Lifeboat Foundation

Summary: Researchers reveal how the olfactory system aids in threat assessment and have identified neurons that learn whether a specific smell represents a threat.

Source: University of Rochester.

Whether conscious of it or not, when entering a new space, we use our sense of smell to assess whether it is safe or a threat. In fact, for much of the animal kingdom, this ability is necessary for survival and reproduction.

An exploration of ten spooky objects hypothesized to lurk in the solar system.

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Matter outflows in the form of jets are observed in astronomical systems at fast, medium and slow speeds. The fastest jets are highly relativistic, and travel very close to the speed of light. The origin, as well as many properties of the jets, is uncertain. Jet velocities seem to have a bi-modal distribution—some very fast and others slow, with a gap in velocities in between, which has long challenged experts. Bar-Ilan University researchers re-examined the data and have now seemingly solved the puzzle.

In many different galactic and extragalactic systems, emission of matter is commonly observed in the form of jets. The speed at which this occurs greatly varies. Alongside relatively slow jets associated with neutron stars or binary star systems, very fast, relativistic jets are seen at speeds very close to the speed of light. The fastest known jets are associated with a phenomenon known as gamma-ray bursts.

This phenomenon is characterized by an initial flash of gamma rays lasting for a few seconds, in which a strong emission of gamma radiation is visible. It is then followed by an afterglow lasting a much longer period of hours, days and even months. During this epoch, the emission subsequently fades and is observed as lower wavelengths, X-rays, ultraviolet, optical, infrared, and radio frequencies very late in the process.

When scientists revealed they’d received radio signals from a galaxy nine billion light years away we all got a bit excited with the hopes that maybe this was finally aliens trying to contact us. We’re always on the lookout for extra-terrestrial life, even if plenty of our movies about finally meeting aliens involves them killing us horribly until we figure out how to kill them right back.

The same day Microsoft invested billions in OpenAI, McKinsey snatched up enterprise-focused AI firm Iguazio for a relative steal.

The consulting giant reportedly paid around $50 million for Iguazio, a Tel Aviv–based company offering an MLOps platform for large-scale businesses — “MLOps” refers to a set of tools to deploy and maintain machine learning models in production. In a press release, McKinsey says it plans to use the startup’s tech and team of 70 data scientists to bolster its QuantumBlack platform, McKinsey’s data analytics–focused group, with “industry-specific” AI solutions.

“We analyzed more than a 1,000 AI companies worldwide and identified Iguazio as the best fit to significantly accelerate our AI offering — from the initial concept to production, in a simplified, scalable and automated manner,” McKinsey senior partner Ben Ellencweig said in a statement. Over time, he added, the Iguazio and QuantumBlack teams will be fully integrated and work from a single product roadmap, combining the best of both worlds (with any luck).

A recent observational study of some 191 giant stars at the end of their lives as hydrogen-burning, main sequence stars, places more precise parameters our own star’s expansionary endgame. The Sun will finish its life at perhaps two to three hundred times its current angular size.

The observations were made between 1996 and 2008 with the now defunct Palomar Testbed Interferometer atop Mount Palomar in southern California. They were coupled with data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hipparcos and Gaia missions to more accurately calculate the stars’ distances and effective temperatures.

New survey of giant stars reveals details about the Sun’s own likely endgame as an expanding red giant.

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Escucha Sound of the Hunga Tonga Volcanic Eruption de European Space Agency en #SoundCloud

One year ago, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted, causing widespread destruction to the Pacific Island Nation of Tonga. It spewed volcanic material up to 58 km into the atmosphere, brought a nearly 15 m tsunami that crashed ashore, destroying villages, and created a sonic boom that rippled around the world – twice. Even one year on, interest in the extraordinary explosive eruption remains. A sound artist has recently recreated the sonification of the underwater volcanic eruption using rayleigh signal intensity data provided by the Aeolus Virtual Research Environment platform. Using wind data obtained on one of its overpasses over the ash cloud of the Hunga Tonga explosion, Jamie Perera used an audio sample of one of the shock waves, time-stretched it into a ghostly tone, and assigned it to harmonic values transcribed from 90 Aeolus readings taken over a duration of approximately 15 minutes. The listener hears one reading every two seconds, in a harmonic range that spans six piano octaves, the highest of which can be heard at around 01:18 minutes when the readings show the eruption’s dust plume at its highest peak (over 20.5 km). The artistic intention behind the sonification was to evoke the otherworldly landscape of Hunga Tonga and other volcanoes. Sonification credit/copyright: @jamieperera (2023). Used by permission. Data and guidance provided by Daniel Santillan. Thanks to Peter Bickerton and Jemma Foster. Originally created as part of Wild Alchemy Journal — Air Edition — Aeolus.

Out solar system will soon be getting a new explorer, as a mission to study the moons of Jupiter readies for launch.

The European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission, or JUICE, is scheduled for launch in just a few months’ time, so the spacecraft is now being packed up at its testing location in Toulouse, France, for transport to its launch location in French Guiana.

The spacecraft recently went through its final round of testing, including a thermal vacuum test to ensure it can handle the cold temperatures of space, and the system validation test in which the immediate steps after launch are simulated, like the deploying of booms and arrays that will happen in space.

In recent years, many computer scientists have been exploring the notion of metaverse, an online space in which users can access different virtual environments and immersive experiences, using VR and AR headsets. While navigating the metaverse, users might also share personal data, whether to purchase goods, connect with other users, or for other purposes.

Past studies have consistently highlighted the limitations of password authentication systems, as there are now many cyber-attacks and strategies for cracking them. To increase the security of users navigating the metaverse, therefore, password-based authentication would be far from ideal.

This inspired a team of researchers at VIT-AP University in India to create MetaSecure, a password-less authentication system for the metaverse. This system, introduced in a paper pre-published on arXiv, combines three different authentication techniques, namely device attestation, facial recognition and physical security keys.