The Zen of Technology & Scientific Discovery! (& Robots)

[Shokai]

Thanks Kotei;
And this was Freeman Dyson that died.

gassho, Shokai
stlah

[Jundo]

Thanks Kotei;
And this was Freeman Dyson that died.

gassho, Shokai
stlah

Yes, and just to emphasize ... actor Morgan Freeman is still alive and well too.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Shokai]

Thanks for that important news flash

gassho, shokai
stlah

[Jundo]

Thanks for that important news flash

gassho, shokai
stlah

Well, a "black hole" is kind of a big Dyson vacuum in space, is it not?



Gassho, J

STLah

[Shokai]

[Jundo]

Truly a world just of ocean and waves ...

3 billion-year-old Earth had water everywhere, but not one continent, study suggests

What did Earth look like 3.2 billion years ago? New evidence suggests the planet was covered by a vast ocean and had no continents at all.

Continents appeared later, as plate tectonics thrust enormous, rocky land masses upward to breach the sea surfaces, scientists recently reported.

They found clues about this ancient waterworld preserved in a chunk of ancient seafloor, now located in the outback of northwestern Australia.

Around 4.5 billion years ago, high-speed collisions between dust and space rocks formed the beginnings of our planet: a bubbling, molten sphere of magma that was thousands of miles deep. Earth cooled as it spun; eventually, after 1,000 to 1 million years, the cooling magma formed the first mineral crystals in Earth's crust.

Meanwhile, Earth's first water may have been carried here by ice-rich comets from outside our solar system, or it may have arrived in dust from the cloud of particles that birthed the sun and its orbiting planets, around the time of Earth's formation.

When Earth was a hot magma ocean, water vapor and gasses escaped into the atmosphere. "It then rained out from the atmosphere as conditions got cool enough," said lead study author Benjamin Johnson, an assistant professor in the Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences at Iowa State University.

"We can't really say what the source of the water is from our work, but we do suggest that whatever the source, it was present when the magma ocean was still around," Johnson told Live Science in an email.

... The prospect of an ancient waterworld Earth also offers a new perspective on another intriguing question: where the planet's earliest forms of life appeared and how they evolved, the researchers wrote in the study.

"There are two major camps for the origin of life: hydrothermal vents and ponds on land," Johnson said. "If our work is accurate, it means the number of environments on land for life to emerge and evolve was really small or absent until sometime after 3.2 billion years ago."

https://www.livescience.com/waterworld-earth.html

... and what was running around dinosaur kitchens?

A pair of 99-million-year-old cockroaches are rewriting the early history of the underworld.

The ancient roaches, found preserved in amber in Myanmar, are the oldest-known examples of "troglomorphic" organisms — creatures that adapted to the weird, dark environments of caves. And they're the only such dark-adapted creatures known from the Cretaceous period, having scurried around in the world's shaded crevices even as Tyrannosaurus rex walked the Earth. Nowadays, biologists have plenty of examples of cockroaches and of cave-dwelling insects with small eyes and wings, pale bodies, and long arms and antennae. But these specimens, from two distinct, related species, are the oldest animals ever found with those traits.

https://www.livescience.com/oldest-cave-dwelling-animal-cockroaches.html

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Curiosity rover captures high-resolution panorama of its home on Mars

NASA's Curiosity rover has been delighting those of us on Earth with stunning photos of Mars since it landed in 2012. But its latest image is a detailed panorama that surpasses all others, stitched together using more than a thousand photos.

The images were captured by Curiosity between November 24 and December 1. Together, the images include 1.8 billion pixels.

NOTE: REALLY COOL TOO - YOU CAN ROTATE THE YOUTUBE PICTURE WITH YOUR COMPUTER MOUSE! TRY IT!

https://youtu.be/0fva2pH41FM

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Another story from Rover which is literally "life changing" ...

The Curiosity rover found organic molecules on Mars. This is why they're exciting

In 2018, the rover hit pay dirt when it found organic matter in soil samples of three billion-year-old mudstone in the Gale crater. ... Now, researchers have followed up on an investigation into the presence of thiophenes -- organic compounds found in coal, crude oil and even white truffles on Earth -- to determine their potential origin. They probably aren't evidence of white truffles on Mars, but the researchers think that thiophenes are likely consistent with the presence of life on Mars in its ancient past. Thiophenes likely signify a biological process involving bacteria. The study published in the journal Astrobiology this week.

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2019.2139

"We identified several biological pathways for thiophenes that seem more likely than chemical ones, but we still need proof," said Dirk Schulze‑Makuch, study author and Washington State University astrobiologist. "If you find thiophenes on Earth, then you would think they are biological, but on Mars, of course, the bar to prove that has to be quite a bit higher." On the atomic level, thiophene molecules are arranged in a ring including four carbon atoms and a sulfur atom. These are considered bio-essential elements.

...

lt's possible that impacts by meteors delivered thiophenes, or that they were created during a reaction between sulfates and hydrocarbons at high temperatures. However, if Mars was the warm and wet place researchers believe more than three billion years ago, bacteria could have created thiophenes or worked to break down the molecules.

... Curiosity's data are providing a clearer and more conclusive picture of the conditions and processes on Mars -- and what it may have been like on the Red Planet billions of years ago, when conditions were more suitable for life. But it can only do so much. The European Space Agency's Rosalind Franklin rover, due on Mars next March, will bring a Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer that can collect and analyze larger molecules. And NASA's recently named Perseverance rover will search for fossils and other signs of ancient life.

... But it may take landing humans on Mars, in addition to robotic explorers, to learn the truth.
"As Carl Sagan said: 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,' " Schulze‑Makuch said. "I think the proof will really require that we actually send people there, and an astronaut looks through a microscope and sees a moving microbe."

https://us.cnn.com/2020/03/06/world/...scn/index.html

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

And a story that I both understand and do not understand at all ...

Physicists link quantum memories across the longest distance ever

We're one step closer to having quantum internet, but wait, what is quantum internet?

A team of scientists in China has linked quantum memories over more than 30 miles (50 kilometers) of fiber optic cable, beating the previous record by more than 40 times over. This feat is an important step toward a hack-proof internet, scientists said. ... That proposed solution is a new internet ruled by the bizarre world of quantum mechanics. Such an internet could someday become the standard for securely sending, receiving and storing data.

In the classical computing world, information is represented by bits with values of either 0 or 1. A quantum internet, like a quantum computer, would take advantage of one of the fundamental properties of quantum mechanics, the superposition principle. This principle is famously described using physicist Erwin Schrödinger's paradox of a cat in a box being both dead and alive at the same time. Quantum computers use quantum bits, or "qubits," which can exist in a superposition state in which they have a value of both 1 and 0 simultaneously. A qubit exists in this state of uncertainty until it is measured by an observer, collapsing the qubit into a definite state of 0 or 1.

If you pair two or more qubits together, they become entangled. Quantum entanglement is the ethereal connection between two or more particles such that any action performed on one instantaneously affects the others, regardless of how far apart they are. Albert Einstein famously called this phenomenon "spooky action at a distance." The real magic of a quantum internet would begin when information gets sent using entangled particles, also called quantum teleportation.

"Quantum teleportation is a way to transfer an unknown quantum state from one particle to another at a distant location, without sending the original particle itself," Jian-Wei Pan, a professor of physics at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei and co-author of the study,said in an interview with the National Science Review.

Because entangled qubits are not physically linked together in any shape or form, interception of communications between them is impossible.

Pan and his team have already demonstrated the entanglement of light particles, or photons, over long distances through empty space. In 2017, his team entangled two photons separated by 746 miles (1,200 km) using an Earth-orbiting satellite relay named Micius.

In practice, entanglement is a finicky business. The tiniest of disturbances, such as a change of temperature or vibration, can break the link between entangled particles, collapsing their shared state. To realize a true quantum internet, physicists will need to enlist the help of so-called quantum memories.

"Quantum memory is a device that stores quantum information. [It] needs to store the superposition of two states," Xiao-Hui Bao, a professor of physics at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei and co-author of the study, told Live Science. In the study, published Feb. 12 in the journal Nature, Pan and his colleagues succeeded in entangling quantum memories across 50 km of fiber optic cable. The previous record of separation between memories was 0.8 miles (1.3 km).

In the new study's experiment, the quantum memory is an ensemble of laser-cooled rubidium atoms trapped in a vacuum, Bao said. The team used photons to read and write to the cloud of 100 million trapped atoms. Photons were used to both excite the atoms into a higher energy state, setting the qubits the researchers wished to entangle, and produce an entangled photon to be sent down the optical cable. The researchers then needed to change the frequency of the photon so that it would not get lost in the 50 km of fiber optic cable coiled in their lab. Finally, the photon could be sent on its journey through the cable to successfully entangle the second quantum memory.

Although quantum entanglement between the memories was achieved, the team has yet to perform quantum teleportation of information between the two nodes. The researchers said they hope this work will pave the way for creating a web of quantum relay stations that would extend entangled communication to longer distances, eventually leading toward a large-scale quantum network.

https://www.livescience.com/quantum-...ngled-far.html

I think that means, in the old Zen Koan, that Nansen both killed the cat and did not, and that two cats were entangled.++

Gassho, J

STLah

++ Probably does not work for macroscopic objects.

[Shokai]

Old Nansen was one cool cat indeed

gassho, Shokai
stlah

[Kotei]

(...) The Curiosity rover found organic molecules on Mars. (...)

from: https://phys.org/news/2020-03-protein-meteorite.html

A team of researchers from Plex Corporation, Bruker Scientific LLC and Harvard University has found evidence of a protein inside of a meteorite. They have written a paper describing their findings and have uploaded it to the arXiv preprint server.

In prior research, scientists have found organic materials, sugars and some other molecules considered to be precursors to amino acids in both meteorites and comets—and fully formed amino acids have been found in comets and meteorites, as well. But until now, no proteins had been found inside of an extraterrestrial object. In this new effort, the researchers have discovered a protein called hemolithin inside of a meteorite that was found in Algeria back in 1990.
(...)
Proteins are considered to be essential building blocks for the development of living things, and finding one on a meteorite bolsters theories that suggest either life, or something very close to it, came to Earth from elsewhere in space.

The Aliens are here... It's us ;-)

Gassho,
Kotei sat/lah today.

[Jundo]

from: https://phys.org/news/2020-03-protein-meteorite.html

The Aliens are here... It's us ;-)

Gassho,
Kotei sat/lah today.

Panspermia! (Perhaps not life itself but, at least, of the building blocks of life) ..

The idea that life can be distributed throughout the universe, from planet to planet, is called panspermia. Some lifeforms, particularly the extremophiles, are hardy enough to survive the extreme conditions of space. Meteorites and comets are the most discussed methods for transportation, and the story is fascinating.

Lithopanspermia is the name given to the transfer of organisms across space using rocks. Transporting life-containing rocks from the ground to another planet might seem like a conundrum at first, but the mechanism is simple enough. During the impact of an asteroid or a comet with a planet's surface, the pressure is so great that the material forming the impact crater is ejected at a speed reaching escape velocity, allowing chunks of rock to escape the confining threshold of the atmosphere. Although a great portion of the impacted area experiences high enough temperatures to easily destroy most life, a significant fraction of the rock may experience the lower temperatures and pressures required to permit the survival of amino acids and microscopic organisms. Once in space, these microbes face the task of surviving the ''vacuum, weightlessness, temperature extremes, cosmic rays, and, for those close to the surface of the rock, ultraviolet radiation from the sun'' (Lunine).

https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/postcards-from-the-universe/life_traveling_in_space_a/

Gassho, J

STlah

[Jundo]

More quantum something ... hard to understand, but sounds good l think ...

A team of engineers in Australia has cracked a problem that has stood for more than half a century.

In 1961, scientist and Nobel Laureate Nicolaas Bloembergen had suggested that the nucleus of a single atom could be controlled using only electric fields. Now, the engineers at the University of New South Wales Sydney have achieved just that.

"This discovery means that we now have a pathway to build quantum computers using single-atom spins without the need for any oscillating magnetic field for their operation," said Andrea Morello, UNSW's scientia professor of quantum engineering, in a statement. "Moreover, we can use these nuclei as exquisitely precise sensors of electric and magnetic fields, or to answer fundamental questions in quantum science."

Quantum computing, which lets computers manipulate information in extremely sophisticated ways, aims to provide more powerful computing than current supercomputers.

The research is described in a paper in the journal Nature.

The discovery was made by accident, according to the University of New South Wales, which explains that the researchers were originally attempting to perform magnetic resonance on a single atom of the chemical element antimony. "However, once we started the experiment, we realized that something was wrong. The nucleus behaved very strangely, refusing to respond at certain frequencies, but showing a strong response at others," said Dr. Vincent Mourik, also a lead author on the paper, in a statement. "This puzzled us for a while, until we had a 'eureka moment' and realized that we were doing electric resonance instead of magnetic resonance."

Scientists note that generating magnetic fields requires large coils and high currents and that the fields are difficult to confine to small spaces. Electric fields, however, can be produced at the tip of a tiny electrode, enabling atoms to be easily controlled in nanoelectronic devices.

The discovery could pave the way to “scalable, nuclear- and electron-spin-based quantum computers in silicon that operate without the need for oscillating magnetic fields,” according to the paper.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2057-7

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

THE STAR TREK COMPUTER IS NEARLY A REALITY: IBM wants to make computers fluent in human

IBM (IBM) is adding new tools to its AI system, Watson, which can address that problem and better understand human language. The "natural language processing" technology was developed for IBM Research's Project Debater, the AI machine that became the first to compete against a world class human debater last year.

To hold its own in a debate, Project Debater needed to have the ability to listen to its opponent, understand his or her argument and formulate a response rapidly, all without internet access. That meant the computer needed to be able to identify and make sense of colloquialisms and idioms — as well as certain dialects or industry-specific terms — such as "open a can of worms" or "hardly helpful" (previously, an AI system might think someone was actually opening a can of worms).

Companies will now be able to use IBM's natural language processing tools to more efficiently and effectively comb through documents and conduct research, field incoming communications and improve customer service.

... One major improvement over existing AI systems is the system's ability to do "sentiment analysis" — to look at what someone is saying or has written and understand what they are really trying to communicate and what the context is. For example, it could now comprehend that someone saying they have "cold feet" means that they're apprehensive, not that their limbs are chilly.

... The system is better able to understand the central themes or important points in documents and classify them into more specific categories, so they're more useful. It can also generate succinct summaries from mass amounts of data. The tool can also tell when two documents are making essentially the same point with different words.

... And while artificial intelligence systems may change the way people work, they're unlikely to negate the need for human workers. Instead, Thomas said, the tools could make people more effective at their jobs.
"Maybe the problem is too hard for the AI to solve, but if you pair this tech with (a human worker), their ability and speed to find the solution goes up rapidly," he said.

https://us.cnn.com/2020/03/11/tech/i...age/index.html

Seems more logical, and has more heart, than much that comes out of the mouths of our lawyers and politicians!

https://youtu.be/FmGNwMyFCqo

The full debate ...

https://youtu.be/3_yy0dnIc58

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

May it be so ... and may there be a Noble Prize in it if so ...

The race to find a coronavirus treatment: One strategy might be just weeks away, scientists say

Robert Kruse, a doctor in the Department of Pathology at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore ... has been pursuing two different treatment strategies, one of which has a long history and could be available within weeks rather than months. ... The use of survivor antibodies, serum therapy, dates back to 1891 when it was used successfully to treat a child with diphtheria. Since then, serum from recovered patients has been used "to stem outbreaks of viral diseases such as poliomyelitis, measles, mumps and influenza," according to a paper Friday in The Journal of Clinical Investigation. ... All of the strategies, including the use of serum from recovered patients, have drawbacks. Transfusion of serum carries potential side effects, including fever, allergic reactions, and a very small risk of infectious disease transmission.

Collecting large amounts of serum from recovered patients could be a sizable task. It could turn out that serum from one recovered patient is only enough to save a single sick one, explained Kruse at Johns Hopkins. "It's a logistical challenge to put it together, but at the very least there are no hurdles (from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) to producing the therapy."

... Kruse advanced another technique in a paper published in late January in the journal F1000 Research.

His method seeks to take advantage of the new coronavirus' ability to latch onto and enter cells.

Scientists often talk about "cell receptors," which are essentially doors that allow a virus to enter the cell.

The "door" the new coronavirus is entering through is known as the ACE-2 protein. Kruse's technique involves detaching the external portion of ACE-2, which would act as a decoy for the virus. The virus would bind to the decoy, leaving it unable to reach the actual door into the cell, and thus, unable to cause infection.

"It won't realize, 'Oh gosh, this isn't a cell,'" Kruse explained in an interview. "The virus can't mutate away from this."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...newstopstories

Gassho, J

STlah