A new study looked at how California black worms work together to form "worm blobs" in order to model their behavior in moving swarms of simple robots. The "blob" formation, which can range in size from 10 to 50,000 worms, serves to protect the creatures from drying out and withstanding threats like strong heat.

The researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology focused on how thousands of the worms (Lumbriculus variegatus), about a centimeter in length each, can intertwine into an "active matter," which behaves as one. This self-organized shape-shifting blob allows the worms to achieve much more complex outcomes together than they would without getting hitched up.

The work promises to help engineers working on swarm robots to understand and adapt the mechanics of how such blobs behave.

Saad Bhamla, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, highlighted that being in a group is beneficial to the worms' survival:

"We were curious about why these worms would form these living blobs," said Bhamla. "We have now shown through mathematical models and biological experiments that forming the blobs confers a kind of collective decision-making that enables worms in a larger blob to survive longer against desiccation."

The scientists also showed that the worms in a blob can move together, exhibiting unique collective behavior. The capabilities of the blob are much more than anything the individuals can do on their own. Studying these blobs helps researchers who are looking to transfer the key traits of living systems to ones designed by humans. Swarm robots, in particular, are built around the idea that individual robots must collaborate to be able to engage in complex actions.

Collective worm and robot "blobs" protect individuals, swarm together

The worms were studied closely by the research associate Yasemin Ozkan-Aydi, whose experiments included testing the blob's responsiveness to temperature and light changes and creating a "worm gymnasium", which allowed her to gauge the strength of the worms. To create a worm blob, she took the worms out of water. When they couldn't find the water, they came together in a ball-like blob. The worms would trade off on who would be on the outside of the blob, where most evaporation took place. This allowed the collective to suffer less of an effect from the lack of liquid. The researcher concluded that being in a blob helped the worms survive 10 times longer when being out of water, compared to single worms.

Professor Daniel Goldman, in whose lab these experiments were carried out, pointed to the unexpected smartness of what the worms did.

"They would certainly want to reduce desiccation, but the way in which they would do this is not obvious and points to a kind of collective intelligence in the system," explained Goldman. "They are not just surface-minimizing machines. They are looking to exploit good conditions and resources."

This intelligence of the worms was also on display in heat experiments, where the cooperation between the worms in the blob allowed them to slink away from hot spots, dramatically improving their survival chances. Moving as a blob, 95% of the worms made it to the cold side.

Ozkan-Aydin incorporated the observations of worm behavior into small robotic blobs made of "smart active particles" or "smarticles." She pinned six 3D-printed robots which featured two arms and two light sensors in a mesh, essentially entangling them similarly to the worms. She then programmed and tested different movements the robots could perform, finding that the robot swarms "generate emergent behavior that is similar to what we saw in the worms."

You can check out the new study "Collective dynamics in entangled worm and robot blobs" published in PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

The U.S. Navy controls patents for some futuristic and outlandish technologies, some of which, dubbed "the UFO patents," came to life recently. Of particular note are inventions by the somewhat mysterious Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais, whose tech claims to be able to "engineer reality". His slate of highly-ambitious, borderline sci-fi designs meant for use by the U.S. government range from gravitational wave generators and compact fusion reactors to next-gen hybrid aerospace-underwater crafts with revolutionary propulsion systems, and beyond.

Of course, the existence of patents does not mean these technologies have actually been created but there is evidence that some demonstrations of operability have been successfully carried out. As investigated and reported by The War Zone, a possible reason why some of the patents may have been taken on by the Navy is that the Chinese military might also be developing similar advanced gadgets.

Among Dr. Pais's patents are designs, approved in 2018, for an aerospace-underwater craft of incredible speed and maneuverability. This cone-shaped vehicle can potentially fly as well anywhere it may be, whether air, water or space, without leaving any heat signatures. It can achieve so by being able to create a quantum vacuum around itself with a very dense polarized energy field. This vacuum would allow it to repel any molecule the craft comes in contact with, no matter the medium. Manipulating "quantum field fluctuations in the local vacuum energy state," would help reduce the craft's inertia. The polarized vacuum would dramatically reduce any elemental resistance and lead to "extreme speeds," claims the paper.

Not only that, if the vacuum-creating technology can be engineered, we'd also be able to "engineer the fabric of our reality at the most fundamental level," states the patent. This would lead to major advancements in aerospace propulsion and generating power. Not to mention other reality-changing outcomes that come to mind.

Among Pais's other patents are inventions that stem from similar thinking, outlining pieces of technology necessary to make his creations come to fruition. His paper presented in 2019, titled "Room Temperature Superconducting System for Use on a Hybrid Aerospace Undersea Craft," presents a system that can achieve superconductivity at room temperatures. This would become "a highly disruptive technology, capable of a total paradigm change in Science and Technology," conveys Pais.

Another invention devised by Pais is an electromagnetic field generator that could generate "an impenetrable defensive shield to sea and land as well as space-based military and civilian assets". This shield could protect from threats like anti-ship ballistic missiles, cruise missiles that evade radar, coronal mass ejections, military satellites, and even asteroids.

Dr. Pais's ideas center around the phenomenon he dubbed "The Pais Effect". He referred to it in his writings as the "controlled motion of electrically charged matter (from solid to plasma) via accelerated spin and/or accelerated vibration under rapid (yet smooth) acceleration-deceleration-acceleration transients." In less jargon-heavy terms, Pais claims to have figured out how to spin electromagnetic fields in order to contain a fusion reaction – an accomplishment that would lead to a tremendous change in power consumption and an abundance of energy.

According to his bio in a recently published paper on a new Plasma Compression Fusion Device, which could transform energy production, Dr. Pais is a mechanical and aerospace engineer working at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), which is headquartered in Patuxent River, Maryland. Holding a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, Pais was a NASA Research Fellow and worked with Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. His current Department of Defense work involves his "advanced knowledge of theory, analysis, and modern experimental and computational methods in aerodynamics, along with an understanding of air-vehicle and missile design, especially in the domain of hypersonic power plant and vehicle design." He also has expert knowledge of electrooptics, emerging quantum technologies (laser power generation in particular), high-energy electromagnetic field generation, and the "breakthrough field of room temperature superconductivity, as related to advanced field propulsion."

Suffice it to say, with such a list of research credentials that would make Nikola Tesla proud, Dr. Pais seems well-positioned to carry out groundbreaking work.

The patents won't necessarily lead to these technologies ever seeing the light of day. The research has its share of detractors and nonbelievers among other scientists, who think the amount of energy required for the fields described by Pais and his ideas on electromagnetic propulsions are well beyond the scope of current tech and are nearly impossible. Yet investigators at The War Zone found comments from Navy officials that indicate the inventions are being looked at seriously enough, and some tests are taking place.

If you'd like to read through Pais's patents yourself, check them out here.

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

Astronomers recently witnessed very strange behavior from a magnetar, a peculiar kind of rotating neutron star that also happens to be one of the strongest magnets in the universe.

Magnetars are essentially remains of dead stars with amazingly strong magnetic fields that also emit mysterious radio signals. When a star dies, going supernova, about one in ten such explosions result in magnetars, while others end up creating neutron stars or pulsars.

About 30 magnetars, each up to 20 km (12 mi) in diameter, have been spotted around the Milky Way. Imagine a magnet the size of a town flying by.

According to NASA, the strength of a magnetar's magnetic field could be one thousand trillion times stronger than Earth's. In fact, measured at up to 1 quadrillion gauss, the field is so intense that it heats the magnetar's surface to an extra balmy 18 million degrees Fahrenheit.

To think about the magnetar's power another way, NASA shared if a magnetar appeared about halfway of the distance between the Earth and the moon (238,855 miles), it could wipe out information from the magnetic strips of all credit cards on our planet.

A new study, carried out by scientists from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav) and CSIRO in Australia, studied magnetars by largely relying on X-ray telescopes that looked for high-energy outbursts. Some times magnetars also send out radio pulses like pulsars, which are less magnetic. Why this happens and how such pulses change has been the focus of the research.

Here's what might happen if you fell into a magnetar

The scientists studied pulses coming from the magnetar J1818, observing it eight times, and found some very inconsistent behavior. It started out sending pulsar-like signals, then began flickering and going back and forth between emitting like a pulsar or a magnetar.

The study's lead author, Ph.D. student Marcus Lower of Swinburne University/CSIRO, elaborated on why this magnetar turned out to be so fascinating:

"This bizarre behavior has never been seen before in any other radio-loud magnetar," explains," said Lower. "It appears to have only been a short-lived phenomenon, as by our next observation, it had settled permanently into this new magnetar-like state."

What the scientists found was that the magnetic axis of J1818 was not aligned with its rotation axis. Its radio signals come from the magnetic pole in the Southern Hemisphere, from below the equator. Other magnetars tend to have magnetic fields aligning with their spin axis.

Yet, while misaligned, the magnetic arrangement appears to be stable. The researchers concluded that the radio pulses coming from J1818 emanate from loops of magnetic field lines that join the two poles. This is different from most neutron stars.

The findings have bearings on magnetar simulations, leading to deeper knowledge of their creation and evolution. The scientists are looking to catch flips between magnetic poles to be able to map a magnetar's magnetic fields.

Read the new paper, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS).

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

Geologists unraveled the mysteries of Martian glaciers, concluding that the planet had up to 20 separate ice ages. The groundbreaking new analysis promises to substantially boost our understanding of the Red Planet.

Mars is covered in glaciers, frozen upon the surface of the Red Planet for over hundreds of millions years. Geologists have debated whether the glaciers were all a result of one long Ice Age or caused by individual ice ages over a long span of time. As ice ages are caused by the changing tilt of a planet's axis (also known as obliquity), the results promise to show scientists the variations in the Martian orbit and climate. Pinpointing the timeline of the ice ages can also help understand what kinds of things may be trapped under the ice, including rocks, fossils, microbes, and gases.

The study was led by geology professor Joe Levy of Colgate University. The team also involved scientists from NASA, the University of Arizona, Fitchburg State University, and the University of Texas–Austin.

"There are really good models for Mars' orbital parameters for the last 20 million years," said Levy in a press release. "After that the models tend to get chaotic."

Levy's team looked at 45 glaciers using high-resolution images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite. It's able to achieve resolution of 25 cm per pixel, which is good enough to "see things the size of a dinner table," explained Levy.

The professor used both artificial intelligence and 10 university students, who over two summers analyzed about 60,000 rocks. They focused on the distribution, clustering, and the sizes of the rocks, looking for signs of erosion. The team's so-called "virtual field work" allowed the scientists to map the boulders across Martian glaciers.

The scientists saw that to their surprise, the rocks moved along the inside of the glaciers, rather than eroding in predicted fashion. The rocks also seemed grouped across the glaciers, suggesting separate flows that took place over time, rather than being caused by one major event.

Using the data, the researchers found that Mars went through from six to 20 distinct ice ages over 300 to 800 million years.

"These glaciers are little time capsules, capturing snapshots of what was blowing around in the Martian atmosphere," shared Levy. "Now we know that we have access to hundreds of millions of years of Martian history without having to drill down deep through the crust — we can just take a hike along the surface."

Levy's team is currently mapping new Martian glaciers, looking to reveal more of the planetary history of Mars.

Check out the paper for yourself, published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

Black holes are wonderfully weird, sparking the imagination with the many mysteries surrounding their formation and functions in our universe. Now scientists found a new kind of extreme black hole, one that breaks the so-called "ho hair" theorem. In other words, this black hole has "hair".

The idea of the "no hair" or "black hole uniqueness" theorem was encapsulated by the American theoretical physicist John Wheeler who claimed: "Black holes have no hair." What he meant is that black hole solutions to Einstein's field equations of general relativity can be completely characterized by only three physical quantities: mass, spin and charge. There aren't supposed to be any other "hairy" traits that can make one black hole different from another. Black holes with the same mass, spin, and charge should be identical, explains the press release from Theiss Research, which was behind the new discovery.

The team involved Dr. Lior Burko of Theiss Research, Professor Gaurav Khanna of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and the University of Rhode Island, as well as his former student Dr. Subir Sabharwal.

They found there's an extremal black hole that may violate the "no hair" theorem. This type of black hole is "saturated" with the maximum charge or spin it can potentially carry. The researchers discovered that there exists a conserved quantity or property that can be constructed from the spacetime curvature at such a black hole's horizon. It may be measurable from Earth by gravitational wave observatories like LIGO and LISA. Since this property is dependent on how the black hole was formed, it breaks the black hole uniqueness theorem and is considered "gravitational hair."

"This new result is surprising because the black hole uniqueness theorems are well established, and in particular their extension to extreme black holes," shared Dr. Burko. "There has to be an assumption of the theorems that is not satisfied, to explain how the theorems do not apply in this case."

The mind-blowing science of black holes | Michio Kaku, Bill Nye, Michelle Thaller & more 

For their findings, the researchers employed elaborate numerical simulations running on dozens of the top Nvidia graphics-processing-units (GPUs) that had over 5,000 cores each, working in parallel. "Each of these GPUs can perform as many as 7 trillion calculations per second; however, even with such computational capacity the simulations look many weeks to complete," shared Khanna.

Another type of black hole "hair" was proposed by Stephen Hawking who predicted that quantum particles would leak out of black holes, in a phenomenon dubbed "Hawking radiation." This claim was possibly proven correct by a 2020 study that found evidence of "quantum fuzz" and gravitational wave "echoes" beyond black hole event horizons.

Check out the new study published in Physical Review D.

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

Steven Pinker, the noted Canadian-American cognitive psychologist and linguist, is offering lectures from his spring Harvard psych course for free online. If you ever wanted to get into psychology, now is your chance, as Pinker already released the introductory lecture through his Twitter.

The course is titled "Psy 1 - Introduction to Psychological Science" and as its description states, it has been redesigned in 2021 as a survey of "the scientific study of human psychology." It will introduce students to such subjects as perception, consciousness, cognition, as well as how to we make decisions that drive our social behavior, what are emotions, motivations, and psychopathology. Adapted for online learning, students will be watching recorded lecture on their own time, offline, while contact with the professor will take place twice a week. You'd have to be taking the course at Harvard to participate in these sessions of asking questions and diving deeper into the material with Professor Pinker. Obviously, assignments and tests are also not available unless you're a student but the great knowledge from a world-renowned expert is definitely there.

The spring semester at Harvard has begun, and I will be posting my lectures from Psy 1: Introduction to Psychologic… https://t.co/16TyzWeNuh — Steven Pinker (@Steven Pinker)1611716619.0

Recognized as an important thinker, Steven Pinker is known for a variety of contributions across scientific fields and as a popular author on language, mind and human nature.

His research on vision, social relations and language has won a plethora of prizes from the National Academy of Sciences, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, the American Psychological Association, the Royal Institution of Great Britain, and other institutions. He has eight honorary doctorates, teaching awards from MIT and Harvard, and many prizes for his books like "The Better Angels of our Nature".

Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a Window to Understanding the Brain 

Pinker's current research looks at the role of common knowledge in language and social phenomena, studying trends in violence, psycholinguistics of writing, the neurobiology as well as genetics of language and more.

Access the introductory lecture here.

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

The coronavirus has not only brought suffering and death to millions of people around the world, it has worsened inequality in nearly every country at once, finds a new report. This has never happened since records began. The virus added to existing discrepancies in wealth, gender and race.

The charity Oxfam's "The Inequality Virus" report says that hundreds of millions are facing poverty as a result of the virus, while the world's richest people and corporations are increasing their wealth exponentially. To illustrate this point, the authors point out that the $540 billion increase in the riches of the 10 of the world's wealthiest men that took place since the pandemic started is more than what would be necessary to make sure that no one on earth falls into poverty as a result of the virus and would also pay for a COVID-19 vaccine for everyone.

Of course, one could argue about the extent of responsibility of the top ten billionaires to fight Covid for us (and some of them do) but the growing wealth gap is tremendous and can lead to societal instability– a view supported by 295 leading economists from 79 countries surveyed by Oxfam.

Forbes magazine estimates that the 2,200+ billionaires in the world became $1.9 trillion richer in 2020. Conversely, it would take over a decade for the poorest billions in the world to recover economically from the pandemic.

"The crisis has exposed our collective frailty and the inability of our deeply unequal economy to work for all," states the Oxfam brief.

The report further explains while established power structures in many countries have helped add to the bottom lines of the small group of the wealthiest, "people in poverty, many women, Black people, Afro-descendants, Indigenous Peoples, and historically marginalized and oppressed communities around the world, struggle to survive."

Structural features that perpetuate inequality can be found in many countries around the world. In the U.S. alone, the difference in medical care received by communities is such that about 22,000 Latinx and black people would be alive (by end of 2020) if they had similar mortality rates to white people's, found OxFam.

The inequality between how men and women are treated has also become stronger, according to the researchers. Women are much more likely than men to be working in the sectors worst hit by the virus. 112 million fewer women would be facing the risk of losing incomes and jobs if they had the same representation as men in these professions.

"In every country that we looked at, inequality has gotten worse during the pandemic," said Paul O'Brien, Vice President of Oxfam America. "All around the world now, we are seeing folks struggling on the wrong end of inequality while those who have been the beneficiaries of our broken economic system have done quite well."

On the flip side, the important role the government should play in our lives has also been demonstrated as clearly as ever. Strong government action can protect both public health and the economy.

In another conclusion, the paper from the global organization, whose mission is "to end the injustice of poverty," thinks that now is also the time for change. "Transformative policies that seemed unthinkable before the crisis have suddenly been shown to be possible," write the authors. While inequality is getting worse, it does not have to be inevitable. How badly it increases and how fast is "the choice of governments across the world," concludes the report. One of the measures the organization advocates is increasing taxes on the ultra-rich.

Read the report in full here.

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

If you wanted some more shattering news, we now know that a supernova exploded very close to Earth about 2.5 million years ago. That might sound like a long time ago, but in the life of our 4.5 billion-year-old planet, that's just yesterday.

Supernovas are amazingly bright explosions of stars at the end of their lives. A recent study found a blast 4.5 million light-years away could release as much as 10 times the amount of energy that a sun can emit in its lifetime. It also spreads a tremendous amount of chemicals all throughout the cosmos. Just-released research looked at such a spread and found that concentrations of particular elements point to a supernova near Earth just 2.5 million years ago.

The scientists found an unusual amount of 53Mn, a radioisotope made by supernovas. Previous studies looked for such traces in concentrations of 60Fe, an isotope of iron.

The scientists, led by Dr. Gunther Korschinek from the Technical University of Munich, focused their study on ferromanganese crusts. These marine sediments, composed mainly of iron and manganese oxides, grow in time and jut out from the water. This makes them great record-keepers of chemicals in the water around them. While examining these ferromanganese crusts from locations in the Pacific Ocean, the team found not only the isotope 60Fe, but also 53Mn. The samples came from 1,589 meters (5,213 feet) down to 5,120 meters (3.18 miles) down.

What does the presence of 60Fe tell the researchers? It's half-life of 2.6 million years indicates that it was created in a nearby supernova explosion in relatively recently times. Otherwise, 60Fe would have decayed into nickel.

One other explanation for the presence of the isotope is its possible creation in the death throes of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars. But the presence of 53Mn, which cannot be produced by such stars, clearly points to supernovae as the origin, think the scientists.

"The increased concentrations of manganese-53 can be taken as the 'smoking gun' – the ultimate proof that this supernova really did take place," shared Dr. Korschinek in a press release.

The researchers used accelerator mass spectrometry to locate the 53Mn atoms in the crust that looks like hardened chocolate cake.

"This is investigative ultra-trace analysis," said Korschinek. "We are talking about merely a few atoms here." He explained further that the technique is also very useful in figuring out the sizes of the original stars, adding "accelerator mass spectrometry is so sensitive that it even allows us to calculate from our measurements that the star that exploded must have had around 11 to 25 times the size of the sun."

If there was a supernova in Earth's relatively recent history, what effect did it have on the planet? The scientists think it likely caused cosmic ray showers and affected the climate. It might have also caused a partial extinction event – the Pliocene marine megafauna extinction

Check out the study "Supernova-Produced 53Mn on Earth" in the journal Physical Review Letters.

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

Scientists achieved the most stable transmission of a laser signal through the atmosphere ever made, beating a world record. The team managed to send laser signals from one point to another while avoiding interference from the atmosphere. Their very precise method can allow for unprecedented comparisons of the flow of time in separate locations. This can enable scientists to carry out new tests of Einstein's celebrated theory of general relativity, and have wide applications across different fields.

For the record transmission, the researchers combined phase stabilization technology with advanced self-guiding optical terminals. They used two identical phase stabilization systems, which had their transmitters located in one building while receivers were in another. One system used optical terminals to send the optical signal over a 265 m free-space path between the buildings. Another system transmitted using a 715 m-long optical fiber cable, essentially to keep tabs on the performance of the free-space link.. The terminals were outfitted with mirrors to prevent interference like phase noise and beam wander.

The scientists hailed from Australia's International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and the University of Western Australia (UWA), as well as the French National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) and the French metrology lab Systèmes de Référence Temps-Espace (SYRTE) at Paris Observatory.

The study's lead author Benjamin Dix-Matthews, a Ph.D. student at ICRAR and UWA, highlighted the innovation and potential of their technique. "We can correct for atmospheric turbulence in 3-D, that is, left-right, up-down and, critically, along the line of flight," said Dix-Matthews in a press release. "It's as if the moving atmosphere has been removed and doesn't exist. It allows us to send highly stable laser signals through the atmosphere while retaining the quality of the original signal."

Dr. Sascha Schediwy, ICRAR-UWA senior researcher, envisioned numerous applications for their technology, whose precise performance beats even the best optical atomic clocks. Putting one of these optical terminals on the ground while another one is on a satellite in space would help the exploration of fundamental physics, according to Schediwy. Other applications could extend to testing Einstein's theories with greater precision as well as understanding the time-related changes of fundamental physical constants and making advanced measurements in earth science and geophysics.

Optical communications, a field that that utilizes light for sending information, could also benefit. The new tech can improve its data rates by "orders of magnitude," thinks Dr. Schediwy. "The next generation of big data-gathering satellites would be able to get critical information to the ground faster," he added.

Check out the new study in Nature Communications.

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

Astronomers detected a first of its kind hot Jupiter-like planet without clouds or haze. Such planets are very rare, with only one exoplanet with a clear atmosphere previously found – that one classified as a "hot Saturn".

The "hot Jupiter" exoplanet WASP-62b is 75 light years away from Earth, coming in at about half the mass of our Jupiter. It completes a rotation around its sun in only 4.5 days (compared to 12 years for Jupiter). That closeness to the star makes the planet extremely hot.

The discovery was made by astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. The gas giant was actually first located in 2012 using the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) South survey. But the unique state of its atmosphere has only been understood now.

Munazza Alam, a graduate student from the Center for Astrophysics who led the study, was working on her thesis that involved exoplanet characterization when she zeroed in on the atmosphere of WASP-62b.

She used the Hubble Space Telescope for data and observations that were made via spectroscopy, a method of detecting chemical elements by studying electromagnetic radiation. In particular, Alam focused how WASP-62b looked as it came in front of its host star on three occasions. Observing visible light in such instances can show the existence of sodium and potassium in the atmosphere of the planet. The scientist could see no potassium but a complete fingerprint of sodium's presence. This led her team to conclude that the exoplanet's atmosphere lacked clouds or haze, which would have hidden the sodium's clear signature.

"I'll admit that at first I wasn't too excited about this planet," Alam said in a press release. "But once I started to take a look at the data, I got excited." Seeing the sodium was "the smoking gun evidence that we are seeing a clear atmosphere," she added.

Finding such a planet is very unlikely since astronomers estimate under 7% of exoplanets have clear atmospheres. Studying them can help us understand why they were formed in a way that is different from most planets, according to Alam. Without clouds and haze getting in the way, it is also easier to study the chemical makeup of such a planet.

Jupiter itself has a complex and chaotic cloud structure, formed at different altitudes:

Jupiter's Colorful Cloud Bands Studied by Spacecraft

The astronomers plan to study WASP-62b further upon the launch of the next-generation James Web Space Telescope later in 2021.

Check out the new study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

If you happened to be traversing the seafloor of Eurasia about 20 million years ago, you'd likely come across giant predator worms as long as several meters, claims new research. Scientists discovered that super-long worms may have taken over the ancient seafloor, based on their reconstructions of large burrows found at the bottom of the sea in northeast Taiwan.

The samples studied came from as far back as the Miocene epoch of 23 million to 5.3 million years ago. The research team used 319 specimens found in the sandstone of Yehliu Geopark, an area outside New Taipei City in Taiwan, to reconstruct a trace fossil dubbed Pennichnus formosae. Trace fossils are geological features such as burrows that can be used to make educated inferences about how ancient creatures behaved. The fossil uncovered by the researchers is comprised of an L-shaped burrow about 2 meters in length but only 2-3 centimeters in diameter. The scientists concluded that this fossil was probably left by gigantic sea worms, possibly the ancestors of the bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois), which is still around today.

The way a bobbit worm catches its food is by first hiding in a long burrow in the seafloor, then lunging up to catch its "unsuspecting prey with a snap of their powerful jaws," as the study authors write. The researchers believe the structure they found was created when the ancient worm retreated into the seafloor with its prey, still alive and struggling.

Ludvig Löwemark, a National Taiwan University paleontologist and the study's co-author, explained in an interview with Wired that the fossil they found shows invertebrates like the ancient worms were eating vertebrates.

"Typically, what we find in the sedimentary record is animals that are moving through the sediment," said Löwemark. "But this is a record of a much more active behavior. The worms were actually hiding in the sediment, jumping out, catching their prey, and then dragging this prey down into the sediment."

What's also remarkable about the study is that studying ancient worms is generally an extremely difficult task. One big problem – they would have had bodies composed mainly of soft tissue, which is hard to preserve. The trace fossil discovered by the scientists is likely the first known fossil made by an ambushing predator of this kind.

If you're wondering, the bobbit worm's unusual name comes from a sordid episode of American culture, referencing the story of John and Lorena Bobbitt, who cut off her husband's penis after years of abuse.

Check out the study published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Beware the Bobbit Worm!

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

We've all done something which might have seemed good at the time but turned out to be flat wrong. And then came the dread of admitting the mistake. Why is that part always so challenging? We never want to be the one who didn't get it right, who needs to grovel in defeat and suffer the ignominy of apologizing. Psychologists think that while hard, learning to deal with admitting fault is extremely important to sustaining relationships and personal growth.

What are some reactions you can have to a mistake? For one, you first need to become aware of it. Some people, you might have noticed, do not possess the self-awareness necessary to know they have wronged people or have misjudged a situation in a key way.

Another impediment to admitting mistakes – when their self-image is at stake, when they are afraid of looking weak and vulnerable, people often tend to double down. Their confirmation bias may make them overcompensate, refusing to acknowledge fault and consider only the evidence that supports their beliefs.

What happens next is cognitive dissonance. That's the psychological stress experienced by a person who gets confronted by having two contradictory ideas or beliefs. They get very confused upon having their world views and values challenged by actions going against them. Let's say you bet hard on a political horse and one sad day came to see clearly your trust was a mistake of gigantic proportions. While politicians generally always tend to disappoint, you may be feeling quite lost. Or you argued up a storm with your spouse over an infraction they see in a much worse light than you. In order to cope, you might protest and refuse to acknowledge the truth, coming up with excuses.

In an interview with the New York Times, social psychologist Carol Tavris, who wrote the aptly-named book "Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)," said that the problem comes when our sense of self is under attack. "Cognitive dissonance is what we feel when the self-concept — I'm smart, I'm kind, I'm convinced this belief is true — is threatened by evidence that we did something that wasn't smart, that we did something that hurt another person, that the belief isn't true."

How would you reduce the cognitive dissonance? You need to alter your concept of self, start coming to grips with the evidence presented, or you try to justify your mistake. We all know which approaches we tend to take. Learning to incorporate the dissonance can be quite painful to your ego.

In an interview with NBC News, neuropsychologist Dr. Sanam Hafeez defined ego as a "person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance." And our ego likes to win, no matter what argument it finds itself in.

The ego's control extends to something experts call psychological reactance – not many are big fans of being told what to do. Behavioral health therapist Jane Permoto Ehrman of the Cleveland Clinic explained that "resistance is engrained into our culture and brains from a young age. Everyone has some form of inner rebel that likes to question or do the opposite of what we're told."

Persisting in your obstinance, on the other hand, can feel pretty satisfying. A 2012 study found that refusing to apologize can boost your self-esteem and lead to "increased feelings of power/control and value integrity." This may be due to the fact that apologies give extra power to those who receive them, explained the authors. This ego boost from refusal can be short-lived, however, and can ruin your relationships and cause backlash.

Why Your Self-Image Might Be Wrong: Ego, Buddhism, and Freud 

Likewise, persisting in going against norms and those who you feel are telling you what to do may also ruin your life. "As adults, it's important to recognize when our rebellious self is acting out in a way that's not in our best interest or if it might be harmful to those around us," said Ehrman. "When we feel a powerful surge of resistance, it's usually us trying to protect our ego because we don't want to look vulnerable."

Not admitting mistakes also obviously makes you less prone to self-improvement. Of course, some don't have the will for becoming better and know it. Studies have shown that it's important for a person to feel like they can change their behavior before they will own up to what they did wrong.

You may think that some people get away with never admitting their mistakes, seemingly coasting through life like unrepentant bulldozers. But psychologists believe even such people tend to accumulate subconscious feelings of guilt and shame, a mental gnawing that eventually can turn into anxiety and depression.

Admitting you messed up may not always feel good, but can show to others that "we are compassionate, empathetic, sympathetic, and good listeners," shared Dr. Hafeez, adding "It also shows that we are capable of being objective about ourselves and that we not 'perfect' or always right."

So if you did something you aren't proud of, go ahead and say it – you were wrong. It can feel liberating and put you and everyone in your life on a path towards a better future.

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

When spinal cord injuries result in paralysis, science hasn't so far been able to provide a way to repair the damage and reverse the condition. Now a team of researchers from Germany used a designer protein to help paralyzed mice to walk again, raising hopes for a cure that can extend to humans.

The study was carried out by a team from the Department for Cell Physiology at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) in Germany, led by Professor Dietmar Fischer. The scientists restored the walking ability of mice who were paralyzed in both hind legs by manipulating the supply of the protein hyper-interleukin-6 that causes nerve cells to regenerate.

"This is a so-called designer cytokine, which means it doesn't occur like this in nature and has to be produced using genetic engineering," explained Dietmar Fischer.

The protein works by taking on a key feature of spinal cord injuries that produce disability – damage to nerve fibers known as axons that transport signals back and forth between the brain, the muscles, and the skin. When these fibers stop working, the communication ceases as well. What's more, the fibers don't grow back if severed, leaving patients paralyzed and numb, with no current treatments available.

This is why advancements in this field are so vital, underscoring the achievement of the Bochum team. The researchers used viruses to make nerve cells in the motor-sensory cortex to produce hyper-interleukin-6 on their own. The viruses injected into the brains of the paralyzed mice were specially-tailored for gene therapy, carrying blueprints for protein production to nerve cells known as motoneurons. These motoneurons used axonal side branches to transport the proteins to cells involved in movement functions like walking, explained the press release from the University. Normally these key cells are very hard to reach.

The technique succeeded and in a few weeks, the paralyzed mice began to walk.

What is a spinal cord injury?

"Thus, gene therapy treatment of only a few nerve cells stimulated the axonal regeneration of various nerve cells in the brain and several motor tracts in the spinal cord simultaneously," elaborated Fischer. "Ultimately, this enabled the previously paralyzed animals that received this treatment to start walking after two to three weeks. This came as a great surprise to us at the beginning, as it had never been shown to be possible before after full paraplegia."

Next the team plans to investigate further regenerative effects it can achieve with hyper-Interleukin-6, while striving to understand how these advancements in treatment can be applied to humans.

Check out the study published in Nature Communications.

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

When spinal cord injuries result in paralysis, science hasn't so far been able to provide a way to repair the damage and reverse the condition. Now a team of researchers from Germany used a designer protein to help paralyzed mice to walk again, raising hopes for a cure that can extend to humans.

The study was carried out by a team from the Department for Cell Physiology at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) in Germany, led by Professor Dietmar Fischer. The scientists restored the walking ability of mice who were paralyzed in both hind legs by manipulating the supply of the protein hyper-interleukin-6 that causes nerve cells to regenerate.

"This is a so-called designer cytokine, which means it doesn't occur like this in nature and has to be produced using genetic engineering," explained Dietmar Fischer.

The protein works by taking on a key feature of spinal cord injuries that produce disability – damage to nerve fibers known as axons that transport signals back and forth between the brain, the muscles, and the skin. When these fibers stop working, the communication ceases as well. What's more, the fibers don't grow back if severed, leaving patients paralyzed and numb, with no current treatments available.

This is why advancements in this field are so vital, underscoring the achievement of the Bochum team. The researchers used viruses to make nerve cells in the motor-sensory cortex to produce hyper-interleukin-6 on their own. The viruses injected into the brains of the paralyzed mice were specially-tailored for gene therapy, carrying blueprints for protein production to nerve cells known as motoneurons. These motoneurons used axonal side branches to transport the proteins to cells involved in movement functions like walking, explained the press release from the University. Normally these key cells are very hard to reach.

The technique succeeded and in a few weeks, the paralyzed mice began to walk.

What is a spinal cord injury?

"Thus, gene therapy treatment of only a few nerve cells stimulated the axonal regeneration of various nerve cells in the brain and several motor tracts in the spinal cord simultaneously," elaborated Fischer. "Ultimately, this enabled the previously paralyzed animals that received this treatment to start walking after two to three weeks. This came as a great surprise to us at the beginning, as it had never been shown to be possible before after full paraplegia."

Next the team plans to investigate further regenerative effects it can achieve with hyper-Interleukin-6, while striving to understand how these advancements in treatment can be applied to humans.

Check out the study published in Nature Communications.

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

Ancient Mayans have been a continuing source of inspiration for their monuments, knowledge, and mysterious demise. Now a new study discovers some of the drugs they used. For the first time, scientists found remnants of a non-tobacco plant in Mayan drug containers. They believe their analysis methods can allow them exciting new ways of investigating the different types of psychoactive and non-psychoactive plants used by the Maya and other pre-Colombian societies.

The research was carried out by a team from Washington State University, led by anthropology postdoc Mario Zimmermann. They spotted residue of the Mexican marigold (Tagetes lucida) in 14 tiny ceramic vessels that were buried over a 1,000 years ago on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. The containers also exhibited chemical traces of two types of tobacco: Nicotiana tabacum and N. rustica. Scientists think the marigold was mixed in with the tobacco to make the experience more pleasant.

"While it has been established that tobacco was commonly used throughout the Americas before and after contact, evidence of other plants used for medicinal or religious purposes has remained largely unexplored," said Zimmermann. "The analysis methods developed in collaboration between the Department of Anthropology and the Institute of Biological Chemistry give us the ability to investigate drug use in the ancient world like never before."

The scientists used a new method based on metabolomics that is able to pinpoint thousands of plant compounds, or metabolites, in residue of archaeological artifacts like containers and pipes. This allows the researchers to figure out which specific plants were utilized. The way plant residue was identified before employed looking for specific biomarkers from nicotine, caffeine, and other such substances. That approach would not be able to spot what else was consumed outside of what biomarker was found. The new way gives much more information, showing the researchers a fuller picture of what the ancient people ingested.

The containers in the study were found by Zimmerman and a team of archaeologists in 2012.

"When you find something really interesting like an intact container it gives you a sense of joy," shared Zimmermann. "Normally, you are lucky if you find a jade bead. There are literally tons of pottery sherds but complete vessels are scarce and offer a lot of interesting research potential."

The researchers are negotiating with various Mexican institutions to be able to study more ancient containers for plant residues. They also aim to look at organic materials possibly preserved in the dental plaque of ancient remains.

Check out the study published in Scientific Reports.

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

A study tantalizingly promises a possible location for new elementary particles called axions, which may also constitute the elusive dark matter. A team led by a theoretical physicist from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has pinpointed axions as the potential source of the high-energy X-rays coming out of a cluster of neutron stars called the Magnificent Seven.

Axions were first theorized as fundamental particles as far back as the 1970s but have yet to be directly observed. In a fun fact, the idea for the name "axion" came to the theoretical physicist Frank Wilczek from a laundry detergent brand. If they exist, they'd be produced in the core of stars, converting into photons (particles of light) upon encountering electromagnetic fields. Axions would likely have small masses and come into contact with other matter quite rarely and in a way that's hard to detect.

They may also be responsible for dark matter, which could comprise about 85% of the known universe but is also yet to be seen. We think we know about it from its gravitational effects. If axions are real, they could account for this "missing" mass of the universe. Astronomical observations tell us that visible matter, including all the galaxies with their stars, planets, and everything else we can conceive of in space is still less than one sixth of the total mass of all of the universe's matter. Dark matter is thought to be making up the rest. So finding it and finding axions could be transformative for our understanding of how the universe really works.

The new paper from Berkeley Lab proposes that the Magnificent Seven, a group of neutron stars that's hundreds of light-years away (but relatively not so far), may be a perfect candidate for locating the axions. These stars, coming into existence as the collapsed cores of massive supergiant stars, have very strong magnetic fields and feature an abundance of X-rays. They are also not pulsars, which give off radiation at varying wavelengths and would likely obscure the X-ray signature the researchers spotted.

The study utilized data from the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton and NASA's Chandra X-ray telescopes to discover high levels of X-ray emissions from the neutron stars.

Benjamin Safdi, from the Berkeley Lab Physics Division theory group which led the study, said they aren't saying yet they found the axions but are feeling confident the Magnificent Seven X-rays are a fruitful place to look.

"We are pretty confident this excess exists, and very confident there's something new among this excess," Safdi said. "If we were 100% sure that what we are seeing is a new particle, that would be huge. That would be revolutionary in physics."

Are Axions Dark Matter?

Postdoctoral researcher Raymond Co from the University of Minnesota, who was also involved in the study, confirmed that "It is an exciting discovery of the excess in the X-ray photons, and it's an exciting possibility that's already consistent with our interpretation of axions."

Building upon this research, the scientists also plan to use space telescopes like NuStar to focus on the X-ray excesses as well as to examine white dwarf stars, which also have strong magnetic fields, making them another possible location for the axions. "This starts to be pretty compelling that this is something beyond the Standard Model if we see an X-ray excess there, too," said Safdi.

Besides Berkeley Lab, the current study also involved support from the University of Michigan, the National Science Foundation, the Mainz Institute for Theoretical Physics, the Munich Institute for Astro- and Particle Physics (MIAPP), and the CERN Theory department.

Check out the study published in Physical Review Letters.

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

A recently-found picture of a wild pig that was made over 45,500 years ago is the world's oldest known cave painting, according to archaeologists. The painting, which may be the world's oldest representational or figurative artwork, was discovered on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, hidden away in a remote Leang Tedongnge cave.

If you're wondering, the now-second world's oldest dated painting of 43,900 years of age was previously found in the same Sulawesi area by the same team. That one pictured a group of part-human, part-animal hybrid figures on the hunt. The scientists also point out that these dates are minimum ages, determined from analyzing buildups of mineral deposits on the cave art. The paintings could be as old as 60,000 to 65,000 years. By comparison, the beautiful cave paintings in the Lascaux cave complex in France are "just" 17,000 years old.

The discovery was made inside the Leang Tedongnge cave by the archaeologist Basran Burhan, a doctoral student and co-author of the study. He's part of a team which involves researchers from Griffith University in Australia and Indonesia's leading archaeological research centre, Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional (ARKENAS).

"Humans have hunted Sulawesi warty pigs for tens of thousands of years," said Burhan, adding "These pigs were the most commonly portrayed animal in the ice age rock art of the island, suggesting they have long been valued both as food and a focus of creative thinking and artistic expression".

The Sulawesi warty pig was painted using dark red ochre pigment and is about 53 by 21 inches in size. It features some upright hair and horn-like warts on the face that the adults of this species are known for. Another two partially-preserved pigs face the main animal.

Oldest Cave Art Found in Sulawesi

Two hand prints, most probably left by Homo sapiens rather than other human ancestors like the Denisovans, can be seen by the pig's hindquarters. The scientists are looking to extract DNA samples from the prints.

The cave with the painting is in a valley of limestone cliffs, an hour's walk away from any road. You can only access it during dry season because of flooding during the rainy season. Previously it was only known to members of the isolated Bugis community.

The site has the oldest evidence of human presence on the islands of Indonesia, known as "Wallacea," and is likely linked to the group of people who were migrating to Australia.

Read the new study in Science Advances.

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

When attacked by chemotherapy, all cancer cells have the ability to start hibernating in order to wait out the threat, finds new research. The cancer cells hijack an evolutionary survival mechanism to transition into a state of "rest" until chemotherapy stops. Devising therapies to target the cells in this slow-dividing state can prevent the cancer from regrowing.

The discovery was made by Dr. Catherine O'Brien and the team from the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Canada. Professor O'Brien, who teaches in the Department of Surgery at the University of Toronto, described that the tumor acts "like a whole organism, able to go into a slow-dividing state, conserving energy to help it survive."

She compared this to animals who enter hibernation to get through difficult environmental conditions. Dr. Aaron Schimmer, Director of the Research Institute and Senior Scientist at the Princess Margaret, was even more specific, sharing that the behavior of the cells was akin to that of "bears in winter."

"We never actually knew that cancer cells were like hibernating bears," explained Schimmer. "This study also tells us how to target these sleeping bears so they don't hibernate and wake up to come back later, unexpectedly."

He thinks this adaptation by the cells can be the key cause of resistance to drugs.

The scientists arrived at their observations by observing human colorectal cancer cells, which were treated with chemotherapy in a petri dish. This caused the cells to go into a slow-dividing state during which they ceased expanding and needed little nutrition. Such a reaction continued as long as chemotherapy was present.

The low-energy state of the cells was similar to diapause – the embryonic survival strategy of over a 100 species of mammals. They protect embryos by keeping them inside their bodies during extreme situations of very high or very low temperatures or when sustenance is not available. Minimal cell division takes place when animals are in this state, while their metabolism slows to a crawl.

"The cancer cells are able to hijack this evolutionarily conserved survival strategy, even as it seems to be lost to humans," pointed out Dr. O'Brien.

When the cells are in this state, they activate a cellular process known as autophagy (means "self-devouring"). While this is taking place, and if no other nutrients are present, the cell feeds on its own proteins and other cellular parts to survive. Observing that, the scientists tried impeding autophagy and found that the cancer cells were destroyed, succumbing to chemotherapy. Knowing this can lead to new therapies, according to O'Brien, who proposed that "We need to target cancer cells while they are in this slow-cycling, vulnerable state before they acquire the genetic mutations that drive drug-resistance."

Check out the new study published in Cell.

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

How close are we to teleporting humans over distances? This staple of science fiction assumes the eventual existence of technical wizardry, whereby humans are scanned, disassembled, and then immediately reassembled particle by particle in a completely different location. An easy, hassle-free way to travel, assuming some crucial parts of you are not lost in the process.

Researchers have been making headway on making this happen, but on a very small scale, achieving successes in teleporting photons (particles of light) as well as atoms like cesium and rubidium. But how ready are we to get humans beamed up?

First of all, let's get one big philosophical issue with teleportation out of the way. What does it really mean to teleport someone? Let's say you're successful building a device that can achieve sending a person from one location to another. But when that human being arrives at the second location, is that actually the same person? Wouldn't the person being teleported first have to be destroyed, atom by atom, and then a copy of him or her would re-created at the destination? As such, does teleportation necessitate what is essentially a murder on one end and rebirth of sorts on the other?

And that second person, even if they have all the exact same atoms and thoughts as the person they were before teleportation, are they really exactly the same or maybe more accurately – a clone of their former self? And if teleportation forces us to make clones of ourselves (potentially countless), then what does that really mean for the original human? They would essentially not exist after starting to use this technology. As theoretical physicist Michio Kaku said on this topic, if "you just saw the original die and if you believe in a soul that soul went to heaven or maybe the other place, but that person is dead, so who is this imposter over there?"

Michio Kaku: The Metaphysics of Teleportation

Of course, this conundrum describes one way of teleporting. While raising such great objections, Kaku actually thinks we will be able to overcome them within the next 100 years and potentially make human teleportation possible. So far, scientists have been able to mainly achieve quantum teleportation. This kind of teleportation concerns the very small and is about transferring informational properties between particles rather than actual matter. This technology can lead to uses like creation of the quantum internet – a next-generation internet with blazing speeds and tremendous accuracy and security.

In a late 2020 development, scientists were able to for the first time teleport quantum information over a fiber optic network of 27 miles, at the accuracy of 90%. The information shared was in the form of photon qubits – two-state systems that are basic units of quantum information. They are shared across long distances via quantum entanglement, which links two or more particles to each other. Even if they are far apart, the encoded information in a pair of entangled particles gets teleported.

The research was carried out by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory affiliated with the University of Chicago, as well as AT&T, Caltech, Harvard University, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and University of Calgary.

One of the paper's co-authors, Fermilab scientist Panagiotis Spentzouris, who heads the Fermilab quantum science program, explained the significance of the accomplishment.

"We're thrilled by these results," said Spentzouris. "This is a key achievement on the way to building a technology that will redefine how we conduct global communication."

If successful, quantum internet could lead to a communications revolution, transforming computing, data storage and precision sensors.

Prior to this achievement, successful teleportation experiments included the 2019 attempt by Japanese researchers to send information within the lattices of a diamond. They managed to use a nitrogen nano magnet to transfer the polarization state of a photon to a carbon atom, essentially teleporting it.

In another long-distance feat, in 2017, Chinese scientists were able to teleport photons to a satellite over 500km above. For this experiment, they created an entangled pair of photons on the ground, then beamed one of paired photons up to the satellite while the other one stayed on the ground. To make sure they were still entangled, the researchers measured both photons. While millions of photons were sent that way, positive results were achieved in 911 cases, underscoring the fact that we'd certainly want a better success ratio when it comes to teleporting humans.

In fact, a fun 2013 study by physics students at the University of Leicester came up with useful numbers to show how complex it would be to teleport a person, even if we approached it as sending information that is used to re-create the person elsewhere. They reasoned that the transferable data for a human would consist of the DNA pairs that make up genomes in each cell. As such, the total data for each human cell would be approximately 10¹⁰ bits (b), while the data for a full human would come in at about 2.6 x 10⁴² b. Sending this gigantic amount of data would need the kind of computing technology we didn't invent yet. By 2013 tech standards the students used, transferring data for just one human (at the bandwidth of 29.5 to 30 GHz) would take up to 4.85x10¹⁵years, much longer than the age of the universe.

Certainly, better technology and new approaches are necessary for human teleportation to ever become a reality. If you're hopeful it may one day happen, you're not alone. Professor Ronald Hanson from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands said this in an interview, upon completing a successful quantum teleportation experiment in 2014:

"If you believe we are nothing more than a collection of atoms strung together in a particular way, then in principle it should be possible to teleport ourselves from one place to another," shared Hanson. "In practice it's extremely unlikely, but to say it can never work is very dangerous. I would not rule it out because there's no fundamental law of physics preventing it. If it ever does happen it will be far in the future."

How far that feature will be is up for debate. For reference, "Star Trek," the show that made teleportation famous, was set between the 22nd and 24th centuries. Let's see if our imagination can catch up to reality.

The Trouble with Transporters

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner

A new paper takes a deep dive into primordial black holes that were formed as a part of the early universe when there were still no stars or galaxies. Such black holes could account for strange cosmic possibilities, including baby universes and major features of the current state of the cosmos like dark matter.

To study the exotic primordial black holes (PBHs), physicists employed the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) of the huge 8.2m Subaru Telescope operating near the 4,200 meter summit of Mt. Mauna Kea in Hawaii. This enormous digital camera can produce images of the entire Andromeda galaxy every few minutes, helping scientists observe one hundred million stars in one go.

In their study, the scientists considered a number of scenarios, especially linked to the period of inflation. That is the time of quick expansion following the Big Bang, when the universe we know today came into existence with all its structures.

The researchers calculated that in the process of inflation, the climate was ripe for creating primordial black holes of various masses. And some of them reflect the characteristics predicted for dark matter.

Another way PBHs could have been created during inflation is from "baby universes" – small universes that branched off from the main one.

A baby or "daughter" universe would ultimately collapse but the tremendous release of energy would lead to the formation of a black hole, explains the press release from the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) in Japan, one of the institutions participating in this study.

What's also fascinating, some of the bigger baby universes might not have gone so quietly. Above a certain critical size, the theory of gravity developed by Albert Einstein permits that such a universe may be perceived differently by observers. If you were inside it, you'd see an expanding universe, while if you were outside, this baby universe would look like a black hole. A conjecture that leads to wondering – are we potentially on the inside or outside of such a universe ourselves?

If you follow this multiverse logic, it also may be possible that while primordial black holes would appear to us as black holes, their true structural natures could be concealed by their "event horizons" – the boundaries surrounding black holes from which not even light can escape.

To solidify their theories and to find a primordial black hole, the researchers will continue using the Subaru Telescope, with some promising PBH candidates already emerging.

The international team of particle physicists working on the research came from the University of California, Los Angeles and the Kavli Institute. The group included cosmologists and astronomers Alexander Kusenko, Misao Sasaki, Sunao Sugiyama, Masahiro Takada and Volodymyr Takhistov.

Check out their new paper "Exploring Primordial Black Holes from the Multiverse with Optical Telescopes" in Physical Review Letters.

This story originally appeared on: Big Think - Author:Paul Ratner