Information Security & Occasional Forays Into Adjacent Realms
News via the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of NIST physicists efforts to cool down a component has yeilded an unexpected result. The effort utilized squeezed light (microwaves within an electromagnetic cavity, if you will) to cool the apparatus below the theoretical limit, in this case, below the so-called quantum limit.
Likely, the single most important discovery in this generation. Simply Astonishing.
"Now for the first time, scientists in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration — with a prominent role played by researchers at MIT and Caltech — have directly observed the ripples of gravitational waves in an instrument on Earth. In so doing, they have again dramatically confirmed Einstein’s theory of general relativity and opened up a new way in which to view the universe. But there’s more: The scientists have also decoded the gravitational wave signal and determined its source. According to their calculations, the gravitational wave is the product of a collision between two massive black holes, 1.3 billion light years away — a remarkably extreme event that has not been observed until now." - by Jennifer Chu writing for the MIT News Office, published via the web at MIT News
via Quanta Magazine, come this not surprising theory, constructed by Leslie Valiant, Ph.D., stating that the biological world, of which we are a component, is computational at it's core. Today's Must Read, as I am fond of saying "All Is Information'.
Evidence of recent evolutionary modifications in Homo Sapiens Sapiens, first published in 2014, is gaining traction in a fascinating reposted article, at Nautilus. Sacrebleu! Most certainly today's Must Read.
Absolutely fascinating post over at Jason Kottke's Kottke.org site, illustrating the laws of scaling (in this case body size) and the speed of animals; clearly there are correllations to computational activity.
Requiescat in Pace: John Forbes Nash, Jr., (1928 - 2015) and Alicia (nee Lopez-Harrison de Lardé) Nash (1933 - 2015).
"This movie was shot during our 20 days trip to Antarctica in December 2014 to January 2015. We started from Ushuaia in Argentina and went to Port Williams in Chile, rounded Cape Horn and crossed the Drake Passage towards the Melchior Islands in Antarctica. We spent 16 days in the Antarctic and got to experience the most amazing scenery and wildlife before we returned back to Ushuaia. Filmed with GoPro HERO3+ Black Edition and DJI Phantom 2, edited with Final Cut Pro X. Music from Music Bed with rights." via Kalle Ljung
Occasionally, a motion picture makes itself known hereabouts, with absolutely extraordinary visage of a land previously unsullied. This is such a picture. Enjoy!
News [via the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) Science magazine], of the employment of facial recognition by wasps; utilized by the creatures in the sometimes enormous effort to defend their nests. Proof positive there is nothing new under the sun...
'For the Patriots to blame a change in temperature for 15% lower-pressures, requires balls to be inflated with 125-degree air.' — Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) January 26, 2015