Astronomers have confirmed the existence of a lone black hole, one with no star orbiting it, located in the constellation Sagittarius. This discovery is significant as all previously known stellar-mass black holes have companion stars that betray their presence. The black hole, which is about seven times as massive as the sun, was discovered using…
Science on The Soothsayer / page 13
Researchers from China, the UK, and Singapore have successfully demonstrated the quantum analogue of the Mpemba effect, where a quantum system can cool faster than expected under certain initial conditions. This breakthrough has significant implications for the development of quantum computers and batteries, as it provides a new strategy for designing and analyzing open quantum…
Science journalist Adam Becker’s book “More Everything Forever” challenges the vision of a future where technology enhances human capabilities and lets us surpass biological limitations. Becker argues that this vision is unrealistic, laden with racism, sexism, and endless capitalism, and that the real challenges plaguing humanity, such as global warming and inequality, cannot be solved…
Physicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have introduced a novel method for generating entanglement between photons, a crucial step in building scalable quantum computers. This breakthrough approach leverages non-Abelian quantum holonomy to entangle photons in a deterministic way, eliminating the need for strong nonlinear interactions or probabilistic quantum measurements. The new method has the…
The United States is grappling with an ongoing opioid epidemic and mental health crisis, with nearly 50 million Americans estimated to have a substance use disorder in 2023. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a federal agency that supports mental health care, suicide prevention, and addiction treatment, has faced funding cuts and…
Researchers at Zhejiang University in China have developed a groundbreaking 3D-printed hydrogel that can switch between soft and hard states, enabling novel applications such as smart medical bandages or information encryption. This innovative material has the potential to revolutionize the field of regenerative medicine, flexible electronics, and soft robotics. The team’s creation of a smart…
A new book, “Pseudoscience,” by Lydia Kang and Nate Pedersen, sheds light on the dangers of believing in scientific myths. The authors explore various pseudoscientific theories, including flat Earth theory, ley lines, and World Ice Theory, which have had devastating consequences in the real world. The book highlights the importance of skepticism and the need…
Researchers at RMIT University and the University of Melbourne have discovered a phenomenon where water droplets generate an electric charge when they stick and unstick from a surface. This breakthrough could lead to more efficient energy-harvesting devices and new applications in fields such as chemical reactions and fuel handling. The team conducted over 500 experiments…
Physicists at the Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment have made a groundbreaking discovery, revealing that neutrinos have a mass of less than 0.45 electron volts. This finding is a significant step towards understanding the mysteries of neutrinos, which are the only class of fundamental particles with unknown mass. The researchers used a massive dataset of…
A team of researchers led by chemists at the University of British Columbia has made a groundbreaking discovery in the field of quantum physics. They have observed a superfluid phase in molecular hydrogen at a temperature of 0.4 K, a phenomenon that was previously only seen in helium and ultracold atomic gases. This breakthrough could…