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Clarke's world, named after Arthur C. Clarke, is accepting submissions from all authors and they pay up to $1,380 per published short. Make sure to read what they won't print (i.e., sparkly vampires) before you submit. They accept horror, SF, & fantasy. Their direct link is below.
Good luck to all of you.
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| Image Source: LIGO.Caltech.edu/detection |
Topics: Einstein, General Relativity, Gravitational Waves, Research, Theoretical Physics
The Physics World 2016 Breakthrough of the Year goes to "the LIGO Scientific Collaboration for its revolutionary, first-ever direct observations of gravitational waves". Nine other achievements are highly commended and cover topics ranging from nuclear physics to material science and more.
Almost exactly 100 years after they were first postulated by Albert Einstein in his general theory of relativity, gravitational waves hit the headlines in 2016 as the US-based LIGO collaboration detected two separate gravitational-wave events using the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (aLIGO). The first observation was made on 14 September 2015 and was announced in February this year. A second set of gravitational waves rolled through LIGO's detectors on 26 December 2015, and this so-called "Boxing Day event" was announced in June this year. Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space–time, and these observations mark the end of a decades-long hunt for these interstellar undulations.
The measurements also herald the start of the era of gravitational-wave astronomy and multi-messenger astronomy, whereby gravitational-wave observations are combined with those made by optical and radio telescopes and other detectors observing the cosmos. Indeed, LIGO's twin detectors will soon be joined by a global network of gravitational-wave detectors.
The top 10 breakthroughs were chosen by a panel of four Physics World editors and reporters, and the criteria for judging included:
- fundamental importance of research;
- significant advance in knowledge;
- strong connection between theory and experiment; and
- general interest to all physicists.
Physics World:
LIGO's gravitational-wave discovery is Physics World 2016 Breakthrough of the Year
In the ancient scriptures of both vampire and witch religions, a fallen angel named Azazel fell in love with a human named Lilith. Azazel opened Lilith’s mind to its full potential, giving her magical abilities which made her the first witch. Living together in bliss for centuries, Lilith gave birth to Azazel’s child, Dracule. To her horror, Dracule was cursed with an insatiable craving for human blood, becoming the first vampire. Feeling that this was a result of their forbidden mating, Lilith abandoned Azazel and Dracule to go out and explore the world. As Dracule reached adulthood, the angels observed that he had begun to transform more humans into vampires. For bringing this curse into the world, Azazel was banished from the mortal plain. In his absence, he left a book of scriptures called “The Book of Azazel” to govern over Dracule and his growing race of vampires. Still bitter from abandonment, Dracule discovered that Lilith had gone out into the world and shared her magical gifts with other humans, creating more witches as her new family. Enraged at her rejection of him and accepting of others, Dracule pronounced the existence of witches an abomination and declared war on all of their kind. To create protectors for her people, Lilith used her power to mix the blood of a vampire with the blood of a wolf to be ingested by humans. This created the first werewolves. In an effort to draw the wrath of Dracule away from the witches, Lilith disappeared from her coven but left them with a set of scriptures called “The Book of Lilith”, to help guide them in her absence. The sudden disappearance of Lilith caused Dracule to abandon his army and follow her into the unknown, never to be seen again.
The loss of their leader only increased the vampire’s war with the witches and their werewolf, slave soldiers. After centuries of war, scriptures from both religions brought the vampires and witches to the prophesized holy land of Salem in the new world. In the newly settled town, a war is waged between vampire, witch, werewolf and human over ownership of the land. As the son of the witches’ coven queen, Amelia, falls in battle, she sends for a young scientist named Dr. Victor Frankenstein. He had become world renown for tales of his resurrection procedures. Shortly after his arrival in Salem, Dr. Frankenstein constructed a new resurrection machine that combined his technology with the witches’ magic. After activating the machine, it not only revived Amelia’s son, but also opened an interdimensional portal that released powerful chaotic energy that threatened to destroy the entire town. Just then, a mysterious warlock suddenly arrived on the scene and used his great power to contain the rampaging energy back into the machine. The warlock then gathered the races of Salem and introduced himself as “Artorus”. He then presented the vampires with the more enlightened new testament of the Book of Azazel, as was prophesized in their old testament scripture. Artorus told the people that he had been sent by the newly enlightened Azazel from beyond to bring peace to Salem. He informed them all that the energy released from Dr. Frankenstein’s machine was the eternal light of the holy land prophesized by both vampire and witch scriptures. Artorus continued to further explain that now with the stabilized life energy emitting from the machine throughout Salem, that no supernatural beings would ever crave to feed again as long as they resided on Salem lands. Then turning his attention to the humans, Artorus told them that by coming directly into the machines’ presence, they would become immortals like the supernaturals.
Having gained respect from the different factions with his great power and knowledge, Artorus struck a peace treaty amongst the races. He both convinced the witches to free their werewolf slaves, as well as have the humans accept the supernaturals since they no longer needed to feed. Incorporating rules from the various religions, the races formed laws for a Salem secret government and established individual territories within the town. To enforce the laws of the new government, Artorus chose seven anointed soldiers he dubbed, “The Reckoning”, that consisted of every race of Salem. He equipped them with seven amulets connected to his own power that would increase the Reckoning’s individual abilities tenfold. After decades of peace in Salem, as the secret society stayed hidden from outsiders, Artorus and The Reckoning disappeared from the town. Artorus left only a prophecy of their return in the time Salem’s greatest need.
Centuries later, Salem has continued to thrive. Now grown from small town into the metropolis of “New Salem”, the politics and beliefs within the city have greatly evolved. Dr. Frankenstein, now going by, Dr. Vincent Ericstein, has brought a scientific revolution to the city with his many secret technological breakthroughs. With advances such as his psychic “Telenet”, which connects the minds of all of New Salem’s citizens, as well as the high tech weaponry used by the New Salem Secret Police, order has been kept in the ever evolving secret society. Even more transformative, has been Dr. Ericstein’s “Evolutional Supernatural Theory”. In his theory, he explains that witches are just telepathic humans with various psychic abilities. He also explains vampires and werewolves as the result of highly evolved predatory viruses, that have formed symbiotic bonds with human hosts. Following his scientific movement, the younger generations of the different New Salem factions have begun to reject the rules of the old religions and started to integrate their cultures.
With the age of enlightenment continuing to grow, the citizens of New Salem’s secret society have grown weary of the restrictions living in hiding has placed on them and seek the government’s approval to expose their existence to the rest of the world. But not everyone has looked favorably upon this revolution. A growing terrorist organization known as, “The Red Circle”, have sought to preserve the ways of the old supernatural religions by committing random massacres on the civilian populace and threaten to cause a war with the outside human world if New Salem’s government approves exposure. Though the government has tried to stop them, they’ve found their forces to be no match for the mysterious power of the Red Circle. Now trying to disrupt the paralyzing religious influence of the Red Circle as well as the manipulations of his grandfather on the city government, young scientist Christian Ericstein has sought out to contact the long missing Artorus. Christian plans to bring Artorus back to the city to assemble a new Reckoning to destroy the Red Circle and maintain the balance between old religious beliefs and the modern laws of the government. As a scientist, Christian strictly believes in pure logic, but after being witness to some of Artorus unexplainable abilities upon his return, he has begun to question whether there’s more of a connection between science and religion.
I finally took a busman's holiday and built my own web site. All my writing is now in one place. There is stuff you can read for free and stuff you can buy.
Keep in mind that the more stuff you buy the happier I am and this is the season to spread joy. Not to be pushy, I'm just sayin'.
Brittle Riders Teaser from Bill McCormick on Vimeo. |
| Image Source: Link below |
Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Commentary, Politics, Science Fiction, Research
In the science fiction short story and 2002 film "Minority Report" (also a short-lived series with Megan Good), by the legendary Philip K. Dick, using psychics (you can get away with that in science fiction) as "PreCogs," they could apprehend citizens guilty of "PreCrime." In other words before you even THINK you're going to commit a crime, you are guilty before proven innocent. I guess civil liberties go out the window in 2054.
One part of this report gave me some pause:
With the advent of photography, a tiny fraction of 19th-century scientists believed they could develop methods of accurately identifying criminals by their facial features. While their hypotheses were eventually discredited, new artificial intelligence technology suggests their claims might’ve been valid after all.
Xiaolin Wu and Xi Zhang from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China have resurrected this facial recognition tradition and built a neural network that can supposedly pick out criminals by simply looking at their faces.
To accomplish this, the researchers used an array of machine-vision algorithms to examine a series of facial juxtapositions between photos of criminals and non-criminals with the goal of finding out whether a neural network can reliably tell them apart.
As MIT Technology review explains, there are three defining facial features the neural network factored in to make its classifications:
[T]he curvature of upper lip which is on average 23 percent larger for criminals than for noncriminals; the distance between two inner corners of the eyes, which is 6 percent shorter; and the angle between two lines drawn from the tip of the nose to the corners of the mouth, which is 20 percent smaller.
I might have such an upper lip, as may many other ethnicities.
Artificial intelligence like its original biological intelligence model could be taught by condition and repetition: biased prejudice in service of the state.
The Next Web:
This scary artificial intelligence has learned how to pick out criminals by their faces
by Mix
One of two breaks in December, the second around Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa. See you for this one the 12th.
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| Image Source: Entrepreneur.com, a similar photo is also at the link below. |
Topics: Condensed Matter Physics, Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Power
Well, not exactly forever, but at least past our lifetimes.
Scientists from the University of Bristol Cabot Institute are hitting two birds with one stone, thanks to their lab-made diamond that can generate electricity and is made from upcycled radioactive waste.
In nuclear power plants, radioactive uranium is split in a process called nuclear fission. When the atoms are split, heat is generated, and that heat then vaporizes water into steam that turns electricity-generating turbines.
A severe downside of this process is the creation of dangerous radioactive waste, which ultimately deposits in the graphite core that it is housed in. Today, this nuclear contamination is safely stored away until it stops being radioactive…and with a half-life of 5,730 years, that takes quite a while.
The scientists found a way to heat the radioactive graphite to release most of the radioactivity in a gaseous form. The gas is subjected to high temperature and low pressures that turn it into a man-made diamond.
Futurism:
Diamond Batteries Made of Nuclear Waste Can Generate Power For Thousands of Years
Author: Jess Vilvestre, Editor: Patrick Caughill
For Black History Month in Feb. www.horroraddicts.net are looking for submissions of blogs, essays and articles about the black experience in horror. For details you can email horroraddicts@gmail.com or contact the editor Stacy Rich on their face book page
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| A collage that summarizes the research NAOJ |
Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Exoplanets, NASA, Space Exploration
Researchers from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), the University of Tokyo, and the Astrobiology Center have nailed down an important property of a potentially Earth-like extrasolar planet while it was in transit.
The team used the MuSCAT instrument on the Okayama Astrophysical Observatory’s 188-cm telescope to study the extrasolar planet, called K2-3d, discovered by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft in 2015.
The extrasolar planet is about 150 light-years away, 1.5 times the size of Earth, and closely orbits its host star in about 45 days. K2-3d is particularly important to scientists because there’s a chance it may foster extraterrestrial life. Calculations show that the temperature of the host star and the closeness of the orbit make for a warm Earth-like climate with the possibility of liquid water on the surface.
Astronomy: An Earth-like extrasolar planet could harbor extraterrestrial life
Nicole Kiefert
The Priestess Second Saga returns! Little Fish and the Aesir Witch Mjarga come ashore to a land dominated by a great palm tree forest. On the horizon they see the ragtag survivors of the 'Everstorm' approaching. There is good reason to rejoice, but Little Fish is concerned. How will the people of Aesirfjord react to near centuries younger Mjarga? Most worrisome is whether or not he managed to reach the place in the vision of where the army threatening the Priestess when his father the Valley Knight moves against them?
Unknown to the new arrivals, others arrived in the nation of Palm long before they have. Will those survivors of the Everstorm turn out to be friend or foe? Will they find the Valley Knight in time to help him save the Priestess? All these questions and much more will be answered Monday, November 28th in 'The Priestess Second Saga: Stones, Love and Betrayal!'
Don't forget to turn your scales back ten pounds this weekend...
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| davidope for Quanta Magazine |
Topics: Biology, Neuroscience, Quantum Computer, Quantum Mechanics
Note: With the exception of the historical links below, I don't have anything related to physics and Thanksgiving. Enjoy the food and links. Travel safe.
The mere mention of “quantum consciousness” makes most physicists cringe, as the phrase seems to evoke the vague, insipid musings of a New Age guru. But if a new hypothesis proves to be correct, quantum effects might indeed play some role in human cognition. Matthew Fisher, a physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, raised eyebrows late last year when he published a paper in Annals of Physics proposing that the nuclear spins of phosphorus atoms could serve as rudimentary “qubits” in the brain — which would essentially enable the brain to function like a quantum computer.
As recently as 10 years ago, Fisher’s hypothesis would have been dismissed by many as nonsense. Physicists have been burned by this sort of thing before, most notably in 1989, when Roger Penrose proposed that mysterious protein structures called “microtubules” played a role in human consciousness by exploiting quantum effects. Few researchers believe such a hypothesis plausible. Patricia Churchland, a neurophilosopher at the University of California, San Diego, memorably opined that one might as well invoke “pixie dust in the synapses” to explain human cognition.
Quanta Magazine: A New Spin on the Quantum Brain, Jennifer Ouellette
Completely unrelated to anything but the day:
Manataka American Indian Council on Thanksgiving
What Really Happened at the First Thanksgiving? The Wampanoag Side of the Tale
Gale Tourey Toensing
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| Diagram showing how a BEC (red dot) is created at the top of the chip. It then falls and is split into two BECs that take separate paths to the bottom of the chip. (Courtesy: S Abend/Phys. Rev. Lett.) |
Topics: Bose-Einstein Condensate, Gravity, Nanotechnology, Quantum Mechanics, Semiconductor Technology
A new sensor that measures the local acceleration due to gravity using a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) of ultracold atoms has been made by physicists in Germany, the US and Canada. While the prototype device is not as accurate as commercial gravimeters, its makers say it could be made much smaller and much more accurate than existing devices.
Atoms can be used to measure the acceleration due to gravity by cooling a gas of them to near absolute zero and then dropping them along two different paths in an interferometer. The quantum interference that occurs when the paths converge at a detector provides a very good measure of gravity, with commercial atom interferometers able to measure the acceleration to within one part in 108. Such measurements are invaluable for geological exploration because the presence of certain minerals can be spotted by seeking tiny variations in gravity at the Earth's surface.
While these ultracold atom gravimeters are on a par with conventional absolute gravimeters based on macroscopic falling masses, their accuracy could be improved a lot by using a BEC. In a conventional atomic gravimeter, the ultracold atoms form a diffuse gas roughly a millimetre in size and a major cause of uncertainty is that the laser pulses used to control the atoms are not spatially uniform on that length scale. A BEC – formed by cooling a gas of atoms with integer spin until they condense into a single quantum state – reduces this uncertainty because it squeezes the atoms into a region that is about 100 times smaller.
Physics World: Gravity measured using a Bose–Einstein condensate on a chip
Hamish Johnston
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| Phosphorene is a graphene-like material that is a hot research topic, according to a new study. (Courtesy: Robert Brook/Science Photo Library) |
Topics: Dark Matter, Materials Science, Neutrinos, Research
China is performing "outstanding" research in a number of emerging scientific topics, putting the country's output on a par with the UK but still behind the US. That is the conclusion of a new study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the scientific data company Clarivate Analytics. The Research Fronts 2016 annual report identifies 100 "hot" and 80 "emerging" research areas based on citation analysis of papers published in 2015.
The research areas – divided in various fields of science – reflect global interest in specific topics that have resulted in "core" journal articles. These articles are defined by an algorithm that takes into account, among other things, the time of publication and how frequently an article is cited by other papers in the same area. In physics, for instance, the hottest research pursuits last year included the detection of dark matter and experiments that measure neutrino oscillations. Research into properties and applications of black phosphorus – a 2D material also called phosphorene because of its similarity to graphene – was also identified. The study of topological materials called Weyl semimetals was also named as a hot topic in physics.
Six countries – China, France, Germany, Japan, UK and US – made the greatest contributions in the 180 research areas, according to the report. The US retained its leadership, with its researchers publishing core papers in 152 of the 180 areas, ranging from the hunt for dark matter to the health impact of electronic cigarettes. The UK, meanwhile, contributed core papers in 90 research topics, covering more areas than China's 68. However, China had top-cited papers among the core papers in 30 research areas, which is more than twice that of the UK. "China has a significant gap with the US, and fierce competition with the UK," the report says, adding it was likely that China would soon overtake the UK.
Physics World: China forges ahead in global research
Binglin Chen is a science writer based in Beijing
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| It takes increasingly powerful computing resources to perform more and more complex simulations of nuclear reactor fuel assemblies. This image shows the coolant-flow pressure distribution in a 217-pin wire-wrapped subassembly. (Image by Paul Fischer) |
Topics: Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Research
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE's) Exascale Computing Project (ECP) today announced that it has selected four co-design centers as part of a 4-year $48 million funding award. The first year is funded at $12 million, and is to be allocated evenly among the four award recipients.
The ECP is responsible for the planning, execution and delivery of technologies necessary for a capable exascale ecosystem to support the nation’s exascale imperative, including software, applications, hardware and early testbed platforms.
Exascale refers to computing systems at least 50 times faster than the nation’s most powerful supercomputers in use today.
According to Doug Kothe, ECP Director of Application Development: “Co-design lies at the heart of the Exascale Computing Project. ECP co-design, an intimate interchange of the best that hardware technologies, software technologies and applications have to offer each other, will be a catalyst for delivery of exascale-enabling science and engineering solutions for the U.S.”
Argonne National Laboratory:
Exascale Computing Project announces $48 million to establish four exascale co-design centers
Brian Grabowski
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| Leonard Nimoy (R.I.P.) as mirror universe Spock, "Mirror, Mirror," Star Trek, S2, E4 |
Topics: Holograms, Optical Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Star Trek
When you look in the mirror, the image you see looks a lot like you—not exactly the same, because when you raise your right hand, your mirror-self raises its left. What’s more, the mirror image is merely an assemblage of reflected light, without a physical body behind it. Despite these differences, you can see an important connection between you and your reflection.
This type of mirror relation is a familiar and powerful form of symmetry. We can say that a Valentine heart is symmetrical because the left side is a reflection of the right. But the symmetry of your mirror image is different and deeper. A heart is symmetrical because the left and right side happen to have a similar shape. The symmetry between you and your reflection is due to the laws of physics. The nature of light requires your reflection to be symmetrical to you. It is an example of a powerful and subtle type of symmetry known as duality.
The duality between particles and waves is a central part of quantum theory. Light is clearly a wave: It has a wavelength that determines its color, and light waves can interact with each other to produce things like lasers. Light is also clearly a particle: It interacts with atoms as discrete photons; a single photon can be deflected like a billiard ball. Particle-wave duality means that quantum objects like light have a symmetry between their particle and wave aspects. They are particles with wave properties and waves with particle properties. They are both, and they are neither. The power of quantum theory is that you don’t need to distinguish between particles and waves. They are simply quantum objects with a duality between their particle and wave natures.
Does that mean that the universe is a hologram? Not quite. It means there is a duality...
Nautilus: What It Means to Live in a Holographic Cosmos
Brian Koberlein is an astrophysicist and physics professor at Rochester Institute of Technology.
I just posted this question on some of my social media and it’s one asked daily.
Growing up under ” Jim Crow-lite ” while desegregation was brand spanking new, my ambitious spirit met an ( integrated, by the way ) chorus of limitation imposers whom I resisted.
Imagine being a Black book worm who secretly wanted to be, of all things, a superhero??? My folks were teachers and education was one of the few professions intelligent Black people could choose where their intellect wasn’t demonized.
Fast forward to the 21st Century and everyone, regardless of background, has more opportunity to find their ” super ( unique potential and help others ) ” and unite with like mindedness than at any time in recorded history.
As economic pressures and racial tension challenge public confidence, now is the perfect time to find your ” super ” and inspire fellow dreamers to do the same.
So, that’s the thinking behind today’s post and the Life Fantastic I live. As history awaits writing by super citizens, the question remains:
Who wants 2B #SUPER?
-Nadra Enzi aka Cap Black, RLSH. @nadraenzi on twitter.
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| Artist's conception of how the "nearly naked" supermassive black hole originated. Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF. |
Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Black Holes, Cosmology
Astronomers using the super-sharp radio vision of the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) have found the shredded remains of a galaxy that passed through a larger galaxy, leaving only the smaller galaxy's nearly-naked supermassive black hole to emerge and speed away at more than 2,000 miles per second.
The galaxies are part of a cluster of galaxies more than 2 billion light-years from Earth. The close encounter, millions of years ago, stripped the smaller galaxy of nearly all its stars and gas. What remains is its black hole and a small galactic remnant only about 3,000 light-years across. For comparison, our Milky Way Galaxy is approximately 100,000 light-years across.
The discovery was made as part of a program to detect supermassive black holes, millions or billions of times more massive than the Sun, that are not at the centers of galaxies. Supermassive black holes reside at the centers of most galaxies. Large galaxies are thought to grow by devouring smaller companions. In such cases, the black holes of both are expected to orbit each other, eventually merging.
National Radio Astronomy Observatory:
Close Galactic Encounter Leaves "Nearly Naked" Supermassive Black Hole
Dave Finley, Public Information Officer
