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

[Dainei]

It's about time for timelessness.

For me, time seems to be a theme I return to consistently in practice, also the lack of time or timelessness, and I do think that Zen and Buddhism can explain the experiential aspect of timelessness but science can explain the mechanistic aspects as well that complement our practice. With that said, rather poorly I can admit, I offer the following brief article which - among may recently on quantum research - describes timelessness.

https://www.sciencealert.com/quantum-search-for-times-source-finds-no-difference-between-past-and-future

Gassho,
Dainei
Sat

[Jundo]

Fireworks at the center of the Galaxy ... and our Black Hole is unique ...

Astronomers spot flares of light near the black hole at the center of our galaxy

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have spied dynamic flares of light near the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The constant, rapid-fire display includes seconds-long short flashes and longer, blindingly bright flares of light on a daily basis. ...

While black holes are invisible, the flares unleashed by the swirling disk of hot gas and dust, or accretion disk, that orbits Sagittarius A* resemble a pyrotechnic extravaganza. A study describing the findings was published Tuesday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Astronomers believe the flares are coming from the inner edge of the accretion disk just beyond the black hole’s event horizon, or the area around a black hole where the pull of gravity is so strong that not even light can escape, according to NASA. ... The strong, gravitational influence of black holes pulls in gas and dust from any celestial object that wanders too close. The gas and dust swirl together at high speeds, forming the accretion disk that feeds the black hole. The rapid movement of the material causes it to heat up, releasing energy in the form of radiation as well as jets of material that don’t make it into the black hole.

The radiation and jets can change the way gas is distributed throughout galaxies and feed the formation of stars, which is why supermassive black holes are regarded as giant engines at the centers of galaxies. ...

... “Flares are expected to happen in essentially all supermassive black holes, but our black hole is unique,” Yusef-Zadeh said. “It is always bubbling with activity and never seems to reach a steady state. We observed the black hole multiple times throughout 2023 and 2024, and we noticed changes in every observation. We saw something different each time, which is really remarkable.”
LINK
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Coming out of hiding ...

Unveiling the Heart of the Milky Way

This striking infrared image of Sagittarius C, captured by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile’s Atacama Desert, showcases hundreds of thousands of stars near the heart of the Milky Way. ... The challenge lies in observing this crowded region — thick clouds of dust and gas obscure the starlight, making direct observation difficult. ...

[PICTURE] A stunning infrared image of Sagittarius C reveals hundreds of thousands of stars near the Milky Way’s center, captured by ESO’s Very Large Telescope.
LINK Sagittarius-C-Infrared-VLT-1200x532.jpg

Long distance connections ...

Astronomers Just Found a 3-Million-Light-Year Connection Between Galaxies

The image shows the diffuse gas (yellow to purple) contained within the cosmic filament connecting two galaxies each with a supermassive black hole deep in their core. (yellow stars), extending across a vast distance of 3 million light-years. ... At first glance, the universe may appear to be a chaotic swarm of scattered galaxies. But in reality, they are part of a vast, interconnected structure known as the cosmic web — the largest framework in the cosmos. This web is made up of enormous filaments of dark matter and gas, stretching between galaxies and surrounding vast empty voids. Now, after hundreds of hours of telescope observations, astronomers have captured the highest-resolution image ever taken of a single cosmic filament linking forming galaxies. This filament is so distant that we see it as it was when the universe was just 2 billion years old. ...
LINK
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Bennu muy bien!

The Stuff of Life ...

Researchers have detected organic compounds and minerals necessary for life in unprecedented samples collected from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, adding evidence to the idea that asteroids likely delivered the building blocks of life to our planet early in its history. ... Preliminary analyses of the rock and dust samples released within the past year have shown that the asteroid contained water as well as carbon, nitrogen and other organic matter, but the chemical composition of the organic material was largely unknown.

Now, new research has revealed the asteroid contains many of the chemical building blocks of life, such as amino acids and components found in DNA. ... Glavin and his team detected thousands of organic molecular compounds, including 33 amino acids, in the Bennu samples they studied. Amino acids, or molecules that combine to form proteins, are some of the building blocks of life.

The researchers found 14 of the 20 amino acids that are used in biology to build proteins, and 19 non-protein amino acids, many of which are rare or nonexistent in known biology, Glavin said. ... The team also detected adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine and uracil — all five of the biological nucleobases, or components that make up the genetic code in DNA and RNA. ... “These organic molecules have all been found previously in meteorites, but in contrast to meteorites, the Bennu samples are pristine and were protected from heating during atmospheric entry and exposure to terrestrial contamination, ... The combination of material found in the samples suggests chemical building blocks of life were widespread throughout the solar system, providing strong evidence that the asteroids bombarding early Earth may have delivered water and organic material to its surface, Glavin noted. ...

... The sample was collected from Bennu in October 2020 by a NASA mission called OSIRIS-REx, or Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security-Regolith Explorer. It marked the first time the US sent a spacecraft to briefly land on an asteroid and collect material. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft then dropped off a capsule when it swung by Earth in September 2023, sending it parachuting down into the Utah desert. LINK

It lasts as long as it lasts ...

Physicists Find That the Universe Could "Collapse Like a House of Cards"

... is our entire universe actually suspended in a "false vacuum," or in a state of faux-stability, and is merely waiting to collapse into a more stable state? ... in a new study published in the journal Nature, researchers have simulated the processes behind this phenomenon, perhaps giving us a glimpse at how the world could dramatically end.

"We're talking about a process by which the universe would completely change its structure," said study lead author Zlatko Papic, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Leeds, in a statement about the work. "The fundamental constants could instantaneously change and the world as we know it would collapse like a house of cards."
LINK

Synchronized swimming ...

The Fastest Dance in the Universe: Scientists Capture Electrons in Perfect Sync

By using ultrafast lasers, researchers have observed electrons moving in perfect sync inside particles smaller than a nanometer. The measurement breaks the “nanometer barrier,” allowing researchers to observe ultrafast collective electronic motion on a new class of ultra-small particles, valued for their ability to trap and manipulate light. LINK

Mediterra-neutrino

Scientists detect record-breaking ‘ghost particle’ in the Mediterranean Sea


Astronomers using a giant network of sensors, still under construction at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, have found the highest-energy cosmic “ghost particle” ever detected.

The neutrino, as the particle is formally known, is 30 times more energetic than any of the few hundreds of previously detected neutrinos.

These tiny, high-energy particles from space are often referred to as “ghostly” because they are extremely volatile, or vaporous, and can pass through any kind of matter without changing. Neutrinos, which arrive at Earth from the far reaches of the cosmos, have almost no mass. The particles travel through the most extreme environments, including stars, planets and entire galaxies, and yet their structure remains intact. ... “This one little neutrino had as much energy as the energy released by splitting one billion uranium atoms … a mind-boggling number when we compare the energies of our nuclear fission reactors with this one single ethereal neutrino.” ... The team believes the neutrino came from beyond the Milky Way galaxy, but they have yet to identify its exact origin point, which raises the question of what created the neutrino and sent it flying across the cosmos in the first place — perhaps an extreme environment such as a supermassive black hole, gamma ray burst or supernova remnant. LINK

The shape of things to come ...

‘It’s almost science fiction’: Scientists say the shape of Earth’s inner core is changing

Scientists who just months ago confirmed that Earth’s inner core recently reversed its spin have a new revelation about our planet’s deepest secrets — they identified changes to the inner core’s shape.

Earth’s innermost layer is a hot, solid ball of metal surrounded by a liquid metal outer core. For decades, planetary scientists suspected that the solid inner core deformed over time as it spun. Now, researchers have found the first evidence of changes taking place over the past 20 years in the shape of the inner core. Signs of the core’s deformation appeared in waves from earthquakes that were strong enough to reach Earth’s center. ... Of all Earth’s layers, the inner core is the most remote and mysterious. This solid sphere of iron and nickel is about 70% the size of the moon, with a radius of approximately 759 miles (1,221 kilometers).

Temperatures in the inner core are as high as 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit (5,400 degrees Celsius), and pressures can reach up to 365 gigapascals (GPa) — more than 3 million times greater than Earth’s average atmospheric pressure on land. While direct observation of the core is impossible, scientists study it by analyzing changes in the size and shape of seismic waves as they pass through the core. ...

LINK

Synthorganism ...

Yale Scientists Reprogram Genetic Code To Create Revolutionary Synthetic Organism

Yale scientists have reprogrammed the genetic code of an organism, creating a novel genomically recoded organism (GRO) with only one stop codon, enabling the production of synthetic proteins with new functions. This breakthrough paves the way for advanced biotherapeutics and biomaterials with novel properties, paving the way for groundbreaking applications in medicine, biotechnology, and industry. LINK

A new way of sacred pilgrimage ... (I actually made the climb when I was a student in China) ...

Robotic exoskeletons help Chinese tourists climb the country’s most punishing mountain

A towering 5,000 feet high, with more than 7,000 steps, Mount Tai, in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong, is known for turning legs to jelly for anyone game for scaling to the top. ... On January 29, the first day of Chinese New Year, ten AI-powered exoskeletons debuted at Mount Tai (Taishan in Mandarin), attracting over 200 users for a fee of 60 yuan to 80 yuan ($8 - $11 USD) per use during a week-long trial, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Co-developed by Taishan Cultural Tourism Group and Kenqing Technology, a Shenzhen-based tech company, this device is designed to wrap around users’ waists and thighs and weighs in at just 1.8 kilograms, according to the firm’s product introduction.

Powered by AI algorithms, it can sense users’ movements and provide “synchronized assistance” to ease the burden of legs, according to Kenqing Technology. LINK
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Soon, I will just let AI do these postings ...

Study Finds That People Who Entrust Tasks to AI Are Losing Critical Thinking Skills

"Used improperly, technologies can and do result in the deterioration of cognitive faculties that ought to be preserved," the researchers wrote in the paper. "A key irony of automation is that by mechanising routine tasks and leaving exception-handling to the human user, you deprive the user of the routine opportunities to practice their judgement and strengthen their cognitive musculature, leaving them atrophied and unprepared when the exceptions do arise." LINK

Babyface ...

Beyond the Uncanny Valley: New Tech Makes Robots More Lifelike

A research team from Osaka University has created a technology enabling androids to dynamically convey mood states like “excited” or “sleepy” by generating facial movements modeled as overlapping, decaying waves. LINK

Look from about 1:00 mark ...
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Robohand ...

Japanese research team develops world’s largest 'biohybrid' robot hand

A research team from the University of Tokyo and Waseda University announced Thursday that it has developed the largest-ever “biohybrid” hand that includes parts made of cultivated human tissue. Led by Xinzhu Ren and Shoji Takeuchi from the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, and Yuya Morimoto, an associate professor at Waseda University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering, the team engineered a multijointed robotic hand with movement powered by living muscle tissue, measuring 18 centimeters long, with a palm size of 6 centimeters — around the same size as a newborn’s — and five fingers capable of independent motion. LINK

Protoclone ...

This Muscle-Powered Robot Might Be the Creepiest Thing We've Ever Seen

Behold the robot known as "Protoclone," built by Clone Robotics. It's supposedly the world's first bipedal, musculoskeletal android. ... According to its website, the android is equipped with the world's most sophisticated hydraulic powering system mimicking our human blood vessels. Its muscles are composed of Clone's proprietary "Myofiber" artificial muscle tech, providing an unparalleled combination of "weight, power density, speed, force-to-weight, and energy efficiency," Clone says. Underneath, the robot possesses a human-like skeleton with analogs for all 206 bones of the human body. It can also see using four cameras installed in its skull. ... The Protoclone is a faceless, anatomically accurate, synthetic human with over 200 degrees of freedom, over 1,000 Myofibers, and over 200 sensors. www.clonerobotics.com

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Zuckerbrain ...

There May Be Downsides Now That Mark Zuckerberg Can Read Your Thoughts With a Scanning Device

... Meta says it's taken a huge step forward. For the first time, the company's researchers say they've been able to train an AI model to decode brain waves with up to 80 percent accuracy in laboratory settings. Basically, the company was able to record the tiny magnetic fields generated by natural electrical currents in the brain so that human subjects could "type" with their minds. Those sentences were then cross referenced with an AI model's readout of the magnetic fields, which were pretty faithful to the original, give or take a few typos. ...
LINK

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(to be continued) ...