perception.
After developing their mathematical framework and testing it on some virtual stimuli, the team also confirmed their results on real brain tissue in rats. According to the researchers, algebraic topology provides mathematical tools for discerning details of the neural network both in a close-up view at the level of individual neurons, and a grander scale of the brain structure as a whole.
By connecting these two levels, the researchers could discern high-dimensional geometric structures in the brain, formed by collections of tightly connected neurons (cliques) and the empty spaces (cavities) between them.
"We found a remarkably high number and variety of high-dimensional directed cliques and cavities, which had not been seen before in neural networks, either biological or artificial," the team writes in the study.
"Algebraic topology is like a telescope and microscope at the same time. It can zoom into networks to find hidden structures, the trees in the forest, and see the empty spaces, the clearings, all at the same time." says one of the team, mathematician Kathryn Hess from EPFL.
Those clearings or cavities seem to be critically important for brain function. When researchers gave their virtual brain tissue a stimulus, they saw that neurons were reacting to it in a highly organized manner.
"It is as if the brain reacts to a stimulus by building [and] then razing a tower of multi-dimensional blocks, starting with rods (1D), then planks (2D), then cubes (3D), and then more complex geometries with 4D, 5D, etc. The progression of activity through the brain resembles a multi-dimensional sandcastle that materializes out of the sand and then disintegrates." says one of the team, mathematician Ran Levi from Aberdeen University in Scotland.
These findings provide a tantalising new picture of how the brain processes information, but the researchers emphasise that it is not yet clear what causes the cliques and cavities to form in such specific ways, and that more research will be required to determine how the complexity of these multidimensional geometric shapes formed by our neurons correlates with the complexity of various cognitive tasks.
But this is far from the last we'll hear about algebraic topology's insights into the most enigmatic of human organs - the brain.
Anyone looking at Rose Ferreira, an astronomy student at Arizona State University and a NASA intern, cannot imagine the road she has taken.
As a child, the young woman grew up in the Dominican Republic and did not have access to education. She eventually relocated to New York, where she encountered an even harsher reality: she visited violent areas, had limited access to school, and was homeless in one of the major cities in the United States.
But there was always something that piqued her interest: what could explain space? The doubts stem from her childhood, when she endured blackouts in her hometown. She was obliged to survive solely by the light of the moon throughout those times.
“The Moon was a lot of what I used to see and I was always curious about it,” he said, in NASA news website interview. "That obsession is what made me start asking questions."
It was the many unanswered questions that helped her through the storm. Before arriving at university, Rose worked as a home health assistant and studied through EJA (Youth and Adult Education). She still needed to recover from a hit-and-run and cancer treatment.
It was only after that that she was finally able to enroll in college. In July of this year, she received the email of her life: she was going to be an intern at NASA.
Dream of being an astronaut
If as a child Rose Ferreira didn't even know what NASA was, today she wants to become an astronaut for the US space agency. She says that she felt the greatest emotion of her life when she saw for the first time the image of a field of galaxies in the James Webb telescope, in July.
“I went into the bathroom and cried a little,” he recalls, now laughing. “Being able to contribute in some way to the efforts of the NASA team felt like such a strong thing to me. After that, I was in shock for a week.”
In his internship, Ferreira advised the teams that launched the largest space science telescope of all time at the Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
She also supported live interviews on James Webb's first released images and other multimedia assignments for NASA's Spanish-language communications program. Now, her short-term goal is to earn a doctoral degree. And, then, who knows how to fulfill the dream of being an astronaut.
“Discover what you love”
Rose Ferreira left a piece of advice for young people who also want to follow space science. “Coming from a person who had a little more trouble getting there, I think, first, find out if it's really what you love,” she advises.
"And if it's really what you love," then literally find a way to do it, no matter who says what."
She says the process, while difficult, was worth it. Her interest now lies in the Artemis mission, which will explore the Moon, her longtime “friend”.
“Even when I lived on the streets, the moon used to be the thing I looked to to calm myself down. It’s my sense of comfort even today when I’m overwhelmed with things,” she said. "It's my driving force."
Since NASA first announced the discovery of seven Earth-like planets orbiting a dwarf star just 39 light-years away, imaginations have run wild as to what these mysterious worlds might look like.
Now, the space agency has revealed the much-awaited first glimpse at the Trappist-1 system – but, it might not be the alien landscape you’re hoping for.
Raw data from the Kepler space telescope shows a pixelated first look at our ‘ultra-cool neighbour,’ with tiny blips in brightness indicating the presence of transiting planets passing in front of the star.
The space agency has revealed the much-awaited first glimpse at the Trappist-1 system – but, it might not be the alien landscape you’re hoping for. Kepler has been observing Trappist-1 since December, and the newly released dataset accounts for 74 days of monitoring
Breathtaking illustrations from artists in recent weeks have painted a captivating picture of these mysterious planets.
While the new view might not satisfy our imaginations just yet, these observations are of great value to the scientific community.
Kepler has been observing Trappist-1 since December, and the newly released dataset accounts for 74 days of monitoring, from Dec 15 to March 4.
The system was first spotted by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope in combination with ground-based telescopes.
Raw data from the Kepler space telescope released this week show a pixelated first look at our ‘ultra-cool neighbour,’ with tiny blips in brightness indicating the presence of transiting planets passing in front of the star
And, with these additional observations, scientists can refine their existing measurements of six of the planets in the system, and get a better understanding of the orbital period and mass of the seventh.
It could also reveal more information on the host star’s magnetic activity.
‘Scientists and enthusiasts around the world are invested in learning everything they can about these Earth-size worlds,’ said Geert Barentsen, K2 research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center.
‘Providing the K2 raw data as quickly as possible was a priority to give investigators an early look so they could best define their follow-up research plans.
Breathtaking illustrations from artists in recent weeks have painted a captivating picture of these mysterious planets. While the new view might not satisfy our imaginations just yet, these observations are of great value to the scientific community
‘We’re thrilled that this will also allow the public to witness the process of discovery.’
The dataset represents the longest, nearly continuous study yet of this newly-discovered system, and will allow researchers to study the gravitational interactions of the planets within.
And, it will allow them to search for any planets that may have so far evaded discovery.
If Kepler had followed its initial coordinates set in October 2015, defined as Campaign 12, it would have missed the planets.
But, after the discovery of three of the planets in the system was announced in May, researchers reworked the calculations.
This chart shows, on the top row, artist impressions of the seven planets of Trappist-1 with their orbital periods, distances from their star, radii and masses as compared to those of Earth. The bottom row shows data about Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. The seven planets' orbits are closer to their star than Venus, Earth or Mars, and are therefore significantly shorter
Not only will these observations be of use to scientists working to refine their measurements now, but NASA says the mission could help plan future studies with the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope.
‘We were lucky that the K2 mission was able to observe Trappist-1,’ said Michael Haas, science office director for the Kepler and K2 missions at Ames.
‘The observing field for Campaign 12 was set when the discovery of the first planets orbiting Trappist-1 was announced, and the science community has already submitted proposals for specific targets of interest in the field.
‘The unexpected opportunity to further study the Trappist-1 system was quickly recognized the agility of the K2 team and science community prevailed once again.’
More than 600,000 years ago, the trans-Neptunian object last approached this close.
A new trans-Neptunian object that may be the biggest object ever found in the Oort Cloud has been found by astronomers. Its diameter is estimated to be between 130 and 370 kilometers, and in early 2031, when it will pass between Uranus and Saturn's orbits, the object will make its closest approach to the Sun. The Minor Planet Center's website announced the discovery's news.
Learn all there is to know about the biggest object ever found in the Oort Cloud.
1. Astronomers Gary Bernstein and Pedro Bernardinelli made the discovery of 2014 UN271 by reanalyzing the DES (Dark Energy Survey) database of sky photos from 2014 to 2018.
2. The object was roughly 29 astronomical units away from Earth at the time of its first detection in 2014. Because it takes so long to look for trans-Neptunian objects in DES data, the finding was only announced on June 19, 2021, according to scientists.
3. The object is now 20.2 astronomical units away from the Earth. Its orbit is extended (eccentricity 0.99) and steeply inclined (95.4 degrees) with respect to the ecliptic plane, which results in the previous barycentric aphelion being calculated to be 39,400 astronomical units from the Sun.
The minor planet 2014 UN271, which will make its closest approach to the Sun in 2031, is currently located and is in the orbit of what may be the biggest Oort Cloud object to date.
4. The new value, after getting closer to the Sun, will be 54,600 astronomical units, indicating that 2014 UN271 has entered the inner Oort cloud.
5. 2014 UN271 has an absolute star magnitude of 7.87, which, when paired with an estimated albedo value of 0.01-0.08, results in an object with a diameter that falls between 130 and 370 kilometers.
6. As a result, 2014 UN271 may be a dwarf planet or a trans-Neptunian object that is about as big as the comet C/1729 P1's nucleus.
7. Although no coma was seen in the object between 2014 and 2018, scientists think that 2014 UN271 may start to show comet-like behaviour as it gets closer to the Sun.
the biggest object that scientists have seen in the Oort Cloud. Even if the picture is not as good, 2014 UN271 is still too far away to be seen clearly. Credit: DES Survey / Pedro Bernardinelli
8. The perihelion point, which lies around 10.5 astronomical units from the Sun, will be crossed by 2014 UN271 in the early years of 2031. The small planet's orbital period around the Sun is thought to be roughly 600,000 years, according to astronomers.
9. How lucky that, in our lives, we will see the closest flyby of the greatest Oort Cloud object. In any case, amateur astronomers are unlikely to have the opportunity to see it via conventional telescopes. The item won't be very brilliant, according to experts. The scientists anticipate that they will be able to view it with the upcoming Large Synoptic Survey Telescope at the same time.
10. In regards to the DES survey, scientists pledge to provide a fresh comprehensive catalog of trans-Neptunian objects found in the first four years of observations, including 2014 UN271, in the following three months.
Sources:
• The International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center. (n.d.). 2014 UN271 MPEC 2021-M53.
• Irving, M. (2021, June 21). Extremely eccentric minor planet to visit inner solar system this decade. Atlas New.
• NASA. (n.d.). JPL Small-Body Database Browser.
• O’Callaghan, J. (2021, June 21). An enormous ‘mega comet’ is flying into our solar system. New Scientist.
• Robitzski, D. (2021, June 21). A Tiny Planet Will Soon Drift Nearer to Earth Than Since Caveman Times. Futurism.
Tara
Sharifi, a student at Aylesbury High School, recently took the Mensa IQ test in
Oxford where she scored well above the “genius benchmark” of 140. The
11-year-old student scored 162 points on the test, which is two points ahead of
Einstein, a theoretical physicist who is considered as one of the two pillars
of modern physics, and famous cosmologist Professor Stephen Hawking.
Updated version of the previous article.
The
Mensa IQ test, which needed to be answered within a set time, focused on the
student’s ability to understand the meanings of words, according to Iran Front Page.
“I was shocked when I got the result – I never
expected to get such a good score,” Sharifi
said.
With
the score she received, Sharifi now qualifies for the Mensa membership, which
is also known as the High IQ society.
“It was a joint decision between me and my parents
to take the test,” the
girl said. “It will be a wonderful
opportunity to meet other people within the Mensa system. I have told some of
my friends at school and they were really impressed.”
She
also added that when she becomes older, she would pursue “something related to mathematics.”
Her father, meanwhile, admitted that he was surprised by the result, but was
proud of what his daughter achieved.
“I am extremely proud but very surprised at how well
Tara scored,” her
father, Hossein, said, Bucks Herald UK reported. “I figured she might do well when we watched
TV and she would get maths questions before the contestants. I knew she was
very clever but I did not think she would have such a high IQ.”
According to a disturbing new study (link at the bottom), scientists have uncovered a powerful new breed of fact-resistant humans that are endangering the ability of Earth to sustain existence. The University of Minnesota study identifies a virulent strain of humans that are practically impervious to any type of verified knowledge, leaving experts baffled as to how to combat them.
“These humans appear to have all the faculties necessary to receive and process information. And yet, somehow, they have developed defences that, for all intents and purposes, have rendered those faculties totally inactive. As facts have multiplied, their defenses against those facts have only grown more powerful.” Davis Logsdon, one of the scientists who contributed to the study, said.
While scientists do not fully understand the mechanisms that prevent fact-resistant humans from receiving knowledge, they hypothesise that the strain may have gained the ability to intercept and reject information en route from the auditory nerve to the brain.
“The normal functions of human consciousness have been completely nullified,” Logsdon said.
While reiterating the study's pessimistic findings, Logsdon expressed optimism that the threat of fact-resistant humans could be minimised in the future.
“Our research is very preliminary, but it’s possible that they will become more receptive to facts once they are in an environment without food, water, or oxygen,” he said.
For the first time, one of the world's most prestigious mathematics prizes was given to a woman. Karen Uhlenbeck, an emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Texas at Austin, is the first woman to receive the Abel Prize in mathematics.
According to the New York Times, the prize recognises "the basic importance of her work on analysis, geometry, and mathematical physics." It is granted by the King of Norway to excellent mathematicians who have profoundly influenced their area, and includes a monetary prize of Norwegian kroner worth approximately $700,000. Since 2003, the prize has been given out, however all past winners have been men.
Dr. Uhlenbeck is widely recognised for her contributions to geometric partial differential equations, gauge theory, and integrable systems. According to the Times, she helped pioneer a branch known as geometric analysis, and her theories of predictive mathematics, inspired by soap bubbles, were among her most notable achievements.
“She did things nobody thought about doing, and after she did, she laid the foundations of a branch of mathematics,” said Sun-Yung Alice Chang, a mathematician at Princeton University who served on the prize committee.
According to the Times, Dr. Uhlenbeck found out about her history-making award on Sunday morning, via text message, and said that she has yet to decide what to do with the cash prize that comes with it.
“When I came out of church, I noticed that I had a text message from Alice Chang that said, Would I please accept a call from Norway?” she said. “When I got home, I called Norway back and they told me.”
Laurent Simons, a kid from the Belgian coastal town of Ostend, has just graduated from the University of Antwerp with a bachelor's degree in physics, making him the world's second-youngest graduate.
Eleven-year-old Simons only took a year to complete his bachelor’s degree, which usually takes at least three years.
In a conversation with the Dutch daily De Telegraaf, Simons said that, "I don't really care if I'm the youngest." "It's all about getting knowledge for me."
"This is the first puzzle piece in my goal of replacing body parts with mechanical parts," Simons said.
"Immortality" is his goal, the child prodigy said.
"I want to be able to replace as many body parts as possible with mechanical parts.I’ve mapped out a path to get there. You can see it as a big puzzle. Quantum physics – the study of the smallest particles – is the first piece of the puzzle," he said.
To solve that puzzle, he said, "I want to work with the best professors in the world, look inside their brains, and find out how they think."
He finished high school in just 1.5 years and received his diploma when he was eight years old.
He grew interested in classical mechanics and quantum physics last year, and he became consumed with learning everything he could about them.
He subsequently put all of his other projects on hold to focus only on this.
Irrationality in our thinking has long troubled psychology. When others inquire how we are, we normally say "fine" or "good." However, if we are asked about a specific event — "How did you feel about the major meeting with your boss today?" — we instantly refine our "good" or "fine" comments on a scale from dreadful to great.
We can contradict ourselves in a few sentences: we're "good," but we're unhappy with how the meeting went. So, how can we be "good" in general? Bias, experience, knowledge, and context all interact consciously and unconsciously to drive every decision we make and emotion we exhibit. Human behaviour is difficult to predict, and probability theory frequently fails to do so.
Enter quantum cognition: a group of researchers discovered that, while our choices and beliefs don't always make sense or match a pattern on a macro level, they can be predicted with startling precision on a "quantum" level. In quantum physics, inspecting a particle's state affects the particle's state; similarly, the "observation effect" influences how we think about the topic under consideration.
The quantum-cognition idea allows psychologists and neuroscientists to comprehend the mind as an exquisite cosmos rather than a linear computer.
In the example of the meeting, if someone asks, "Did it go well?" we immediately think of ways it did. However, if he or she asks, "Were you nervous about the meeting?" we might remember that it was pretty scary to give a presentation in front of a group. The other borrowed concept in quantum cognition is that we cannot hold incompatible ideas in our minds at one time. In other words, decision-making and opinion-forming are a lot like Schrödinger’s cat.
The quantum-cognition theory opens the fields of psychology and neuroscience to understanding the mind not as a linear computer, but rather an elegant universe. But the notion that human thought and existence is richly paradoxical has been around for centuries. Moreover, the more scientists and scholars explore the irrational rationality of our minds, the closer science circles back to the confounding logic at the heart of every religion. Buddhism, for instance, is premised on riddles such as, “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without it.” And, in Christianity, the paradox that Christ was simultaneously both a flesh-and-blood man and the Son of God is the central metaphor of the faith.
For centuries, religious texts have explored the idea that reality breaks down once we get past our surface perceptions of it; and yet, it is through these ambiguities that we understand more about ourselves and our world. In the Old Testament, the embattled Job pleads with God for an explanation as to why he has endured so much suffering. God then quizzically replies, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Job 38:4). The question seems nonsensical — why would God ask a person in his creation where he was when God himself created the world? But this paradox is little different from the one in Einstein’s famous challenge to Heisenberg’s "Uncertainty Principle": “God does not play dice with the universe.” As Stephen Hawking counters, “Even God is bound by the uncertainty principle” because if all outcomes were deterministic then God would not be God. His being the universe’s “inveterate gambler” is the unpredictable certainty that creates him.
The mind then "gambles" with our "uncertain" reason, feelings, and prejudices to form conflicting thoughts, ideas, and opinions, according to quantum cognition. Then we combine those conflicting possibilities to relate to our "certain" reality. We modify our thoughts by studying them at a quantum level, and by changing them, we change the reality that shapes them.
An astrophysicist and a neurosurgeon walked into a room.
It may sound like the start of a horrible joke, but what a group of Italian academics came up with is a truly galaxy brain take: the structures of the observable universe, they claim, are startlingly similar to the neural networks of the human brain.
In a recent research published in the journal Frontiers in Physics, University of Bologna astronomer Franco Vazza and University of Verona neurosurgeon Alberto Feletti reveal the unexpected similarities between the cosmic network of galaxies and the complex web of neurons in the human brain. According to the researchers, despite being nearly 27 orders of magnitude distant in scale, the human brain and the makeup of the cosmic web exhibit similar levels of complexity and self-organization.
The brain contains an estimated 69 billion neurons, while the observable universe is composed of at least 100 billion galaxies, strung together loosely like a web. Both actual galaxies and neurons only account for about 30 percent of the total masses of the universe and brain, respectively. And both galaxies and neurons arrange themselves like beads on long strings or filaments.
In the case of galaxies, the remaining 70 percent of mass is dark energy. The equivalent in the human brain, the duo said: water.
“We calculated the spectral density of both systems,” Vazza said in a statement about the work. “This is a technique often employed in cosmology for studying the spatial distribution of galaxies.”
“Our analysis showed that the distribution of the fluctuation within the cerebellum neuronal network on a scale from 1 micrometer to 0.1 millimeters follows the same progression of the distribution of matter in the cosmic web,” he added, “but, of course, on a larger scale that goes from 5 million to 500 million light-years.”
The clustering and number of connections emanating from each node also were oddly similar.
“Once again, structural parameters have identified unexpected agreement levels,” Feletti said in the statement. “Probably, the connectivity within the two networks evolves following similar physical principles, despite the striking and obvious difference between the physical powers regulating galaxies and neurons.”
The team is hoping that their preliminary study could lead to new analysis techniques in both cosmology and neurosurgery, allowing scientists to better understand how these structures have evolved over time.
On his third day of work at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Wolf Cukier, a high school student interning there, found a new planet. His main responsibility when he first joined in the summer of 2019, at the age of 17, was to examine changes in star brightness recorded by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS. However, while doing so, he discovered a brand-new planet 1,300 light-years from Earth in an extraordinary star-system.
Image credits: NASA Goddard
“I was looking through the data for everything the volunteers had flagged as an eclipsing binary, a system where two stars circle around each other and, from our view, eclipse each other every orbit,” said Wolf Cukier . “About three days into my internship, I saw a signal from a system called TOI 1338b. At first, I thought it was a stellar
The new planet, TOI 1388b, is TESS's first circumbinary planet, meaning it orbits two stars rather than one. One is 10% more massive than our Sun, while the other is cooler, darker, and barely one-third the mass of the Sun.
Image credits: NASA Goddard
The planet is around 6.9 times the size of Earth, falling somewhere between Neptune and Saturn. Some generated photos of the TOI 1388b planet have been made public. and took the internet by storm The hues of this planet appear to be captivating pastels in these photographs, with bubblegum pink, soft purple, lavender, and light green tints.
(Updated version of the previous article.)
These photos were generated by a bot and do not represent the planet in any way. We still lack telescopes capable of resolving all of the planets in our solar system, let alone exoplanets from other star systems.
The interest in space phenomena and the hours of reading the book, The Whole Universe, was what prompted Malick Ndiaye to design a telescope with the few resources he had.
The boy born in Senegal, just 12 years old, used some old high-magnification glasses that his father used, a camera lens, wire, paper, cans and cane to make his own telescope.
With these resources, the young African built a telescope that allowed him to see the night sky and the details of the Moon's surface.
"It took me two weeks to build the telescope," the little boy dressed in a NASA polo shirt explained in a report to the Spanish media El País, "when I focused on the night sky and saw the details of the Moon's surface, it seemed to me that I could touch it with your hand. One day I was at the door of the house and a man who worked on the road works passed by. He asked me if it was something about topography and I told him no, that it was a telescope that I had made myself. So he took photos and a video of me and uploaded them to Facebook.”
What Malick did not know is that this video would accumulate thousands of reproductions, reaching the hands of scientists in the region who did not hesitate to contact the young man.
new telescope
In addition to scientists, journalists also approached Senegal to learn more about the story of the young prodigy of that country.
Maram Kaire, current president of the Senegalese Association for the Promotion of Astronomy, went to Malick Ndiaye's house and delivered a second, more professional telescope that would allow the young man to deepen his space observations.
“When I was able to see the video it reminded me of myself when I was younger and I thought of all the efforts we make to spread this science. I did not hesitate to react because I know how difficult it is to contemplate the stars without a suitable instrument, to have a passion and not be able to develop it," Maram told the aforementioned medium.
When asked about his dreams for the future, the young man has always said: "I just want to look at the stars."
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