They're Everywhere :)

They're everywhere, rocky planets abound thanks to the newest treasure trove of data garnered by Kepler, the little telescope that can.

Rocky planets are probably a whole lot more common in our galaxy than astronomers previously believed — according to the latest release of Kepler Space Telescope data last week — a scenario that enhances the prospects for extraterrestrial life in nearby solar systems. 

Kepler's final tally of exoplanets in the Cygnus constellation — the most comprehensive and detailed catalogue of exoplanets to date — indicates 4,034 possible planets, of which 50 are Earth-sized and reside in the habitable zone of their stars. The set includes KOI 7711 (short for Kepler 'object of interest'), which is just 30 percent larger than Earth and roughly the same distance from its star as the Earth is to the sun, meaning it receives a similar amount of energy. 

What are the chances of life in the universe? To yours truly, 100% without question.

New planet candidates from the eighth Kepler planet candidate catalog show numerous terrestrial worlds that are near the size of Earth and within the habitable zone of their stars. The dark green span represents an optimistic estimate for habitable zone, while the brighter green a more conservative estimate. Blue circles are confirmed exoplanets, while yellow circles are new planet candidates that require follow-up observations. Credit: Wendy Stenzel/NASA/Ames Research Center

Kepler has discovered a remarkable quantity of exoplanets (yellow dots) and significantly advanced the edge of the unexplored "frontier." Rocky planets now account for a significant number of exoplanet discoveries. Credit: Natalie Batalha/Wendy Stenzel/NASA/Ames Research Center

Any questions? :)

Jupiter yet again

The Enablers

These are the guys that enable Trump to survive as POTUS as described in the excellent Hive piece titled A Definitive Guide to the G.O.P. Insiders Enabling Donald Trump. In reading Sarah Ellison's article, one sees that the big six are bottom feeders of the 1st order.

Blame for the ongoing destruction wrought by the Trump administration will always attach to Donald Trump. But Trump cannot help himself. He is a pathogen, doing what pathogens do, and as surprised as anyone to have found himself replicating in the nation’s bloodstream. Equal blame will attach to a small group of experienced and seemingly rational politicians who knew exactly what Trump was like; who had cause to loathe and distrust him; who understood firsthand that he knew nothing about government and did not care to know anything; who could see clearly that he was dangerous, brutal, and corrupt; and who nonetheless decided, after occasional protests, to help him achieve and hold power. These are people who have been repeatedly belittled and mocked by Trump, who have sometimes been forced to voice their disgust at his words and actions, and who—for reasons that range from ambition and fear to denial and moral blindness—not only have declined to stand in his way but continue to prop him up. One or more of them may ultimately decide to defy him, but nothing will absolve them of the damage already done.

Postscript...

What about those of us who knew better, we who knew the words were lies and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country. What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It is only a passing phase.”

These words, spoken by Ernst Janning in Judgment at Nuremberg, Abby Mann’s drama about the war-crimes tribunals that took place in Germany in the late 1940s, reflect horrors far greater than those we face today. Nevertheless, coming from Janning, a distinguished jurist and patriot and a man who knew better but who turned a blind eye to what was going on around him, they have a certain relevance. And they must surely echo the private thoughts of Republican mandarins who stand by while their leader ravages the institutions and tenets that keep American democracy in place.

Truer words never spoken.

Why?

QC - For real?

Photo: INRS University

Scientists have built a microchip that can generate two entangled qudits each with 10 states, for 100 dimensions total, more than what six entangled qubits could generate.

Quantum computing, the holy grail of true parallel processing of the highest order, may finally be at hand if this innovative approach of bypassing the inherent fragility of qubits rings true.

Instead of creating quantum computers based on qubits that can each adopt only two possible options, scientists have now developed a microchip that can generate “qudits” that can each assume 10 or more states, potentially opening up a new way to creating incredibly powerful quantum computers, a new study finds.

Classical computers switch transistors either on or off to symbolize data as ones and zeroes. In contrast, quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits that, because of the bizarre nature of quantum physics, can be in a state of superposition where they simultaneously act as both 1 and 0.

The superpositions that qubits can adopt let them each help perform two calculations at once. If two qubits are quantum-mechanically linked, or entangled, they can help perform four calculations simultaneously; three qubits, eight calculations; and so on. As a result, a quantum computer with 300 qubits could perform more calculations in an instant than there are atoms in the known universe, solving certain problems much faster than classical computers. However, superpositions are extraordinarily fragile, making it difficult to work with multiple qubits.

2 vs 6 using existing tech to make it happen, awesome. BRT has talked copiously about the potential of QC. Maybe this approach will make it a reality. If so, the Matrix looms.

Image: Nature

Researchers used the setup pictured above to create, manipulate, and detect qudits. The experiment starts when a laser fires pulses of light into a micro-ring resonator, which in turn emits entangled pairs of photons. Because the ring has multiple resonances, the photons have optical spectrums with a set of evenly spaced frequencies (red and blue peaks), a process known as spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM). The researchers were able to use each of the frequencies to encode information, which means the photons act as qudits. Each qudit is in a superposition of 10 possible states, extending the usual binary alphabet (0 and 1) of quantum bits. The researchers also showed they could perform basic gate operations on the qudits using optical filters and modulators, and then detect the results using single-photon counters.

2049 looks to be a keeper

If Blade Runner 2049 stays true to this featurette, it could become a true SF classic of the 1st order.

Nature never disappoints :)

A Little Touch of Yellow

Hogweed CU.

Honeybee Blue

Water Lines

The Big 5

Moonlighting

Wasps are intense. Equipped with powerful toxins, they are most formidable and manipulative, especially when it comes to certain solitary species' insidious ways of raising their young by paralyzing and/or altering the host's behavior to enable the young to eat the host alive with little undo effort.

“I’ve been working on parasitoid wasps for a very long time,” remarked Jack Werren, a professor of biology at the University of Rochester. His fascination with these animals centers on their specialized venoms, which allow the wasps to be masterful physiological puppeteers. Parasitoid wasps are an enormous group of between 100,00 and 600,000 species that are parasitic when they are larvae, living on or frequently inside a host they eat alive. As free-living adults, they must find and subdue an appropriate creature to play host to their young, which they do with the aid of behavior-altering venoms. The emerald cockroach wasp, for example, transforms its formidable targets — cockroaches many times its size — into complacent meals for the wasps’ hungry offspring by manipulating the animals’ brain chemistry. The Glyptapanteles wasp goes even further, turning its caterpillar offerings into zombie bodyguards that protect the young wasps that have just eaten their way out of the caterpillars’ tissues. Another wasp, Reclinervellus nielseni, forces its arachnid victims to transform their webs into sturdy nests that will continue to protect the wasp larvae after the spiders expire.

A social wasp, Vespula germanica

Nature never ceases to amaze ...

The weird & the wonderful

Quantum Mechanics is based on probabilities and duality whereby a subatomic particle can be a wave or a particle depending on how said entity interacts with its environment, including on whether said entity is measured or not because measuring it (which requires energy) determines whether it's a particle or a wave at the time it's being measured.

Our general logic would assume that the object is either wave-like or particle-like by its very nature, and our measurements will have nothing to do with the answer. But quantum theory predicts that the result all depends on how the object is measured at the end of its journey. And that's exactly what a team from the Australian National University has now found.

"It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it," lead researcher and physicist Andrew Truscott said in a press release.

To yours truly, the experiment is wonderful but saying reality does not really exist is misleading as the entity does exist as a duality and only by applying energy to it by the act of measurement do we assign a specific state of the entity to either being a particle or a wave. This fact has been known for a long time but this elegant experiment proves this to be true without question.

Weird & wonderful indeed. :)

Schrodinger's cat lives.