Digging a Hole

Elon Musk’s tunneling startup, The Boring Company, has decided to host a fun competition, challenging the general public to dig a tunnel faster than a snail — one of the company’s own main goals.

The objective in the “Not-a-Boring Competition” is to come up with a tunneling solution that can dig a 30-meter (98 foot) tunnel with the equivalent opening of a circle with a .5 meter (19.7 inch) diameter.

Dig Faster

Prizes — the company has yet to reveal what they are — will be given out to teams that complete the tunnel in the quickest time and teams that dig with the most accuracy. The Boring Company will even send a tiny remote-controlled Tesla through the tunnel to test the driving surface.

The company is eyeing Spring 2021 to hold the event.

Tunnel to the Future

The Boring Company was first dreamed up by Musk to realize the dream of the Hyperloop, a futuristic mode of transport that involves shooting passenger pods through a vacuum tube.

As of right now, however, that dream has been downgraded to Tesla cars zipping through tunnels at considerable speeds.

So far, the company has shown off technology that could cut down the time and costs of digging tunnels for such a system considerably.

But demand has been sluggish. The company is only working on a handful of projects right now, including a tunnel system that connects various parts of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Inside those tunnels, autonomous electric vehicles will ferry up to 4,400 passengers per hour, at speeds of up to 249 kilometers per hour (155 miles per hour), according to a May 2019 press release.

READ MORE: Elon Musk’s Boring Company wants to hold its first tunneling competition [CNET]

More on The Boring Company: Elon Musk’s Boring Co. Didn’t Ask Homeowners Before Tunneling Under Them

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Elon Musk’s Boring Company Announces Tunnel-Digging Contest

When the coronavirus pandemic began, doctors quickly realized that the disease seemed to be hitting men harder — and killing them at higher rates — than it did women.

But even now, several months later, scientists still aren’t sure why that is, Wired reports. Researchers at Harvard’s GenderSci Lab are trying to get to the bottom of the complicated question, which was made even more difficult by the lack of standardized data and case reports about COVID-19.

“We began by just simply trying to look for the data, and we couldn’t find it,” Sarah Richardson, a history of science professor who runs the GenderSci lab, told Wired. “So we realized that we would have to assemble it on our own.”

That resulted in a data tracker, released last month, that breaks down coronavirus cases and fatalities in each U.S. state by sex. It also adjusts the rates by age to correct for each state’s varied demographics. With these new tools in hand, the team hopes they’ll be able to figure out which factors, whether they’re biological, cultural, environmental, or a combination of all three, are behind the disproportionate male death toll.

Scientists suspect estrogen may play a role in protecting against the coronavirus, but also that women may be more likely to have a doctor they see regularly than men — so the reason death rates vary by sex is likely far more complex than one isolated factor.

“Maybe there is some aspect of sex-linked biology playing into this, but it’s looking like it’s being swamped by contextual social factors,” Heather Shattuck-Heidorn, assistant director of the GenderSci Lab, told Wired. “The variability in death rates is immense.”

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Scientists Still Don’t Know Why COVID-19 Hits Men and Women Differently

Dusty Cloud

NASA just awarded substantial funding to Pioneer Astronautics, a company that claims it can gather up lunar regolith and turn it into usable oxygen.

Pioneer Astronautics is one of four companies to win funding through a newly-established Phase II round of NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program, TechCrunch reports. The company will split the total $17 million pot with three other firms ­— though the exact breakdown hasn’t been disclosed — because the space agency believes it could prove valuable to the fledgling Artemis program.

Space Alchemy

The plan — gathering up the Moon’s loose rocks and dust and abracadabra-ing some oxygen out of it — is less outlandish than it seems. Lunar regolith can be as deep as 15 meters in some regions of the Moon, and gasses like oxygen can get trapped down there amidst the rubble.

Pioneer Astronautics’ plan to extract and make use of that oxygen is still a difficult technological feat — hence the millions of dollars in funding — but there’s no actual wizardry involved.

Gas Bubble

This also isn’t Pioneer Astronautics’ first rodeo with NASA. The company has won several rounds of funding from the space agency, dating back to at least 2006 for its plan to scoop up Moon air.

At that point, NASA was interested in developing a supply of breathing air for astronauts, but a similar award in 2019 says the program could help provide oxides for batteries and launch vehicles. Either way, it poses a fascinating attempt to make lunar bases self-sustaining.

READ MORE: NASA injects $17M into four small companies with Artemis ambitions [TechCrunch]

More on Artemis: Congress Budget Denies NASA Full Funding for Moon Missions

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NASA Pumps Funding Into Startup That Says It Can Harvest Oxygen From Lunar Regolith

Local Dialect

In science fiction, there’s something called a generation ship: a spacecraft that ferries humankind on a multiple-generation-long journey to brand new star systems or even galaxies.

The idea has also been touted here in the real world by those hell-bent on traversing the stars. But there’s a major problem with the concept, and we’re not talking about the countless generations doomed to be born and die for the sake of a mission they never agreed to — that’s a whole other thing. Rather, Universe Today points out that, if past is prelude, the language spoken on the ship would eventually evolve to the point that it seems incoherent back on Earth.

Lingua Astra

Language is a fluid, constantly evolving construct, where rules and conventions are gradually tossed out or updated, or even branched into new tongues. Assuming an interstellar journey takes ten generations, a linguistics study published in the journal Acta Futura in April concludes that the languages of Earth and the ship would drift so far apart that communication would become immensely difficult — perhaps even pointless.

“If you’re on this vessel for 10 generations, new concepts will emerge, new social issues will come up, and people will create ways of talking about them,” University of Kansas linguistics professor Andrew McKenzie said in a press release.

Future History

McKenzie recommends reserving a few seats for linguistics experts — a translation algorithm, he thinks, could never keep up with the task of bridging the barrier for two independently-developing languages.

“There will be need for an informed linguistic policy on board that can be maintained without referring back to Earth-based regulations,” reads the paper.

READ MORE: Languages Will Change Significantly on Interstellar Flights [Universe Today]

More on interstellar travel: Scientists Are Planning a 1,000 Year Trip to Another Planet

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On an Interstellar Flight, Language Itself Would Evolve

Air Bell

According to a new study by an international team of researchers, the Earth’s entire atmosphere vibrates much like a ringing bell — a low-pitched fundamental tone alongside higher-pitched “overtones.”

The discovery could help scientists better predict weather patterns and understand the makeup of our atmosphere.

“This finally resolves a longstanding and classic issue in atmospheric science, but it also opens a new avenue of research to understand both the processes that excite the waves and the processes that act to damp the waves,” co-author Kevin Hamilton, a professor at the International Pacific Research Center at the University of Hawaii, said in a statement.

Atmo Reso

The atmospheric resonances were first proposed at the beginning of the 19th century by French physicist Pierre-Simon Laplace, whose dynamic theory of ocean tides has since allowed scientists to predict deformations in a planet’s atmosphere.

The tones, according to Hamilton and his collaborators, are created by massive pressure waves that travel around the globe. Each wave corresponds to each of these different resonant frequencies.

“Our identification of so many modes in real data shows that the atmosphere is indeed ringing like a bell,” Hamilton said.

Wave Modes

The new study includes a detailed analysis of pressure observations spanning 38 years. The researchers found dozens of separate waves circling the Earth in a checkerboard pattern.

“For these rapidly moving wave modes, our observed frequencies and global patterns match those theoretically predicted very well,” lead author Takatoshi Sakazaki, assistant professor at the Kyoto University Graduate School of Science, said in the statement. “It is exciting to see the vision of Laplace and other pioneering physicists so completely validated after two centuries.”

READ MORE: New study detects ringing of the global atmosphere [University of Hawaii at Manoa]

More on Earth’s atmosphere: New Research: Earth’s Atmosphere Extends Well Beyond the Moon

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Scientists Detect “Ringing” in the Earth’s Atmosphere

Update: Kazakh officials are now pushing back against China’s claims — though questions remain. Here’s our latest story.

China’s embassy in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan has put out a statement warning of an “unknown pneumonia” that is reportedly even deadlier than the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the South China Morning Post reports.

“The death rate of this disease is much higher than the novel coronavirus,” read the warning to Chinese citizens in Kazakhstan, as quoted by the SCMP. “The country’s health departments are conducting comparative research into the pneumonia virus, but have yet to identify the virus.”

Pneumonia is an infection of either one or both lungs and is caused by either bacteria, viruses or fungi. The inflammation can make it difficult to breathe and in some extreme cases can be life-threatening.

The statement doesn’t include any details and doesn’t elaborate on the nature of the virus. COVID-19 has also been shown to cause severe pneumonia in both lungs for some patients.

Local media have been reporting a worrying uptick in pneumonia cases in a number of Kazakh cities since mid-June, as the SCMP reports, with as many as 500 reported patients across three locations, 30 of whom are in critical condition. Officials and the media in Kazakhstan, according to the SCMP, are saying the cases are just regular pneumonia.

Reported pneumonia deaths in June account for over a third of pneumonia deaths in the country since the beginning of the year, according to the embassy’s statement.

Kazakhstan hasn’t been immune to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. A state of emergency was declared in mid-March, with lockdowns lifted in mid-May. Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev warned of a second wave this week on a televised address.

There have been over 250 COVID-19 deaths in the country of roughly 18 million residents so far, with just shy of 50,000 reported cases.

The post China Says There’s a New Disease That’s Even Deadlier Than COVID [UPDATED] appeared first on Futurism.

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China Says There’s a New Disease That’s Even Deadlier Than COVID [UPDATED]

Static Fire

SpaceX is planning the first test flight of its Starship prototype as soon as next week, Teslarati reports — if a Raptor rocket engine test slated for earlier in the week goes according to plan.

Workers are currently installing a Raptor engine on the prototype in question, SN5, in preparation for a rehearsal static fire test on Monday.

That’s according to recent road closure filings around the company’s Boca Chica, Texas, testing facilities, which describe a 150-meter launch of the prototype.

That initial test flight’s date is still subject to change, and SpaceX has yet to directly confirm the plans. The event also depends on the success of the Raptor engine static fire test. “Surely too soon?” commented NASA Spaceflight reporter Michael Baylor on Twitter.

Simulating Mass

A video uploaded to YouTube by NASA Spaceflight on Thursday showed SpaceX mounting a “mass simulator” on top of the SN5 prototype, likely an effort to simulate a payload during proceeding test flights.

A remaining question, as Teslarati points out, is that SpaceX has yet to test Starship’s mysterious landing legs, which differ greatly from the company’s tried-and-true Falcon 9 design.

The legs retract to the inside of the engine section rather than outside, as a visualized approximation in April showed. The sleek animation was later confirmed to be “very close” to what SpaceX is working on, according to Musk.

A lot can go wrong during testing, as we’ve seen with a number of preceding Starship prototypes — and that means we should expect further delays as well.

READ MORE: SpaceX’s first Starship flight (re)scheduled for next week [Teslarati]

More on Starship: Here’s How Many Shipping Containers You Could Fit Inside SpaceX’s Starship

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SpaceX Is Planning Starship’s First Test Flight for Next Week

According to an alarming statement by China’s embassy in Kazakhstan this week, a deadly “unknown pneumonia” is spreading in the country of 18 million people — with a mortality rate “much higher than the novel coronavirus.”

Unsurprisingly, the ominous news quickly spread worldwide.

But now Kazakh officials are firing back. A Facebook post by the Kazakhstan Ministry of Health shows a screenshot of the SCMP article that broke the story, with the words “FAKE NEWS” stamped in red over the top.

“In response to these reports, the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan officially declares that this information does not correspond to reality,” the statement read.

Specifically, CNN reports, Kazakh officials say they have been using an “unspecified” category to mark cases in which COVID-19 has been diagnosed by a medical professional, but which haven’t been confirmed by a laboratory test — a practice they say was adopted in response to World Health Organization guidelines.

In other words, the spike in pneumonia deaths in the country could end up being chalked up to a statistical quirk of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, rather than a new disease.

Confusingly, though, the Kazakh officials also acknowledged the existence of “viral pneumonias of unspecified etiology.”

For their part, Chinese officials seem confused by the update.

“We would also like to get more information,” a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs told reporters on Friday, as quoted by CNN. “China hopes to work together with Kazakhstan to fight the epidemic and to safeguard the two countries’ public health security.”

That’s a step back from the country’s verbiage yesterday, but only slightly.

“The country’s health departments are conducting comparative research into the pneumonia virus, but have yet to identify the virus,” read the warning to Chinese citizens in Kazakhstan on Thursday, as quoted by the South China Morning Post.

The statement pointed at peaking numbers of pneumonia-related deaths in three different Kazakh cities since mid-June. Registered cases of pneumonia in the country rose by a whopping 300 percent in June compared to June 2019, according to a Thursday briefing by the Kazakhstan Ministry of Health.

To date, Kazakhstan has over 53,000 registered cases of COVID-19 and 264 deaths.

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Kazakhstan Denies China’s Claim of Disease Deadlier Than COVID-19

Lord of the Rings

Astronomers have found four distant, ring-shaped objects in space they say are unlike anything observed previously.

The rings, which Live Science likened to floating islands, have been temporarily named named “odd radio circles,” or ORCs, because they look like brightly glowing discs when viewed at radio wavelengths. Scientists can’t tell what they are, or even how far away they are from us, but they’re starting to explore some new hunches.

Orc Fortress

The ORCs are undetectable at infrared, x-ray, and the visible light spectrums, but were spotted at radio frequencies through a project called the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU), according to preprint research shared online last month.

“This is a really nice indication of the shape of things to come in radio astronomy in the next couple of years,” Kristine Spekkens, a Royal Military College of Canada astronomer who didn’t work on the study, told Live Science. “History shows us that when we open up a new [avenue of looking at] space to explore… we always find new and exciting things.”

Some Guesswork

The next step will be figuring out what these ORCs actually are — the astronomers behind the study have already ruled out supernovae, star formation, planetary nebulas, or gravitational lensing effects, Live Science reports.

Because visible galaxies are sitting in the center of two of the ORCs like a distant bullseye, the researchers think the bizarre rings could be shockwaves linked to some sort of galactic event. But right now, Live Science reports, any potential explanation is just an educated guess.

READ MORE: 4 mysterious objects spotted in deep space are unlike anything ever seen [Live Science]

More on space: Scientists Ponder Gory Mayhem of Zero-Gravity Surgery

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Astronomers Baffled by Mysterious Ring-Shaped Objects in Deep Space

Astronomers have created a 3D map of a cosmic structure so gigantic that it’s almost impossible to even comprehend.

The “South Pole Wall” is a flabbergasting 1.4 billion light years across and contains hundreds of thousands of galaxies, Live Science reports. That puts it on par with the Sloan Great Wall, the sixth largest cosmic structure ever discovered at 1.38 billion light-years across.

“The surprise for us is that this structure is as big as the Sloan Great Wall and twice as close, and remained unnoticed, being hidden in an obscured sector of the southern sky,” Daniel Pomarède from Paris-Saclay University and lead author of a paper about the research published in The Astrophysical Journal today, told The New York Times in an email.

“The discovery is a wonderful poster child for the power of visualizations in research,” co-lead Brent Tully of the University of Hawaii, told the Times.

To create their map of the South Pole Wall, the cosmographers had to use new sky surveys to peek past the “Zone of Galactic Obscuration,” an area in the southern part of the observable universe that’s obscured by the comparatively bright Milky Way.

The new research builds on a 2014 discovery by the same team of cosmographers of a supercluster of galaxies — with the Milky Way being one of approximately 100,000 galaxies contained within — called “Laniakea.”

To put the size of the South Pole Wall into perspective, our own Milky Way galaxy is a mere 52,850 light years across.

Counted in miles, the distance of the South Pole Wall end-to-end would end up have 21 zeroes attached to it. Estimates put the number of grains of sand on Earth at just 7.5 quintillion (18 zeros).

These gigantic structures are made up of countless clumps called “cosmic webs” floating inside enormous clouds of hydrogen gas. Outside these larger structures, there’s not a whole lot of stuff, as far as we know.

To make the discovery, the team came up with a new technique to measure the dizzying size of the South Pole Wall, which takes into account the velocity of galaxies as they exert gravitational forces on each other.

This new technique was even able to take dark matter into consideration, the mysterious stuff believed to make up approximately 85 percent of the matter in the universe. While dark matter remains a mystery, astronomers suggest it could be the scaffolding that determines the shape of these cosmic structures.

As of right now, the largest cosmic structure ever discovered is the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall, which spans 10 billion light-years. Even then, the Wall accounts for only a tenth the size of the observable universe, which spans about 93 billion light years.

READ MORE: Astronomers discover South Pole Wall, a gigantic structure stretching 1.4 billion light-years across [Live Science]

More on super structures: Strange Theory: Entire Universe Structured by “Quantum Static”

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Astronomers Discover Deep-Space “Structure,” 1.4 Billion Light Years Across

August 28

Elon Musk has announced that the mysterious computer-brain interface startup Neuralink, which he co-founded, will release an update on its progress on August 28.

“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” Musk wrote, referring to his greater ambitions to make sure humanity can keep up with advanced AI. “Neuralink mission statement.”

Skull Lasers

Context suggests that this could be a major reveal.

During a July 2019 livestream event, Neuralink announced details about its efforts to connect the human brain to computers. The idea is to implant flexible threads of electrodes into the brain, where they can pick up signals from neurons. These signals are then wirelessly transmitted to a computer nearby.

To implant these electrodes, Neuralink is planning to shoot tiny holes in the skull with lasers.

In a chat with Joe Rogan back in May, Musk claimed that “we may be able to implant a neural link in less than a year in a person I think.”

Still, it’s unclear exactly what Neuralink has been working on. In February, Musk promised that the upcoming version of Neuralink’s brain-computer interface device will be “awesome.”

AI Symbiosis

Earlier versions, Musk has said, will likely be aimed at restoring brain functionality for those with serious neurological disorders.

Later versions, if Musk has anything to do with it, will likely have far greater ambitions, including the concept of enhancing human cognition and “symbiosis with artificial intelligence.”

READ MORE: Elon Musk sets update on brain-computer interface company Neuralink for August 28 [TechCrunch]

More on Neuralink: Elon Musk: Neuralink Will Do Human Brain Implant in “Less Than a Year”

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Elon Musk Teases Major Neuralink Reveal

Is there a ninth planet lurking beyond the orbit of Neptune?

Astronomers have been observing strange gravitational patterns of a cluster of bodies known as “trans-Neptunian objects,” or TNOs, that could be explained by the presence of  massive ninth planet in our solar system. The hypothetical planet, dubbed “Planet Nine,” would orbit our star at hundreds of times the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

It’s been a contentious topic, with some writing off the odd behavior of TNOs as being caused by a cluster of much smaller space rocks. Others predict that such a planet would be five times the mass of the Earth, orbiting our star at about 400 times the Earth’s distance from the Sun.

Finally, there’s the possibility that Planet Nine is actually a teeny-tiny black hole left over from the Big Bang. So tiny, in fact, that it’d only measure about five centimeters across — basically impossible to see with any kind of telescope.

“There has been a great deal of speculation concerning alternative explanations for the anomalous orbits observed in the outer solar system,” explained Amir Siraj, a Harvard undergraduate student, in a statement. “One of the ideas put forth was the possibility that Planet Nine could be a grapefruit-sized black hole with a mass of five to 10 times that of the Earth.”

So which is it then? In a new paper accepted into the The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Siraj, alongside a team of astronomers from Harvard University and the Black Hole Initiative outlined a newly developed method that could hopefully answer that question once and or all.

Their plan is to look for accretion flares given off as the tiny black hole gobbles up matter surrounding it. If they find some, it’d mean that Planet Nine is actually a black hole. “In the vicinity of a black hole, small bodies that approach it will melt as a result of heating from the background accretion of gas from the interstellar medium onto the black hole,” Siraj said.

“Because black holes are intrinsically dark, the radiation that matter emits on its way to the mouth of the black hole is our only way to illuminate this dark environment,” added Avi Loeb, professor of science at Harvard who was also involved in the research.

The team is placing their bets on the upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) mission taking place at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. Astronomers involved in the mission are hoping to answer questions about the nature of dark energy and dark matter as well as the formation and properties of planets in our solar system.

“LSST has a wide field of view, covering the entire sky again and again, and searching for transient flares,” Loeb said. “Other telescopes are good at pointing at a known target, but we do not know exactly where to look for Planet Nine. We only know the broad region in which it may reside.”

According to Loeb, the LSST’s “unprecedented depth” will be able to spot even the smallest of flares.

It’s not the only attempt to uncover the mysteries behind Planet Nine. Most recently, a different team of astronomers announced it’s hoping to launch a fleet of thousands of “nanospacecraft” to search for the mysterious object.

Unfortunately, that vision is still a moonshot, with cost estimates breaking the $1 billion mark — that is, if it’s even feasible from a technological standpoint in the first place.

READ MORE: Scientists propose plan to determine if Planet Nine is a primordial black hole [Harvard]

More on Planet Nine: A Black Hole May Be Orbiting Our Sun. This Guy Wants to Find It.

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Astronomers Want to Figure Out What the Hell Planet Nine Is Once and For All

It has been two months since Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief infectious disease expert at the White House, has been able to brief President Trump on the coronavirus pandemic.

In fact, Fauci says, the two haven’t even spoken to each other in a month.

Fauci told Financial Times in a dark, revealing interview that he last saw Trump on June 2. Lately, he’s had to merely pass messages along to the President. And while he’s “sure” the messages reach Trump’s desk, the President clearly isn’t heeding his warnings, as the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. continues to get worse.

“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say we have a serious ongoing problem, right now, as we speak,” Fauci told Financial Times. “What worries me is the slope of the curve. It still looks like it’s exponential.”

Part of the reason things have gotten so bad, Fauci explained in the interview, is that states lifted restrictions or allowed businesses to open before the coronavirus had become manageable in the area.

“I think we have to realize that some states jumped ahead of themselves,” Fauci said. “Other states did it correctly.”

But while Trump has urged states to reopen, is currently pushing for schools to resume in-person classes in the Fall, and otherwise flouted Fauci’s repeated warnings to government leaders, Fauci deflected when asked if Trump was “wrong.”

Instead, Fauci just said that’s the “famous question.”

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Dr. Fauci Says Trump Hasn’t Talked to Him in a Month

An international team of physicists claim they may have found evidence for a long-theorized type of subatomic particle called the axion.

Theaxion was first suggested in the 1970s to explain discrepancies in particlephysics. They have also become a popular way to explain the existence of dark matter, the nebulous stuff that makes up 85 percent of the mass of the universe. But scientists have never found direct evidence of them before until, perhaps, now.

As part of the XENON1T Dark Matter Experiment,detailed in a lengthyNew York Timesstory about the discovery, researchers set up two tons of ultra-pure liquefied xenon in a vat under an Italian mountain. Xenon is a noble gas that is extremely stable, an inertness that makes it a perfect candidate to detect the presence of any particles that pass through it.

The team announced that they found a surprising excess of events of particles interacting with the xenon particles events that the scientists couldnt account for using the standard model of physics.

The scientists suggest there are three explanations for this excess.One is contamination in the tank. It could also be caused by neutrinos, a well-established particle.

The third explanation is far more bold, and could have sweeping implications in the world of physics. The interactions could be as a result of axions potentially the first observation of the elusive particle.

While axions are not currently a proposed direct explanation for dark matter, they couldve set the stage for the creation of dark matter in the early stages of our universe.

Scientists are undeniably excited by this third possibility,though theyre also urging restraint due to the other potential explanations.

Im trying to be calm here, but its hard not to be hyperbolic, Neal Weiner, a particle theorist at New York University, who was not involved in the research, told The New York Times. If this is real, calling it a game changer would be an understatement.

If this bears out, and if is a big question, this is the biggest game changer in my corner of physics since the discovery of cosmic acceleration, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a physicist at the University of New Hampshire who also wasnt involved, told Live Science in an email.

Othersare calling for more time before popping the champagne corks.

Despite being excited about this excess, we should be very patient, Luca Grandi, a physicist at the University of Chicago and co-author of the yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper, told Quanta Magazine.

A much larger experiment, with sensitivity levels dialed up, had to be delayed by the coronavirus lockdown in Italy. It may still take place later this year, according to the Times.

To put the statistics in perspective, Kai Martens, a physicist at the University of Tokyo who worked on the experiment, told Live Science that theres about a 2 in 10,000 chance that random background radiation was behind the excess events rather than axions themselves. That kind of probability falls well short of the threshold physicists typically try to achieve before considering a discovery to be well-established.

So far, the dominant explanation for the existence of dark matter has been the existence of so called weakly interacting massive particles, which have the amusing acronym WIMPs. WIMPs are hypothetical particles that are extremely high in mass and could account for most if not all of dark matter.

But over time, physicists have become increasingly interested in exploring the possibility of axions as well.

READ MORE: Seeking Dark Matter, They Detected Another Mystery [The New York Times]

More on axions: Scientists May Have Identified the Particles That Make Up Dark Matter

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Physicists Say They've Found Evidence of Elusive Axion Particle - Futurism

The strategic adviser, 58, predicts whats next with Covid, what could happen to the UK and what good yes, good can come of this

Theres a misconception that futurists just sit and make predictions with their crystal balls but we try to look at different factions that shape the future, like trends, weak signals about whats happening next, new ideas in labs. You pull them together and explore what happens next, think about how we might react and what the implications might be. At the moment, a lot of people are talking about AI that is going to be smarter than humans so my job is to inform governments, businesses and individuals, and help them prepare and see what opportunities you can create.

Not Covid-19 in particular but since the 1960s people have been talking about the risks of global pandemics and with the rise of air travel its much more likely these pandemics will spread globally and faster. You know everything that will happen with a virus pandemic and nothing that has happened in the UK is a shock. You know you need to do testing, tracking and tracing, and lockdown to contain a virus. Watch Hollywood movies even film-makers know what to do. Look at the places with good practices such as Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea, which were prepared and had mechanisms in place.

A combination of things funding cuts to physical resources, a level of confidence that it wouldnt happen to us, putting our attention on different things. Over the last ten years government has focused on austerity, not building up the capacity to deal with these things.

There are different scenarios and the most positive is we dont get an uptake in infections, infection rates and death rates keep falling, we gradually unlock the economy and although well have a shockingly bad year the best case is eight to ten per cent shrinkage. Then, if we dont get second waves and a big separate flu epidemic, by 2022 were back to normal. For me, I think its going to be more gradual. The worst-case scenario is that we have a second, third or fourth spike of infection, which will result in us going in and out of lockdowns, probably localised lockdowns. We could see negative interest rates, a prolonged recession and very slow recovery through 2022 and 2023. Both scenarios are possible.

Yes! We have a renewed focus on the health service and the need to provide it with better resources. Weve seen F1 teams and engine manufacturers collaborating to create ventilators, weve seen a mobilisation of the public with 750,000 people signing up as volunteers, an uplift in community spirits, home delivery has been boosted, some sectors have done very well and the environment has been a winner. Its raised digital literacy, many more are working from home, and not the same hours with long commutes, and bicycle ownership has gone up.

You have to blame Neil Armstrong because the moon landing blew my mind I remember thinking Wow, we can leave this planet. I thought that by the time I was an adult, Id be visiting the moon on a regular basis. I loved everything shiny and new, and I watched Tomorrows World. I studied electronics and computer science at the University of Keele, got an MBA from the London Business School and went into consulting.

Do some reading because there are loads of future thinkers and sites out there. You can do short online courses from just half a day long. The University of Houston does them, as well as the University of Manchester. Take an interest in future analysis so if youre studying economy, make sure you push lecturers to talk to you about the new models for the future and new thinking.

We had our entire order book wiped out in February and March for the whole year. It was a big shock. We regrouped, got sponsors for our webinars and decided we wouldnt be derailed. It wasnt easy you have to push hard when theres no revenue. But now the speaking enquiries are coming back and the book is selling well so it feels positive now.

We know 1,000 people in the futures and foresight field so we wrote individually to them, and put a callout on Facebook and Twitter, and asked everyone if theyd like to contribute to a book looking at what life would look like after the pandemic. We gave them a month to do it and ended up with 115 people submitting chapters.

I was in a rush leaving to pick a friend up at the station and accidentally bashed a tap and turned it on. It was a small sink that quickly overflowed so by the time we got back 20 minutes later the office had been flooded. Expensive to fix. The lesson? More haste, less speed.

Salary: A basic researcher role in a future foresight company would earn 20,000 to 30,000 and the very top futurist speakers are doing 200 gigs a year and earning upwards of a million

Regular hours? The more well-known you get, the more global your client base, the more willing you have to be to take a call at 7am or midnight

Short and sweet advice: Its better to try and fail than do nothing

Never stop learning. Its the perfect time to be learning new things and see if the things youre interested in could work as a business

Aftershocks And Opportunities Scenarios For A Post-Pandemic Future, co-written and edited by Rohit Talwar, is out now, visit fastfuture.com

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Tips from the Top: Global futurist Rohit Talwar - Metro Newspaper UK

A telescope called eROSITA on board the Spektr-RG space observatory has captured breathtaking X-ray observations of the entire sky, Science Alert reports.

The X-ray instrument was built by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany (MPE), and was launched along with the Russian-German space observatory Spektr-RG in July 2019.

The instruments observations, 165 gigabytes collected over 182 days, have been compiled into a stunning map of the sky that contains more than one million shining X-ray objects.

This all-sky image completely changes the way we look at the energetic universe, Peter Predehl, the Principal Investigator of eROSITA at MPE, said in a statement. We see such a wealth of detail the beauty of the images is really stunning.

Most of the bright X-ray objects, around 77 percent, are active galactic nuclei, or supermassive black holes that are actively absorbing material at the center of galaxies. In between, there are clusters of galaxies that give off shining halos due to trapped gas caused by huge concentrations of dark matter.

We were all eagerly awaiting the first all-sky map from eROSITA, Mara Salvato, the scientist at MPE who was involved in the research, said in the statement.

Large sky areas have already been covered at many other wavelengths, and now we have the X-ray data to match, she added. We need these other surveys to identify the X-ray sources and understand their nature.

The team is already working hard on subsequent maps as well.

Overall, during the next 3.5 years, we plan to get 7 maps similar to the one seen in this beautiful image, Rashid Sunyaev, lead scientist of the Russian SRG team said in the statement. Their combined sensitivity will be a factor of 5 better and will be used by astrophysicists and cosmologists for decades.

With a million sources in just six months, eROSITA has already revolutionized X-ray astronomy, but this is just a taste of whats to come, Kirpal Nandra, head of the high-energy astrophysics group at MPE, said. This combination of sky area and depth is transformational.

Over the next few years, well be able to probe even further, out to where the first giant cosmic structures and supermassive black holes were forming, Nandra added.

READ MORE: This Is What The Entire Sky Looks Like Through X-Ray Eyes [Science Alert]

More on X-ray observatories: Astronomers Detect Biggest Explosion Since the Big Bang

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This X-Ray Map of the Entire Sky Is a Psychedelic Dreamworld - Futurism

Balloon Vision

A startup wants to send you to the edge of space, lifted by a giant balloon.

The company, Space Perspective, is run by husband-and-wife team Taber MacCallum and Jane Poynter, who unveiled their grand vision today, GeekWire reports.

The pair already attempted to get a similar venture off the ground in 2013, but pivoted to smaller scientific balloons in 2015 instead. They even launched a chicken sandwich in a novelty collaboration with KFC in 2017 but the balloon sprang a leak, cutting the trip short.

Its an ambitious concept: a balloon will hoist a capsule called Spaceship Neptune to an altitude of 100,000 feet, roughly three times the cruising altitude of commercial airlines, or the edge of space according to the company. A ticket will go for $75,000.

But is it really the actual edge of space? 100,000 feet falls far short from what is considered outer space. The Krmn line lies at an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles) above sea level. 100,000 feet, or 30 kilometers, lies within the Earths stratosphere, a primary layer of the atmosphere. Weather balloons can fly at higher altitudes.

That doesnt mean the views wont be spectacular. From such an altitude, customers will be able to see the curvature of the Earth and above the troposphere, the bubble of air that allows life on Earth to exist.

Ascent and descent will each take two hours, and then Spaceship Neptune will splash down in the Atlantic Ocean, where a ship will pick up passengers. Amenities on board the Neptune include a bar and airplane-style toilet.

It will have the best view of any loo in the world, Poynter told GeekWire.

Space Perspective has already signed a lease with spaceport authorities in Florida. Operations could begin at NASAs Kennedy Space Center, but first flights are still several years out.

READ MORE: Space Perspective reboots vision of flying passengers to stratosphere on a balloon

More on space balloons: This Startup Wants to Launch Satellites from Balloons

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Startup Says It'll Launch You Into the Stratosphere on a Balloon - Futurism

While studying the effects of ketamine on sheep, researchers say they found something truly strange: high doses of the drug appeared to turnthe sheeps brains off and back on again, like a light switch.

This wasnt just reduced brain activity, Jenny Morton, neurobiologist from the University of Cambridge, co-author of the study published in Scientific Reports earlier this month, said in a statement.

After the high dose of ketamine the brains of these sheep completely stopped, she added. Weve never seen that before.

Ketamine is usually used for anesthesia, sedation and pain relief.But in recent years, its also attracted interest as a treatment for depression and other mental health issues.

An interesting new clue about what the drug does: electroencephalography (EEG) readings of the sheeps brains showed a complete shut down of brain activity within two minutes of injection effects that were only temporary.

A few minutes later their brains were functioning normally again it was as though they had just been switched off and on, Morton said.

Similar effects could be seen in humans as well.

The timing of the unusual patterns of sheep brain activity corresponded to the time when human users report feeling their brain has disconnected from their body, Morton explained. Its likely that the brain oscillations caused by the drug may prevent information from the outside world being processed normally.

That kind of disconnect has often been referred to as the K-hole by recreational users of the drug.

Our purpose wasnt really to look at the effects of ketamine, but to use it as a tool to probe the brain activity in sheep with and without the Huntingtons disease gene, said Morton. But our surprising findings could help explain how ketamine works.

It could also help us to see how brain networks function, both in the healthy brain and in neurological diseases like Huntingtons disease and schizophrenia, according to Morton.

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Scientists Gave Ketamine to Sheep and Were Baffled by the Result - Futurism

Space Nukes

The U.S. Department of Defense released a new space strategy report on Wednesday. In it, the military revealed that its concerned that nukes detonated in space could wipe out its fleet of satellites.

Its not a new concern,since space nukes were originally banned in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. But all the same, Business Insider reports that the Pentagon is particularly concerned that China and Russia might strike a dire warning for the future of combat.

The report specifically identified China and Russia as immediate threats. Such an attack could potentially devastate military communication networks as well as the myriad other systems that depend on satellites.

The challenge of a nuclear detonation is that it creates an electromagnetic pulse and a signal that could then take out indiscriminately many satellites in space and essentially fry the electronics, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Stephen Kitay said at a press conference on the report, according to BI.

That is a threat that we have to potentially be prepared for a nuclear detonation in space, he added.

If nothing else, the report is yet another sign that the idea of space remaining peaceful seems to be slipping away.

I wish I could say that space is a sea of tranquility, but the fact of the matter is that space is contested, Kitay said. Outer space has emerged as a key arena of potential conflict in an era of great power competition.

READ MORE: The Pentagon says it needs to be ready should an adversary try to fry satellites by detonating a nuke in space [Business Insider]

More on space nukes: The Military Is Unprepared for Nuclear Strikes on Satellites

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The Pentagon Is Worried a Space Nuke Will Fry Its Satellites - Futurism

During most of the 1980s, GM's Vauxhall sold J-Body Cavaliers based on the North American Chevrolet Cavalier, and sales in Britain went well. Starting in late 1988, the Cavalier moved over to a new platform, best-known in Europe as the basis of the Opel Vectra (the later Saab 900 and the 9-3 were close relatives). This U.K.-market television advertisement demonstrates that this new Cavalier was exactly what the wisest prognosticators predicted for the year 2000.

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1988: The New Vauxhall Cavalier Is the Car 1950s Futurists Predicted - Autoweek