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Sep 24, 2024

First Observations of Atmospheric Asymmetry on an Exoplanet

Posted by in categories: evolution, space

Can an exoplanet’s atmosphere exhibit east-west asymmetry, meaning its two edges are vastly different from each other? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address as an international team of researchers led by the University of Arizona investigated the atmosphere of WASP-107 b, which is a Jupiter-sized exoplanet located approximately 211 light-years from Earth. This study holds the potential to help astronomers better understand the formation and evolution of exoplanets and how we can hopefully find Earth-like exoplanets, as well.

“This is the first time the east-west asymmetry of any exoplanet has ever been observed as it transits its star, from space,” said Matthew Murphy, who is a graduate student at the University of Arizona Steward Observatory and lead author of the study. “I think observations made from space have a lot of different advantages versus observations that are made from the ground.”

For the study, the researchers used NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe the atmosphere of WASP-107 b, which is tidally locked to its parent star, meaning one side is always facing its parent star, much like how our Moon always has one side facing the Earth. This also makes studying an exoplanet’s atmosphere tricky since astronomers can only observe the back side of the exoplanet and analyzing the starlight passing through its atmosphere. However, with the help of novel methods, the researchers were able to analyze data obtained from the front side of WASP-107 b, thus confirming its atmospheric east-west asymmetry. Additionally, WASP-107 b also exhibits low density and low gravity, resulting in its atmosphere being inflated.

Sep 24, 2024

Elon Musk Breaks Silence on Starlink Impact in Kenya

Posted by in categories: business, Elon Musk, food, internet, space

I’m actually getting Starlink because it’s competitively priced, and I can walk to my local Grocery Store up the street, and order it.


President Ruto had on Monday during a business roundtable meeting revealed that Starlink’s entry into the Kenyan market faced a lot of resistance from local players who felt the foreign firm’s entry would eat into their market share.

Ruto admitted during the roundtable that Kenya would be seeking more competitors in a bid to revolutionize the digital space in Kenya.

Continue reading “Elon Musk Breaks Silence on Starlink Impact in Kenya” »

Sep 24, 2024

AF hospital adds ‘virus-zapping’ robot to inventory

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, robotics/AI

This was created by a company called Xenex a decade ago In San Antonio Texas, where I used to live.


JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va. (AFNS) — Standing at 5 feet 2 inches tall, U.S. Air Force Hospital Langley’s newest staff member doesn’t initially have a commanding presence; however, after five minutes, its impact has the potential to save countless lives around the world.

The 633rd Medical Group received a germ-zapping robot, nicknamed “Saul,” which harnesses the power of technology to kill off viruses — including the Ebola virus. Airmen were given a demonstration of the robots functions and capabilities from Geri Genant, the Xenex Healthcare Services implementation manager.

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Sep 24, 2024

Six New Rogue Worlds: Star Birth Clues

Posted by in category: space

The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted six likely rogue worlds — objects with planet-like masses but untethered from any star’s gravity — including the lightest ever identified with a dusty disk around it.

The elusive objects offer new evidence that the same cosmic processes that give birth to stars may also play a common role in making objects only slightly bigger than Jupiter.

The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted six likely rogue worlds — objects with planetlike masses but untethered from any star’s gravity — including the lightest ever identified with a dusty disk around it.

Sep 24, 2024

Artificial Intelligence does not experience the Overview Effect!

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, space, sustainability

The Overview Effect, the profound shift in human perception that occurs when one sees Earth from the outside, has the power to foster peace and global brotherhood. This underscores the urgent need for an increasing number of people, not just machines, to venture into space.

The concept encapsulated in the title above is the culmination of a two-day discussion held in New York under the auspices of the Summit of the Future. The Space Renaissance International and its 102 allied organizations, the Space 18th SDG Coalition, played a pivotal role in organizing these two events.

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Sep 24, 2024

LHCb measures the weak mixing angle

Posted by in category: particle physics

At the International Conference on High-Energy Physics in Prague in July, the LHCb collaboration presented an updated measurement of the weak mixing angle using the data collected at the experiment between 2016 and 2018. The measurement benefits from the unique forward coverage of the LHCb detector.

The success of electroweak theory in describing a wide range of measurements at different experiments is one of the crowning achievements of the Standard Model ℠ of particle physics. It explains electroweak phenomena using a small number of free parameters, allowing precise measurements of different quantities to be compared to each other. This facilitates powerful indirect searches for beyond-the-SM physics. Discrepancies between measurements might imply that new physics influences one process but not another, and global analyses of high-precision electroweak measurements are sensitive to the presence of new particles at multi-TeV scales. In 2022 the entire field was excited by a measurement of the W-boson mass that is significantly larger than the value predicted within these global analyses by the CDF collaboration, heightening interest in electroweak measurements.

The weak mixing angle is at the centre of electroweak physics. It describes the mixing of the U and SU fields, determines couplings of the Z boson, and can also be directly related to the ratio of the W and Z boson masses. Excitingly, the two most precise measurements to date, from LEP and SLD, are in significant tension. This raises the prospect of non-SM particles potentially influencing one of these measurements, since the weak mixing angle, as a fundamental parameter of nature, should otherwise be the same no matter how it is measured. There is therefore a major programme measuring the weak mixing angle at hadron colliders, with important contributions from CDF, D 0, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb.

Sep 24, 2024

Quantum Entanglement Observed in High-Energy Particles

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

Have you ever wondered how the bizarre world of quantum mechanics intersects with high-energy particle physics?


Discover how quantum entanglement was observed in high-energy particles at CERN’s LHC, revolutionizing our understanding of particle physics.

Sep 24, 2024

HLA genes in Type 2 diabetes: Protection and risk

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Robert C Williams performed genetic analysis to understand how the HLA and SLC16A11 genes affect Type 2 diabetes in Indigenous Americans.

Sep 24, 2024

Samsung is creating the world’s first Petabyte SSD

Posted by in categories: computing, transportation

While most of us are still struggling to find SSDs with greater capacities than 4TB, Samsung is working on creating the world’s first petabyte SSD. At least, that’s their plan. Last year, reports suggested that the company was about a decade away. Now, they seem much closer.

As the world’s largest manufacturer of 3D NAND storage, they’re certainly one of the most likely to do it. Samsung has revealed more information about its planes, and how it’s working to get to that 1,000-layer NAND required for such high capacities.

Samsung has long been a leader in large capacity solid state drives. And while they’re not readily available to the average consumer due to their (still) prohibitively expensive prices, Samsung announced a 16TB SSD way back in 2015.

Sep 24, 2024

George Church lab spawns $75m cell therapy startup

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

GC Therapeutics’ plug-and-play stem cell programming platform aims to reduce cell therapy development time by up to 100 times.

Cell therapies have revolutionized the treatment of certain disease areas; however, challenges in scaling these therapies…


Cell therapy startup GC Therapeutics (GCTx) has emerged from the lab of renowned geneticist George Church, securing a $65 million Series A funding round that brings the total raised by the company to a cool $75 million. The company is on a mission to enable the next generation of cell therapies through its proprietary TFome platform, which GCTx claims is the first plug-and-play induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) cellular programming platform.

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