K2-3d...

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

H-Theorem...

Image Source: Hyper Physics

Topics: Condensed Matter Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Theoretical Physics, Thermodynamics

For more than a century and a half of physics, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that entropy always increases, has been as close to inviolable as any law we know. In this universe, chaos reigns supreme.

But researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Argonne National Laboratory announced recently that they may have discovered a little loophole in this famous maxim.

Their research, published in Nature Scientific Reports, lays out a possible avenue to a situation where the Second Law is violated on the microscopic level.

The Second Law is underpinned by what is called the H-theorem, which says that if you open a door between two rooms, one hot and one cold, they will eventually settle into lukewarm equilibrium; the hot room will never end up hotter.

Recent advancements in a field called quantum information theory offered a mathematical construction in which entropy increases.

"What we did was formulate how these beautiful abstract mathematical theories could be connected to our crude reality," said Valerii Vinokur, an Argonne Distinguished Fellow and corresponding author on the study.

The scientists took quantum information theory, which is based on abstract mathematical systems, and applied it to condensed matter physics, a well-explored field with many known laws and experiments.

Argonne National Laboratory:
Argonne researchers posit way to locally circumvent Second Law of Thermodynamics
Louise Lerner

Gusev Crater...

Image Source: Link below

Topics: Astrobiology, Biology, Mars, NASA, Planetary Science, Space Exploration

November 24, 2016 – Published on November 17, 2016, in Nature Communications, researchers describe features in Gusev Crater on Mars that have a remarkable resemblance to hot spring sites found in El Tatio in Northern Chile. The physical comparison of the two sites is uncannily similar.

Spirit, the first of two Martian rovers which finally died when it got stuck in sand, found outcrops of nodular silica distributed across basaltic bedrock that resembles volcanic hydrothermal signatures here on Earth. On our planet we see this type of rock signature near no longer active hot springs and geysers. Such is the case in El Tatio, Chile.

When Spirit first rolled over the Gusev Crater site it used its thermal emission spectrometer to identify the silica in the rocks. The results from Gusev show qualitative similarities to the nodules at El Tatio. Seen below, El Tatio features hot springs, stone barricades and silica deposits in the middle of volcanic basalt deposits.

The next picture (posted above) shows a comparison between opaline silica structures found at Gusev Crater with side-by-side images from El Tatio. The resemblance is uncanny. At El Tatio, the micro-environmental conditions created by microbial biofilm and mat communities thriving in water at temperatures greater than 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) creates the shapes and nodular structures seen on the right. The images from Mars at similar scale appear nearly identical. Some of the rocks examined by Spirit appear to have similar porosity to what is seen at El Tatio to have been shaped by biology as well as by aeolian abrasion (wind).

21st Century Tech:
The Mars Rover Spirit May Have Traveled Over a Hydrothermal Vent and Discovered Evidence of Past Life

Truth, Post-Truth...

Image Source: Capital Hill Blue

Topics: Commentary, Politics, Research, Science, SETI

In our national mythology, we attribute all-wisdom, all-knowledge and all-prescience to the Founding Fathers. However, certain things they could not have predicted: an electorate made up of the plurality of voluntarily registered voters and not just property owners, the freedom of slaves and their rights as citizens, including the vote; women having the right to vote, an African American president, the removal of what used to be referred to as "bungholery" at least in spirit from the Uniform Code of Military Justice as well as public life; a credible female candidate of a national party and the Internet. Obviously crafting the First Amendment, they envisioned a free press and a public education system that would at least inform the citizenry. They had no concept of corporate conglomerates (or corporations), Nielsen Ratings, talk radio, created realities; the triangulation of church, state and echo chamber; social media or click-bait.

Post-Truth: ADJECTIVE

Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief:

‘in this era of post-truth politics, it's easy to cherry-pick data and come to whatever conclusion you desire’

‘some commentators have observed that we are living in a post-truth age’

Oxford Dictionary

NPR All Tech Considered:
We Tracked Down A Fake-News Creator In The Suburbs. Here's What We Learned

Truth, Post-Truth by Reginald L. Goodwin on Scribd

Quantum Brain...

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

Gravity on a Chip...

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

Sino Science...

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