Lifeboat Foundation

Meteorologists on Earth struggle to predict the weather, but what about scientists trying to predict the weather on exoplanets that are light-years from Earth? This is what a recently accepted study to The Astrophysical Journal Supplement hopes to unveil as an international team of researchers used data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to conduct a three-year investigation into weather patterns on WASP-121 b, which is a “hot Jupiter” that orbits its star in just over one day and located approximately 880 light-years from Earth. This study holds the potential to not only advance our understanding of exoplanets and their atmospheres, but also how we study them, as well.

Artist impression of WASP-121 b orbiting its host star. (Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STSci))

“The assembled dataset represents a significant amount of observing time for a single planet and is currently the only consistent set of such repeated observations,” said Dr. Quentin Changeat, who is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Astronomy at University College London and lead author of the study. “The information that we extracted from those observations was used to infer the chemistry, temperature, and clouds of the atmosphere of WASP-121 b at different times. This provided us with an exquisite picture of the planet changing over time.”

A new study compares human and mouse neurons, revealing the astounding computational superiority of the human brain’s Purkinje cells.

Entanglement is a property of quantum physics that is manifested when two or more systems interact in such a way that their quantum states cannot be described independently. In the terminology of quantum physics, they are said to be entangled, i.e. strongly correlated. Entanglement is of paramount importance to quantum computing. The greater the entanglement, the more optimized and efficient the quantum computer.

A study conducted by researchers affiliated with the Department of Physics at São Paulo State University’s Institute of Geosciences and Exact Sciences (IGCE-UNESP) in Rio Claro, Brazil, tested a novel method of quantifying entanglement and the conditions for its maximization. Applications include optimizing the construction of a quantum computer.

An article on the study is published as a letter in Physical Review B.

For a while researchers thought they’d have to make do with noisy, error-prone systems, at least in the near term. That’s starting to change.

A new thermal transistor can control heat as precisely as an electrical transistor can control electricity.

By Rachel Nuwer

Combining smart sensors with an older technology — analog computing — could dramatically reduce their power consumption.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created the world’s first functional semiconductor made from graphene, a single sheet of carbon atoms held together by the strongest bonds known. Semiconductors, which are materials that conduct electricity under specific conditions, are foundational components of electronic devices. The team’s breakthrough throws open the door to a new way of doing electronics.

Their discovery comes at a time when silicon, the material from which nearly all modern electronics are made, is reaching its limit in the face of increasingly faster computing and smaller electronic devices.

Continue reading “Researchers create first functional semiconductor made from graphene” »

Researchers are actively engaged in the dynamic manipulation of quantum systems and materials to realize significant energy management and conservation breakthroughs.

This endeavor has catalyzed the development of a cutting-edge platform dedicated to creating quantum thermal machines, thereby unlocking the full potential of quantum technologies in advanced energy solutions.

By October 2025, more than a billion PCs will be running a dead operating system, leaving many computers vulnerable to malware or headed for the trash. What’s Microsoft going to do about it?