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Around two million years ago, Earth was a very different place, with our early human ancestors living alongside saber-toothed tigers, mastodons, and enormous rodents. And, depending on where they were, they may have been cold: Earth had fallen into a deep freeze, with multiple ice ages coming and going until about 12,000 years ago.

Scientists theorize that ice ages occur for a number of reasons, including the planet’s tilt and rotation, shifting plate tectonics, volcanic eruptions, and carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. But what if drastic changes like these are not only a result of Earth’s environment, but also the sun’s location in the galaxy?

In a new paper published in Nature Astronomy, lead author and astrophysicist Merav Opher—an astronomy professor at Boston University and fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute— found evidence that some two million years ago, the solar system encountered an so dense that it could have interfered with the sun’s . Opher and her co-authors believe this shows that the sun’s location in space might shape Earth’s history more than previously considered.

The DESI collaboration is conducting a groundbreaking experiment to understand the universe’s expansion and acceleration. Their work with the DESI instrument has enabled them to map the cosmos from its early stages to the present, challenging existing models of the universe. Initial findings suggest there may be more to discover about dark energy and cosmic acceleration. The project’s innovative approach, including a fully blinded analysis, ensures that their conclusions are based on unbiased data, paving the way for future discoveries in astrophysics. Credit: SciTechDaily.com.

The DESI collaboration is examining the universe’s accelerating expansion through comprehensive mapping from its early stages to the present. Their findings challenge traditional cosmic models and suggest new insights into dark energy, all while utilizing groundbreaking, unbiased research methods.

A team of researchers, including an astrophysicist from The University of Texas at Dallas, as part of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) collaboration, is leading a groundbreaking experiment aimed at exploring the universe’s expansion and acceleration.

The Hubble Space Telescope is currently in safe mode due to gyroscope problems, suspending its science activities. However, NASA remains optimistic about its future contributions to space exploration, working in tandem with other telescopes.

On May 24, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope entered safe mode due to an ongoing gyroscope (gyro) issue, suspending science operations. Hubble’s instruments remain stable, and the telescope is in good health.

The telescope automatically entered safe mode when one of its three gyroscopes returned faulty telemetry readings. Hubble’s gyros measure the telescope’s slew rates and are part of the system that determines and controls precisely the direction the telescope is pointed.

Most collapsed stars fully rotate in seconds. This one takes almost an hour.

Australian scientists from the University of Sydney and Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, have detected what is likely a neutron star spinning slower than any other ever measured.

No other radio-emitting neutron star, out of the more than 3,000 discovered so far, has been discovered rotating so slowly. The results are published today (June 5) in Nature Astronomy.

Basically confirmed whats been said here. AI will take over film making by 2029/2030.


Actor and entrepreneur Ashton Kutcher lauded OpenAI’s generative AI video tool Sora at a recent event. “I’ve been playing around with Sora, this latest thing that OpenAI launched that generates video,” Kutcher said. “I have a beta version of it, and it’s pretty amazing. Like, it’s pretty good.”

He explained that users specify the shot, scene, or trailer they desire. “It invents that thing. You haven’t shot any footage, the people in it don’t exist,” he said.

According to Kutcher, Sora can create realistic 10–15 second videos, despite still making minor mistakes and lacking a full understanding of physics. However he said that the technology has come a long way in just one year, with significant leaps in quality and realism.

The core theory, weak vs. strong emergence, micro-reductionism, and Sean Carroll’s skeptical argument against everything. Is Dr. Carroll correct in holding that physics has ruled out the afterlife, an immaterial soul, fundamental consciousness, and parapsychology?

Linktree https://linktr.ee/emersongreen.

LINKS

Sean Carroll speaking to the Freedom From Religion Foundation • Sean Carroll: Has Science Refuted Rel…

Philip Goff: Is physics different in the brain?

Papers:

@NVIDIAOmniverse is a development platform for virtual world simulation, combining real-time physically based rendering, physics simulation, and generative AI technologies.

In Omniverse, robots can learn to be robots – minimizing the sim-to-real gap, and maximizing the transfer of learned behavior.

Building robots with generative physical AI requires three computers:

- NVIDIA AI supercomputers to train the models.
- NVIDIA Jetson Orin, and next generation Jetson Thor robotics supercomputer, to run the models.
- And NVIDIA Omniverse, where robots can learn and refine their skills in simulated worlds.

Read the press release.

#OpenUSD #Robotics #COMPUTEX2024 #IsaacSim