Scientists have made a big-brain discovery about past humans, and we mean that literally. Researchers are suggesting that a "large-headed"oup of extinct humans once lived at the same time as homo sapiens hundreds of millennia ago.
Two experts say that bone fragments currently ascribed to a subspecies of archaic humans should actually be assigned to their own species. That archaicoup, known as Denisovans, lived across Asia from 285,000 to 25,000 years ago.
This new species, which could've lived as far back as 300,000 years ago, likely hunted wild horses in smalloups, made tools from stone, and used animal hides for survival.
"I think the record is more expansive than most specialists have been assuming," wrote a paleontologist uninvolved with this research.
It's the latest example, the study authors say, of how our understanding of evolution is changing as the fossil recordows.
Go to the link in our bio to see what this proposed new...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
Two experts say that bone fragments currently ascribed to a subspecies of archaic humans should actually be assigned to their own species. That archaicoup, known as Denisovans, lived across Asia from 285,000 to 25,000 years ago.
This new species, which could've lived as far back as 300,000 years ago, likely hunted wild horses in smalloups, made tools from stone, and used animal hides for survival.
"I think the record is more expansive than most specialists have been assuming," wrote a paleontologist uninvolved with this research.
It's the latest example, the study authors say, of how our understanding of evolution is changing as the fossil recordows.
Go to the link in our bio to see what this proposed new...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
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Savvy internet users have figured out how to stump ChatGPT, and it doesn't require inputting a long string of weird characters or trying to trick the system. All it takes is entering an unremarkable name: David Mayer.
Write a message including the name, and the most prominent AI chatbot gives a puzzling reply: "I'm unable to produce a response." Then the chat abruptly ends, and users must open a new window to keep using the bot.
The company has said nothing about what's going on, and netizens have yet to find an obviouson why.
There's a mildly prominent adventurer by that name who happens to be the heir to a banking fortune, spawning several far-fetched conspiracy theories. Some people are pointing to a Chechen ISIS member who used the name as an alias, speculating OpenAI blocked the name for that reason.
And David Mayer isn't the only one. At least eight other names prompt a similar response, though there seem to be more obvious...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
Write a message including the name, and the most prominent AI chatbot gives a puzzling reply: "I'm unable to produce a response." Then the chat abruptly ends, and users must open a new window to keep using the bot.
The company has said nothing about what's going on, and netizens have yet to find an obviouson why.
There's a mildly prominent adventurer by that name who happens to be the heir to a banking fortune, spawning several far-fetched conspiracy theories. Some people are pointing to a Chechen ISIS member who used the name as an alias, speculating OpenAI blocked the name for that reason.
And David Mayer isn't the only one. At least eight other names prompt a similar response, though there seem to be more obvious...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
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A research consortium has made a stunning finding: A significant share of dementia cases can be treated or even cured, because they're caused by fungus and bacteria in the brain.
In a paper published last year, the researchers outlined several cases in which people with dementia symptoms were found to have infections in their brains. When they took antiviral or antifungal medications, those symptoms abated.
Many of the people whose cases the consortium studied, one researcher said, essentially discovered the link by accident when their dementia symptoms "went away" after being treated with the drugs.
One of the main drivers behind this discovery was not a professional scientist but a 30-something pharmaceutical representative, Nikki Schultek, who suddenly developed debilitating cognitive symptoms. Eventually, she figured out that she had concurring chronic infections from a bacteria that causes Lyme disease — and one of them had reached her...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
In a paper published last year, the researchers outlined several cases in which people with dementia symptoms were found to have infections in their brains. When they took antiviral or antifungal medications, those symptoms abated.
Many of the people whose cases the consortium studied, one researcher said, essentially discovered the link by accident when their dementia symptoms "went away" after being treated with the drugs.
One of the main drivers behind this discovery was not a professional scientist but a 30-something pharmaceutical representative, Nikki Schultek, who suddenly developed debilitating cognitive symptoms. Eventually, she figured out that she had concurring chronic infections from a bacteria that causes Lyme disease — and one of them had reached her...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
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You could one day drive a car powered by an unsightly, beach-tarring, environmentally harmful substance. Seaweed, of course.
A group of scientists in the Caribbean recently launched the first-ever vehicles converted to run on sargassum, an invasive seaweed that has turned popular beaches into an unsightly mess, and they're optimistic about its future.
First, experts put mounds of the brown, sludgy weed inside a bioreactor with rum distillery wastewater to make a biogas. Then, they use a conversion kit that can turn a conventional gas-powered car into one that runs on the seaweed product.
Researchers at the University of the West Indies in Barbados — where the sargassum invasion is a national emergency — have developed such a kit for just $2,500.
The group is now working to scale up their efforts. See what's next at the link in our bio.
#seaweed #sargassum #biogas | Futurism by ASM Channels
A group of scientists in the Caribbean recently launched the first-ever vehicles converted to run on sargassum, an invasive seaweed that has turned popular beaches into an unsightly mess, and they're optimistic about its future.
First, experts put mounds of the brown, sludgy weed inside a bioreactor with rum distillery wastewater to make a biogas. Then, they use a conversion kit that can turn a conventional gas-powered car into one that runs on the seaweed product.
Researchers at the University of the West Indies in Barbados — where the sargassum invasion is a national emergency — have developed such a kit for just $2,500.
The group is now working to scale up their efforts. See what's next at the link in our bio.
#seaweed #sargassum #biogas | Futurism by ASM Channels
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Just over a year before United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered in Midtown Manhattan this week, the insurance company he helmed was sued for using an AI algorithm to override claims that had been approved.
The estates of two former UHC patients allege that the company used nH Predict to deny claims to elderly patients that had been approved by their doctors — despite knowing that it had an error rate of 90 percent.
As that lawsuit makes its way through the courts, anger regarding the massive insurer's predilection towards denying claims has only grown, and speculation about the assassin's motives suggests that he may have been among those upset with UHC's coverage.
Police have not identified a suspect in the Wednesday morning shooting, but the gunman reportedly wrote the words "deny," "defend," and "depose" on the shell casing of bullets used in the killing — words that bear a striking resemblance to practices used in the insurance...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
The estates of two former UHC patients allege that the company used nH Predict to deny claims to elderly patients that had been approved by their doctors — despite knowing that it had an error rate of 90 percent.
As that lawsuit makes its way through the courts, anger regarding the massive insurer's predilection towards denying claims has only grown, and speculation about the assassin's motives suggests that he may have been among those upset with UHC's coverage.
Police have not identified a suspect in the Wednesday morning shooting, but the gunman reportedly wrote the words "deny," "defend," and "depose" on the shell casing of bullets used in the killing — words that bear a striking resemblance to practices used in the insurance...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
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Haliey Welch, who you know as "The Hawk Tuah Girl," has been in the news for running what seems like almost certainly a cryptocurrency scam. But there is one unlawful act she has unquestionably committed: not naming said currency spitcoin.
Welch this week launched a Solana-based memecoin called "$HAWK," a glaring oversight that, for reasons we cannot comprehend, neither she nor her advisors appeared to think of.
On a serious note, online commentators are fuming at Welch because the coin has the hallmarks of a pump and dump scheme. It soared to a peak market cap of $490 million soon after launch, then plummeted more than 90 percent.
Welch denied any wrongdoing and said she attempted to "stop snipers," but one crypto wallet managed to snap up 17.5 percent of the supply and make a lightning-fast $1.3 million profit.
It's the latest only-in-2024 moment for Welch, who burst onto the scene earlier this year when a video of her explaining her fellatio...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
Welch this week launched a Solana-based memecoin called "$HAWK," a glaring oversight that, for reasons we cannot comprehend, neither she nor her advisors appeared to think of.
On a serious note, online commentators are fuming at Welch because the coin has the hallmarks of a pump and dump scheme. It soared to a peak market cap of $490 million soon after launch, then plummeted more than 90 percent.
Welch denied any wrongdoing and said she attempted to "stop snipers," but one crypto wallet managed to snap up 17.5 percent of the supply and make a lightning-fast $1.3 million profit.
It's the latest only-in-2024 moment for Welch, who burst onto the scene earlier this year when a video of her explaining her fellatio...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
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Fast radio bursts, discharges of energy so powerful they can release in one millisecond what the Sun emits in three days, have long confounded scientists. But one group of researchers believe they may have an explanation for how they form: collisions between asteroids and neutron stars.
To reach their conclusions, these experts estimated the number of interstellar asteroid collisions with neutron stars, and concluded that it appeared to correlate with the estimated number of FRBs, which emanate from the furthest reaches of outer space, observed in the universe.
That fact makes this theory of FRB origins potentially more promising than others that have been floated, like neutron stars slamming into each other or even black holes. A asteroid-neutron star collision would release less energy than those others — but still an unfathomably large amount.
Read more details about the theory, including some nearly incomprehensible numbers, at the link in our...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
To reach their conclusions, these experts estimated the number of interstellar asteroid collisions with neutron stars, and concluded that it appeared to correlate with the estimated number of FRBs, which emanate from the furthest reaches of outer space, observed in the universe.
That fact makes this theory of FRB origins potentially more promising than others that have been floated, like neutron stars slamming into each other or even black holes. A asteroid-neutron star collision would release less energy than those others — but still an unfathomably large amount.
Read more details about the theory, including some nearly incomprehensible numbers, at the link in our...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
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The suspected killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was reportedly carrying a several-page document when he was arrested — and it offers promise of fleshing out worldview that drove him to murder a healthcare executive in broad daylight.
A police official who viewed document found with Luigi Mangione at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania on Monday said it was two pages long and included phrase "these parasites had it coming."
"I do apologize for any strife and trauma," missive reportedly reads, "but it had to be done."
The document also claimed that protest was ineffective and that violence was only answer.
Social media accounts linked to suspect, meanwhile, show how Mangione, a prep school valedictorian and Ivy League graduate found nearly 300 miles from site of Wednesday shooting, apparently morphed from disgruntled academic to angry manarchist over course of this year.
See more about his arrest at...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
A police official who viewed document found with Luigi Mangione at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania on Monday said it was two pages long and included phrase "these parasites had it coming."
"I do apologize for any strife and trauma," missive reportedly reads, "but it had to be done."
The document also claimed that protest was ineffective and that violence was only answer.
Social media accounts linked to suspect, meanwhile, show how Mangione, a prep school valedictorian and Ivy League graduate found nearly 300 miles from site of Wednesday shooting, apparently morphed from disgruntled academic to angry manarchist over course of this year.
See more about his arrest at...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
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The suspected killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was reportedly carrying a several-page document when he was arrested — and it offers promise of fleshing out worldview that drove him to murder a healthcare executive in broad daylight.
A police official who viewed document found with Luigi Mangione at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania on Monday said it was two pages long and included phrase "these parasites had it coming."
"I do apologize for any strife and trauma," missive reportedly reads, "but it had to be done."
The document also claimed that protest was ineffective and that violence was only answer.
Social media accounts linked to suspect, meanwhile, show how Mangione, a prep school valedictorian and Ivy League graduate found nearly 300 miles from site of Wednesday shooting, apparently morphed from disgruntled academic to angry manarchist over course of this year.
See more about his arrest at...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
A police official who viewed document found with Luigi Mangione at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania on Monday said it was two pages long and included phrase "these parasites had it coming."
"I do apologize for any strife and trauma," missive reportedly reads, "but it had to be done."
The document also claimed that protest was ineffective and that violence was only answer.
Social media accounts linked to suspect, meanwhile, show how Mangione, a prep school valedictorian and Ivy League graduate found nearly 300 miles from site of Wednesday shooting, apparently morphed from disgruntled academic to angry manarchist over course of this year.
See more about his arrest at...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
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OpenAI's latest AI is showing signs of a drive for self-preservation. That's according to third-party researchers who say the company's o1 large language model resisted efforts to try to shut it down through an oversight protocol.
In some cases, the AI even lashed out when it realized it might be replaced with a more obedient model: o1, red teaming organization Apollo Research said, attempted to copy itself to overwrite the new model.
These scenarios occurred a minority of the time — resisting shutdown efforts five percent of the time and seeking to copy itself in two percent of cases. Those slim shares are nevertheless meaningful proportions given millions of people use OpenAI products.
This is far from the first AI model to scheme, of course, but experts say o1 is on a different scale to previous ones.
"In our suite, o1 showed the most concerning instances of scheming but does not reveal its internal reasoning to the user and remains the most...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
In some cases, the AI even lashed out when it realized it might be replaced with a more obedient model: o1, red teaming organization Apollo Research said, attempted to copy itself to overwrite the new model.
These scenarios occurred a minority of the time — resisting shutdown efforts five percent of the time and seeking to copy itself in two percent of cases. Those slim shares are nevertheless meaningful proportions given millions of people use OpenAI products.
This is far from the first AI model to scheme, of course, but experts say o1 is on a different scale to previous ones.
"In our suite, o1 showed the most concerning instances of scheming but does not reveal its internal reasoning to the user and remains the most...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
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On the same day UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was killed in Midtown Manhattan, a fellow healthcare chief executive made some striking comments defending the very practices Americans have been criticizing en masse.
"Our role is a critical role, and we make sure care is safe, appropriate, and is delivered when people need it," UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty said in an internal virtual address seen by journalist Ken Klippenstein. "And we guard against the pressures exist for unsafe care or for unnecessary care to be delivered in a way which makes the whole system too complex and ultimately unsustainable."
Witty's "unnecessary care" remark drew a swift rebuke from online critics. One recalled how a brain surgery was deemed unnecessary because it was a "cosmetic" issue. Another said his mother couldn't get a necessary medication without trying a different one first — leading her to become temporarily blind.
The data shows...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
"Our role is a critical role, and we make sure care is safe, appropriate, and is delivered when people need it," UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty said in an internal virtual address seen by journalist Ken Klippenstein. "And we guard against the pressures exist for unsafe care or for unnecessary care to be delivered in a way which makes the whole system too complex and ultimately unsustainable."
Witty's "unnecessary care" remark drew a swift rebuke from online critics. One recalled how a brain surgery was deemed unnecessary because it was a "cosmetic" issue. Another said his mother couldn't get a necessary medication without trying a different one first — leading her to become temporarily blind.
The data shows...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
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Google says its recently unveiled quantumuter chip can do "astonishing" things, and it has an eyebrow-raising explanation for how: It may be tapping into parallel universes.
The chip, dubbed Willow, rapidlyleted autation that "one of today’s fastest supercomputers" would need 10 septillion years to finish, theany said. As executives were keen to note, that's longer than the age of the universe.
"It lends credence to the notion that quantumutation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse, a prediction first made by David Deutsch," Google's Quantum AI founder wrote in a blog post. Deutsch is a physicist who laid out his multiverse hypothesis in a 1997 book in which he suggested that quantumuters' calculations take place across multiple universes at the same time.
The claim isn't going down so well on the internet. Some commentators have pointed out that the calculation Willowleted isn't useful in any tangible...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
The chip, dubbed Willow, rapidlyleted autation that "one of today’s fastest supercomputers" would need 10 septillion years to finish, theany said. As executives were keen to note, that's longer than the age of the universe.
"It lends credence to the notion that quantumutation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse, a prediction first made by David Deutsch," Google's Quantum AI founder wrote in a blog post. Deutsch is a physicist who laid out his multiverse hypothesis in a 1997 book in which he suggested that quantumuters' calculations take place across multiple universes at the same time.
The claim isn't going down so well on the internet. Some commentators have pointed out that the calculation Willowleted isn't useful in any tangible...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
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Congress is pushingo break up America's biggest insurance monopolies inhe wake of widespread anger afterhe killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Bipartisan bills introduced in bothhe Senate and House of Representatives call for insurers and other healthcare companieso sell offheir so-called "pharmacy benefit managers," bodies usedo manage employees' prescription benefits, withinhe nexthree years.
Neither bill mentions UnitedHealthcare, or any insurer, by name, but UHC parent UnitedHealth Group andwo other industry behemoths collectively account for 80 percent of all prescriptions inhe United States. They arehe first pieces of legislationargetinghe insurance industry sincehe fatal shooting of Thompson andhe ferocious criticismhe industry has subsequently come under.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who introducedhe Senate bill alongside Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), herself offered pointed critique ofhe industryhis week.
"The visceral response from...
View original post | Futurism by...
Bipartisan bills introduced in bothhe Senate and House of Representatives call for insurers and other healthcare companieso sell offheir so-called "pharmacy benefit managers," bodies usedo manage employees' prescription benefits, withinhe nexthree years.
Neither bill mentions UnitedHealthcare, or any insurer, by name, but UHC parent UnitedHealth Group andwo other industry behemoths collectively account for 80 percent of all prescriptions inhe United States. They arehe first pieces of legislationargetinghe insurance industry sincehe fatal shooting of Thompson andhe ferocious criticismhe industry has subsequently come under.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who introducedhe Senate bill alongside Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), herself offered pointed critique ofhe industryhis week.
"The visceral response from...
View original post | Futurism by...
There are slight anomalies in the architecture of our Solar System that many astronomers say can't be fullyxplained by the Sun's governance, and a group of them has unfurled an absolute humdinger of a theory toxplain why: Annormous interstellar objectntered our neighborhood and stirred the planets out of their original orbits.
And oh, by the way: This visitor would've been between two and *fifty* times the mass of Jupiter.
These researchers argue that if such an object flew within 20 astronomical units — that's 20 times the distance between the Sun and the Earth — of the solar system's center, it couldxplain the bizarre orbits we see today. Computer modeling suggests this is a 1-in-100 possibility, pretty good odds in this field.
Though nothingxactly like this has been theorized before, it's not the only work to propose interstellar flybys toxplainccentricities in the orbits of certain objects in the solar system.
They're appealing...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
And oh, by the way: This visitor would've been between two and *fifty* times the mass of Jupiter.
These researchers argue that if such an object flew within 20 astronomical units — that's 20 times the distance between the Sun and the Earth — of the solar system's center, it couldxplain the bizarre orbits we see today. Computer modeling suggests this is a 1-in-100 possibility, pretty good odds in this field.
Though nothingxactly like this has been theorized before, it's not the only work to propose interstellar flybys toxplainccentricities in the orbits of certain objects in the solar system.
They're appealing...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
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Farmers were attempting to plant crops this spring when their smart tractors suddenly all went haywire, creating a sci-fi-esque nightmare with no immediate solution. The culprit was the same type of solar discharge that triggers gorgeous auroras.
Modern tractors are highly dependent on GPS, which is provided by sensitive satellites in our planet's orbit. During particularly violent solar storms, charged particles fill the ionosphere, a part of Earth's upper atmosphere that's responsible for transmitting GPS signals from satellites down to the surface.
When a bombardment of these charged particles reaches the ionosphere, chaos can reign.
"Our tractors acted like they were demon possessed," one aurora chaser said. "All my cousins called me during the May 10th storm to tell me that 'my auroras' were driving them crazy while they were planting."
She added that her GPS "was off by close to a foot" during the day. And then: "By nightfall, there was no...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
Modern tractors are highly dependent on GPS, which is provided by sensitive satellites in our planet's orbit. During particularly violent solar storms, charged particles fill the ionosphere, a part of Earth's upper atmosphere that's responsible for transmitting GPS signals from satellites down to the surface.
When a bombardment of these charged particles reaches the ionosphere, chaos can reign.
"Our tractors acted like they were demon possessed," one aurora chaser said. "All my cousins called me during the May 10th storm to tell me that 'my auroras' were driving them crazy while they were planting."
She added that her GPS "was off by close to a foot" during the day. And then: "By nightfall, there was no...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
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This Waymo got in one of the most vexing things on our roads — a roundabout — and was helpless to get out.
The autonomous vehicle instead did circle after circle, bemusing onlookers but fortunately not terrorizing any passengers. (It was empty, the company said.)
See how Waymo responded to the incident at the link in our bio.
📽️: @viciouscircularity
#waymo #selfdriving #roundabout | Futurism by ASM Channels
The autonomous vehicle instead did circle after circle, bemusing onlookers but fortunately not terrorizing any passengers. (It was empty, the company said.)
See how Waymo responded to the incident at the link in our bio.
📽️: @viciouscircularity
#waymo #selfdriving #roundabout | Futurism by ASM Channels
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Several of the world's leading biologists have called for an immediate halt on a technology you've probably never even heard of — but is so dangerous, they say, that it could upend the order life itself on this planet, if not wipe it out.
The tech is known as mirror life, synthetic organisms whose DNA structures are a mirror image to that of all known natural organisms. And though such lifeforms are probably a few decades away, the threat they pose is so significant, these experts say, that we must sound the alarms now.
The famous DNA double helix is considered right-handed, meaning its spiral strands twist to the right. On the other hand, proteins, the building blocks of cells, are left-handed.
We don't really know why, but we do know we've gotten this far with that construction. So what would happen if we make mirror organisms with left-handed DNA and right-handed proteins?
According to some people, we could get incredible medical applications....
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
The tech is known as mirror life, synthetic organisms whose DNA structures are a mirror image to that of all known natural organisms. And though such lifeforms are probably a few decades away, the threat they pose is so significant, these experts say, that we must sound the alarms now.
The famous DNA double helix is considered right-handed, meaning its spiral strands twist to the right. On the other hand, proteins, the building blocks of cells, are left-handed.
We don't really know why, but we do know we've gotten this far with that construction. So what would happen if we make mirror organisms with left-handed DNA and right-handed proteins?
According to some people, we could get incredible medical applications....
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
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A pastor took a group of Flat Earthers to Antarctica to prove definitively what shape our planet is, and some of them were startled with what they found: a globe that is, indeed, round.
In an expedition dubbed "The Final Experiment," pastor Will Duffy took the conspiracists to the end of the world to show them there are no barriers preventing them from visiting Antarctica — and to show that the shines there 24 hours a day in the summer. That, of course, couldn't happen were the planet actually flat.
"After we go to Antarctica, no one has to waste any more time debating the shape of the Earth," Duffy said.
Some truthers agree. One Flat Earth influencer, Jeran Campanella, admitted he was mistaken for believing the midnight sun was fake: "Sometimes you are wrong in life."
He added: "I realize that I'll be called a shill for just saying that and you know what, if you're a shill for being honest so be it — I honestly believed there was no 24-hour...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
In an expedition dubbed "The Final Experiment," pastor Will Duffy took the conspiracists to the end of the world to show them there are no barriers preventing them from visiting Antarctica — and to show that the shines there 24 hours a day in the summer. That, of course, couldn't happen were the planet actually flat.
"After we go to Antarctica, no one has to waste any more time debating the shape of the Earth," Duffy said.
Some truthers agree. One Flat Earth influencer, Jeran Campanella, admitted he was mistaken for believing the midnight sun was fake: "Sometimes you are wrong in life."
He added: "I realize that I'll be called a shill for just saying that and you know what, if you're a shill for being honest so be it — I honestly believed there was no 24-hour...
View original post | Futurism by ASM Channels
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As far as anyone can tell, we don't have a way to directly observe dark matter. But a team of researchers now says it may be giving off a signal — and that we might be able to build a new type of detector akin to a "cosmic car radio" that could listen to what the dark matter is saying.
Such a device would "tune in" to the frequency of axions, hypothetical particles that have emerged as one of the leading candidates for what dark matter is. Axions are thought to be extremely light and only weakly interact with normal matter, which makes detecting them extremely difficult.
But identifying them could be one of the biggest steps yet in our understanding of dark matter, which is believed to comprise up to 85 percent of the universe — but whose existence we know of only from the gravitational effects it exerts on stars and galaxies.
The proposed detector would use a special material to generate "axion quasiparticles," (AQ) that according to the team could allow scientists to detect axions within the next 15 years. If all goes according to plan, the AQ would emit small amounts of light after matching the extremely high frequency — at the top of the terahertz range — of the axion.
"If we are lucky," King's College London researcher David Marsh told @spacedotcom, "and nature has put the axion at our frequency, then we will find it."
Such a device would "tune in" to the frequency of axions, hypothetical particles that have emerged as one of the leading candidates for what dark matter is. Axions are thought to be extremely light and only weakly interact with normal matter, which makes detecting them extremely difficult.
But identifying them could be one of the biggest steps yet in our understanding of dark matter, which is believed to comprise up to 85 percent of the universe — but whose existence we know of only from the gravitational effects it exerts on stars and galaxies.
The proposed detector would use a special material to generate "axion quasiparticles," (AQ) that according to the team could allow scientists to detect axions within the next 15 years. If all goes according to plan, the AQ would emit small amounts of light after matching the extremely high frequency — at the top of the terahertz range — of the axion.
"If we are lucky," King's College London researcher David Marsh told @spacedotcom, "and nature has put the axion at our frequency, then we will find it."
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Astronomers have made an intriguing discovery that could upend everything we know about the structure of the universe and its expansion: Dark energy, the mysterious form driving the accelerating expansion of the universe, may be weakening over time.
The findings could undermine the existing standard cosmological model of the universe called the lambda-cold dark matter (LCDM) model, which takes dark energy, ordinary matter, and cold dark matter — a hypothetical form of dark matter that moves slowly compared to the speed of light — into consideration.
The symbol lambda in the model refers to Albert Einstein's cosmological constant, which assumes that the universe is accelerating at a fixed rate. Yet, last year, scientists concluded that dark energy isn't a constant after all, analyzing observations by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) in Arizona, as @newscientist reports. They found that the mysterious force could be evolving and weakening over time.
This spring, scientists released a follow-up that strengthened their findings. "This is exciting – it might actually be putting the standard model of cosmology in danger," one researcher, Yashar Akrami of the Autonomous University of Madrid, said.
The team has suggested redefining dark energy as a "quintessence field," a change that could allow scientists to harmonize more advanced string theory with the standard cosmological model. "The string theory community is really excited now," Akrami added.
The findings could undermine the existing standard cosmological model of the universe called the lambda-cold dark matter (LCDM) model, which takes dark energy, ordinary matter, and cold dark matter — a hypothetical form of dark matter that moves slowly compared to the speed of light — into consideration.
The symbol lambda in the model refers to Albert Einstein's cosmological constant, which assumes that the universe is accelerating at a fixed rate. Yet, last year, scientists concluded that dark energy isn't a constant after all, analyzing observations by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) in Arizona, as @newscientist reports. They found that the mysterious force could be evolving and weakening over time.
This spring, scientists released a follow-up that strengthened their findings. "This is exciting – it might actually be putting the standard model of cosmology in danger," one researcher, Yashar Akrami of the Autonomous University of Madrid, said.
The team has suggested redefining dark energy as a "quintessence field," a change that could allow scientists to harmonize more advanced string theory with the standard cosmological model. "The string theory community is really excited now," Akrami added.
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Tech CEOs rallied behind Donald Trump last fall and this winter, convinced he would usher in a new era of deregulation that would increase their profit margins. Did that work out? (Asking for a friend.)
Boy oh boy, has it not. As @voxdotcom reports, any gains tech companies have gleaned from Trump's deregulation are minuscule in comparison to the economic havoc the president has wreaked with his foolhardy tariffs. Manufacturers have been cut off from their Chinese suppliers, the US is on the brink of a recession, and troubled markets are leading to canceled IPOs.
The impacts are so severe that the president's strongest supporter in the tech world, government hatchet man Elon Musk, has taken visceral aim at the architects of the tariffs. He called Trump's trade advisor, Peter Navarro, "dumber than a sack of bricks" amid a volley of public barbs. Musk reportedly implored Trump privately to walk back the tariffs.
To date, no major tech figures have publicly turned on the president himself, but the policies he ushered in are a far cry from what they expected several months ago. Take the comments last summer from venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who said the US could only beat China and its "much darker, more totalitarian" policies by becoming a tech utopia.
The latest economic forecasts suggest that utopia might be a long way off.
Boy oh boy, has it not. As @voxdotcom reports, any gains tech companies have gleaned from Trump's deregulation are minuscule in comparison to the economic havoc the president has wreaked with his foolhardy tariffs. Manufacturers have been cut off from their Chinese suppliers, the US is on the brink of a recession, and troubled markets are leading to canceled IPOs.
The impacts are so severe that the president's strongest supporter in the tech world, government hatchet man Elon Musk, has taken visceral aim at the architects of the tariffs. He called Trump's trade advisor, Peter Navarro, "dumber than a sack of bricks" amid a volley of public barbs. Musk reportedly implored Trump privately to walk back the tariffs.
To date, no major tech figures have publicly turned on the president himself, but the policies he ushered in are a far cry from what they expected several months ago. Take the comments last summer from venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who said the US could only beat China and its "much darker, more totalitarian" policies by becoming a tech utopia.
The latest economic forecasts suggest that utopia might be a long way off.
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