Lifeboat Foundation

Pain is a complex, multifaceted experience shaped by various factors beyond physical sensation, such as a person’s mindset and their expectations of pain. The placebo effect, the tendency for a person’s symptoms to improve in response to inactive treatment, is a well-known example of how expectations can significantly alter a person’s experience. Mindfulness meditation, which has been used for pain management in various cultures for centuries, has long been thought to work by activating the placebo response. However, scientists have now shown that this is not the case.

A new study, published in Biological Psychiatry, has revealed that mindfulness meditation engages distinct brain mechanisms to reduce pain compared to those of the placebo response. The study, conducted by researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, used advanced brain imaging techniques to compare the pain-reducing effects of mindfulness meditation, a placebo cream and a “sham” mindfulness meditation in healthy participants.

The study found that mindfulness meditation produced significant reductions in pain intensity and pain unpleasantness ratings, and also reduced brain activity patterns associated with pain and negative emotions. In contrast, the placebo cream only reduced the brain activity pattern associated with the placebo effect, without affecting the person’s underlying experience of pain.

A collaborative study by the University of Cologne revealed that magnetic excitations in BaCO2V2O8 crystals involve unusual repulsively bound states, a significant discovery made by irradiating the crystals with terahertz waves.

A team of solid-state physicists from the University of Cologne, along with international collaborators, studied BaCO2V2O8 crystals in a laboratory in Cologne. Their research revealed that the magnetic elementary excitations in the crystals are influenced by both attractive and repulsive interactions.

However, this results in a lower stability, making the observation of such repulsively bound states all the more surprising. The results of the study were recently published in Nature.

Analysis of lunar samples reveals that the Moon experienced volcanic activity until 120 million years ago, much later than previously thought.

This insight comes from examining glass beads in the samples, indicating localized volcanic activity fueled by radioactive elements.

Recent Lunar Volcanic Activity

🚀 LumenOrbit (YC S24) is building a network of megawatt-scale data centers in space, scalable to gigawatt capacity.

Why we should train AI in space.

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Across all species, critical skills are passed on from parents to offspring through communication. Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the Researchers at the University of Bonn showed that effective communication relies on how both the sender and receiver represent information. Their study reveals how this process underlies training efficacy and task performance. Their results have been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Communication—be it through sounds, smells or movements—is crucial for survival. Its social aspect is fundamental to cognition, as our task descriptions in the brain are shaped not only by sensory experiences, but also by the information communicated to us.

“We know from our everyday lives that social communication is essential to our learning abilities in the real world, which is summed up by the saying ‘teaching is learning for the second time,” says Prof. Tatjana Tchumatchenko, from the Institute of Experimental Epileptology and Cognition Research at the UKB and member of the Transdisciplinary Research Area (TRA) “Modelling” at the University of Bonn.

The achievement marks a way toward “fault-tolerant” quantum computing as it achieved record-low error rates in prototype quantum computer. It’s also expected to lead to the development of more stable quantum computers.

IQM maintains that qubit relaxation time T1 of 0.964 +- 0.092 milliseconds and dephasing time T2 echo of 1.155 +- 0.188 milliseconds was demonstrated on a planar transmon qubit on a silicon chip fabricated in IQM´s own fabrication facilities.

The coherence times, characterized by the relaxation time T1 and the dephasing time T2 echo, are among the key metrics for assessing the performance of a single qubit, as they indicate how long quantum information can be stored in a physical qubit, according to the company.

Tiny robots much smaller than blood cells could deliver clot-forming drugs where they’re needed most, a study in rabbits suggests. The tech has yet to be tested in humans.

An ultra-precise measurement of a transition in the hearts of thorium atoms gives physicists a tool to probe the forces that bind the universe.

A new method for assembling neuron cultures horizontally instead of vertically helps solve for a longstanding issue.