Hyperboloid

NGC 4725, One-Armed Spiral Galaxy  

Scientists Have Set a Limit For Quantum Entanglement - And It's Really Freaking Powerful

Unbreakable at 30 times Earth's acceleration.

For the first time, scientists have subjected quantum entanglement to extreme levels of acceleration, and there’s nothing fragile about this “spooky action at a distance”- it’s way more robust than we thought.

In recent experiments, entangled particles held firm even while being accelerated to 30g - 30 times Earth’s acceleration - and the results could have a big impact on our search for a unified theory of modern physics.

“These experiments shall help [us] unify the theories of quantum mechanics and relativity,” says one of the team, Rupert Ursin, from the University of Vienna, Austria.

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Mutation by Ben Butler 30″ x 32″ x 16″, cedar, 2006

Heartwood on Tumblr

2017 May 6

Galaxy Cluster Abell 370 and Beyond Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Jennifer Lotz and the HFF Team (STScI)

Explanation: Some 4 billion light-years away, massive galaxy cluster Abell 370 only appears to be dominated by two giant elliptical galaxies and infested with faint arcs in this sharp Hubble Space Telescope snapshot. The fainter, scattered bluish arcs along with the dramatic dragon arc below and left of center are images of galaxies that lie far beyond Abell 370. About twice as distant, their otherwise undetected light is magnified and distorted by the cluster’s enormous gravitational mass, dominated by unseen dark matter. Providing a tantalizing glimpse of galaxies in the early universe, the effect is known as gravitational lensing. A consequence of warped spacetime it was first predicted by Einstein a century ago. Far beyond the spiky foreground Milky Way star at lower right, Abell 370 is seen toward the constellation Cetus, the Sea Monster. It is the last of six galaxy clusters imaged in the recently concluded Frontier Fields project.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170506.html

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.

Stephen Hawking (via fyp-science)

Substances don’t have to be a liquid or a gas to behave like a fluid. Swarms of fire ants display viscoelastic properties, meaning they can act like both a liquid and a solid. Like a spring, a ball of fire ants is elastic, bouncing back after being squished (top image). But the group can also act like a viscous liquid. A ball of ants can flow and diffuse outward (middle image). The ants are excellent at linking with one another, which allows them to survive floods by forming rafts and to escape containers by building towers. 

Researchers found the key characteristic is that ants will only maintain links with nearby ants as long as they themselves experience no more than 3 times their own weight in load. In practice, the ants can easily withstand 100 times that load without injury, but that lower threshold describes the transition point between ants as a solid and ants as a fluid. If an ant in a structure is loaded with more force, he’ll let go of his neighbors and start moving around.

When they’re linked, the fire ants are close enough together to be water-repellent. Even if an ant raft gets submerged (bottom image), the space between ants is small enough that water can’t get in and the air around them can’t get out. This coats the submerged ants in their own little bubble, which the ants use to breathe while they float out a flood. For more, check out the video below and the full (fun and readable!) research paper linked in the credits. (Video and image credits: Vox/Georgia Tech; research credit: S. Phonekeo et al., pdf; submitted by Joyce S., Rebecca S., and possibly others)

Galena and Fluorite - Blackdene Mine, Ireshopeburn, Weardale, Co. Durham, England

“The earth as seen from the moon.” The young astronomer; or, Helps to a knowledge of the leading constellations. 1891.