Today’s stories include 10 Brilliant Novels About Communicating with Extraterrestrial Life to Does Consciousness Rely on Quantum Entanglement? and many other things.
Artificial intelligence will discover new laws in physics?New Scientist. “Algorithms can pore over astrophysical data to identify underlying equations. Now, physicists are trying to figure out how to imbue these “machine theorists” with the ability to find deeper laws of nature.”
Have we found the Milky Way’s twin?–-Our galactic home in the cosmos — the Milky Way — is only one of many trillions of galaxies within in the observable Universe. Are we related? Big Think: Ethan Siegel
Ten Brilliant Novels about Communicating With Extraterrestrial Life,Publishers Weekly reports. From Ethan Chatagnier’s soaring debut novel, Singer Distance about a group of MIT grad students who attempt to contact extraterrestrial beings in the early 1960s to Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang.The title story of this collection, the basis for the movie Arrival, follows Louise Banks, a linguistics professor tasked with decoding the language of an alien species that has unexpectedly landed on. Earth.
Earth to the Rescue Over millennia, our planet can regulate its temperature., new study finds–It’s on a 100,000-year timescale, though, so the next few centuries might not be so comfortable, reports Science Advances. “The question of how Earth’s climate is stabilized on geologic time scales is important for understanding Earth’s history, long-term consequences of anthropogenic climate change, and planetary habitability.”
Hubble Space Telescope’s mesmerizing views of enormous spiral galaxy could help solve one of the biggest mysteries in astronomAndrew Jones reports on Space.com. “The mysterious mismatch between the two values of the Hubble constant suggests that a new discovery in cosmology is waiting to be made, ESA scientists said in the statement.”
A surprise finding at Arctic vent could aid in the search of extraterrestrial existence.For space.com, Sharmila Kuthunur reports. “New research shows that a remote place on Earth has submarine activity akin to that on Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus. The finding offers a new opportunity that can help scientists prepare for future space missions that will explore the possibility of life on worlds with subsurface oceans.”
Brain experiment shows that quantum entanglement is the basis of consciousness. Maybe the brain isn’t “classical” after all, reports Big Think. “If brain processes rely on quantum mechanics, it could explain why our brains are so powerful.”
We need quantum fields and not quantum particles.–Realizing that matter and energy are quantized is important, but quantum particles isn’t the full story; quantum fields are needed, too, reports Big Think.
Astrophysicists document the history of mathematical Cosmology.Reports Phys.org. The most significant discoveries in modern cosmology have been compiled by RUDN University astrophysicists. They cover the period 1917 to today.
Quantum Particles Aren’t Spinning. What is their Spin Source?Adam Becker reports for Scientific American that a new proposal is being made to solve the paradoxical nature of quantum spin.
A Test To Tell If We All Live in a Program on a Computer,Melvin Vopson reports on The Conversation. “Physicists have long struggled to explain why the universe started out with conditions suitable for life to evolve. What is it about the physical laws and constants that allow stars, planets, and eventually life to develop? “
The Milky Way’s Halo of Stars Isn’t The Neat Sphere Astronomers Expected It to BeScience Alert reports that this is the case. “For decades, the general assumption has been that the stellar halo is more or less spherical and isotropic, or the same in every direction,” says astronomer Charlie Conroy of the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). “We now know that the textbook picture of our galaxy embedded within a spherical volume of stars has to be thrown out.”
Space research: $26 million for infinity and beyond at McGill University and Université de Montréal to the outer limits. Landmark gifts from the Trottier Family Foundation ensure Montreal’s place as a leading hub of space research within Canada and the world, reports McGill University.
Area 51 blogger Joerg Arnu accuses authorities of sending ‘a message to silence’ as his homes are raided by FBI and air force agents, reports Sky News.. “Up to 20 agents ‘in full riot gear’ entered each of the properties and seized equipment, including laptops, phones and a drone, says the operator of the Dreamland Resort website, who insists he has not shared any material that is not already in the public domain.”
The Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff curated this article
Image credit: Chilean ESO Observatories.
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