For the science and technology advocates…

 

Here’s an interesting study I found on another blogsite.  

File under: “Keep in the back of my mind for future reference.”

Link here.

"The study highlights the importance of spin in the processes of life. Understanding and controlling spin could have a big impact on how living things work and might also help improve medical imaging and create new ways to treat illnesses."

"This discovery challenges long-held assumptions and opens up exciting possibilities for advancements in biotechnology and quantum biology."

News bits: 4-Dimensional metamaterial discovered; About the indictment - Civil war?; Brain-machine interface advance

Researchers in the Structured Materials and Dynamics Lab at the University of Missouri College of Engineering have made a strange 3-dimensional material that has a "synthetic" fourth dimension property related to the behavior of energy waves on its surface.

Energy wave simulation

This synthetic 4D metamaterial can trap and control energy waves on its solid surface. STD writes:

Everyday life involves the three dimensions or 3D — along an X, Y, and Z axis, or up and down, left and right, and forward and back. But, in recent years scientists like Guoliang Huang, the Huber and Helen Croft Chair in Engineering at the University of Missouri, have explored a “fourth dimension” (4D), or synthetic dimension, as an extension of our current physical reality.

Recently, Huang together with a team of scientists in the Structured Materials and Dynamics Lab at the MU College of Engineering, achieved a significant breakthrough. They successfully created a new synthetic metamaterial with 4D capabilities. This includes the ability to control energy waves on the surface of a solid material. These energy waves, referred to as mechanical surface waves, are fundamental to how vibrations travel along the surface of solid materials.

2D rendering of the 3D metamaterial with the 

energy-trapping synthetic 4D property

While the team’s discovery, at this stage, is simply a building block for other scientists to take and adapt as needed, the material also has the potential to be scaled up for larger applications related to civil engineering, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and national defense uses.

“Conventional materials are limited to only three dimensions with an X, Y, and Z axis,” Huang said. “But now we are building materials in the synthetic dimension, or 4D, which allows us to manipulate the energy wave path to go exactly where we want it to go as it travels from one corner of a material to another.”

This groundbreaking discovery, called ‘topological pumping,’ could potentially lead to advancements in quantum mechanics and quantum computing. This is due to the development of higher dimension quantum-mechanical effects it might allow.

The work builds upon previous research conducted by Huang and his colleagues. Their earlier studies demonstrated how a passive metamaterial could control the path of sound waves as they travel from one corner of a material to another.

[This research] is supported by grants from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Army Research Office.

Notice the US military funding this. We can only speculate what exciting new killing machines they have in mind. I do not have a feel for what civilian or military impacts this could wind up having in the coming years. It feels potentially important to very important. Time will tell.

The published research paper is here.

Personal anecdote: Years ago, I spoke with a weapons designer engineer working as a civilian contractor for the US military. I think he worked for either General Atomics or Cubic Corp. He indicated that his research team really needed to know if space (or space-time, can't remember which) was smooth or chunky for them to further proceed developing a groovy new weapon he could not talk about. From what I understand now, space (space-time?) is both smooth and chunky. I guess that's sort of like light is both a wave and a particle. Anyway, the point is this, do not underestimate the ingenuity and money the US military has at its disposal for finding new ways to kill people, the rationale being: If we don't do it, they will. 

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To me, it is starting to feel like DJT's legal defense will partly rely on publicly trying to incite a civil war. Multiple sources are reporting that DJT's defense attorney, John Lauro, went on Faux news and Newsmax yesterday and made statements that confirm some key the allegations in the indictment against DJT. The affirmed allegations relate to DJT trying to delay the electoral vote count. That is weird to say the least. 

And, Lauro continues to concede damaging facts that are already in the public record. He responded to Newsweek late yesterday or this morning with these comments:

"Unfortunately, some of the legal commentary is not focused on the actual facts of the case. But instead is based on an erroneous understanding of what happened. Sadly, that leads to a lot of public misinformation, which is to be expected in this highly charged political environment. My comments were consistent with the facts that are already in the public record, and by no means constitute any admission."

How is it possible that Lauro's comments that appear to confirm that DJT broke the law? Two possibilities come to mind, both of which are possible, probably likely, at the same time. One is that although the alleged facts are actually true, what DJT did was not illegal because he had no intent to break any law and was innocently acting on advice of his (crackpot) attorneys like John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani and/or the Kraken (Sidney Powell). The other, scarier, possibility is that DJT is appealing to his cult by signaling to them something like, "Hey! Just look at the little things the Biden-weaponized DoJ is coming after me for. There was no law broken there because I never intended to break any law. If the American people do not rise up and defend democracy and the rule of law, we will be engulfed in socialist tyranny, corruption and moral depravity. Stand with me to protect America!! KAGA!! (keep America great again)"

Lauro said his comments by no means constituted any admission. Well, he undeniably admitted some damaging facts alleged against DJT. What he can say his own words constituted no admission that those facts alone amounted DJT breaking any law because he did not have the requisite criminal intent.

Maybe by conceding and embracing undeniable damaging facts, DJT is using Lauro to position public opinion and the jury pool in DC to make DJT look innocent in his actions because he had no criminal intent. If the evidence does not convince every person on the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that DJT knew what he was doing was illegal, the case against him collapses and he will be acquitted. If that analysis is correct, DJT has decided to rely on threat of public violence up to and including civil war because he believes he is going to lose in court. Maybe inciting civil war is DJT's plan B if he loses in court.

Lauro might be right to say that public opinion is too heated. This video from MSNBC is foaming at the mouth and over the top about how damaging Lauro's admission is. Did Lauro sucker punch MSNBC and the pundits? Lauro is no fool. DJT is a master of manipulation public opinion and creating plausible deniability. At present, plausible deniability seems to be DJT's best defense in court. Fomenting a civil war is just the back-up plan.

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One area of science I try to follow somewhat is BMI (brain-machine interface) research. Due to the complexity of merging machines with living tissue, this is a slow moving area of research. One area of BMI research relates to treating paralyzed people and people who have lost a limb. Medical Express writes about treatment of a paralyzed patient: 

For the first time researchers restore feeling and lasting 

movement in man living with quadriplegia

In a first-of-its-kind clinical trial, bioelectronic medicine researchers, engineers and surgeons at Northwell Health's The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research have successfully implanted microchips into the brain of a man living with paralysis, and have developed artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to re-link his brain to his body and spinal cord.

This double neural bypass forms an electronic bridge that allows information to flow once again between the man's paralyzed body and brain to restore movement and sensations in his hand with lasting gains in his arm and wrist outside of the laboratory. The research team unveiled the trial participant's groundbreaking progress four months after a 15-hour open-brain surgery that took place on March 9 at North Shore University Hospital (NSUH).

"This is the first time the brain, body and spinal cord have been linked together electronically in a paralyzed human to restore lasting movement and sensation," said Chad Bouton, professor in the Institute of Bioelectronic Medicine at the Feinstein Institutes, vice president of advanced engineering at Northwell Health, developer of the technology and principal investigator of the clinical trial.  

"When the study participant thinks about moving his arm or hand, we 'supercharge' his spinal cord and stimulate his brain and muscles to help rebuild connections, provide sensory feedback, and promote recovery. This type of thought-driven therapy is a game-changer. Our goal is to use this technology one day to give people living with paralysis the ability to live fuller, more independent lives."

See, microchips are people. It's not a crackpot QAnon conspiracy. 

A legal analysis of the deceit and lies about the latest indictment

As we all know, America's authoritarian radical right, a/k/a/ the radicalized, morally rotted Republican Party, shamelessly lies, slanders and crackpot conspiracies on us all the time nowadays. The tidal wave of lies and deceit about the recent indictment of DJT has begun. The Popehat Report published a nice legal analysis of some lies and deceit that tyrant wannabes are spewing on us. TPR writes: 

People Are Lying To You About The Trump Indictment

National Review Is Lying, For Instance. There Will Be More. Keep An Eye Out.

This Is Complicated, Which Is Not the Same As Unprecedented

Count One, conspiracy to defraud the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 371. Section 371 has two parts. It’s most commonly used to charge a conspiracy to violate some specified federal crime: for instance, conspiracy to violate money laundering statutes. But it has another clause for conspiracies “to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.”

Nobody’s ever been charged with this set of facts because nobody’s ever attempted to overthrow the government by fraud like this before. In that sense, this is “unprecedented.” But in other senses, that term is misleading. Each of these federal criminal laws — which are broad and flexible by design — has been used to charge a wide variety of fraud and misconduct.

Federal courts have upheld convictions under Section 371 for a very broad range of conduct designed to interfere with or obstruct government functions. More than a hundred years ago the Supreme Court said:

The statute is broad enough in its terms to include any conspiracy for the purpose of impairing, obstructing, or defeating the lawful function of any department of government. Assuming, as we have, for it has not been challenged, that this statistical side of the Department of Agriculture is the exercise of a function within the purview of the Constitution, it must follow that any conspiracy which is calculated to obstruct or impair its efficiency and destroy the value of its operations and reports as fair, impartial, and reasonably accurate would be to defraud the United States by depriving it of its lawful right and duty of promulgating or diffusing the information so officially acquired in the way and at the time required by law or departmental regulation.

Passionate Partisans Are Lying To You And Will Keep Lying To You

Let’s take the editors of National Review. I’m singling them out from many people lying about the law, because they are prominent, we can expect better, and they deserve it.

First, the misleading. They say:

Finally, Smith is charging Trump with a civil-rights violation, on the theory that he sought to counteract the votes of Americans in contested states and based on a post–Civil War statute designed to punish violent intimidation and forcible attacks against blacks attempting to exercise their right to vote. What Trump did, though reprehensible, bears no relation to what the statute covers.

[That] statement is materially and intentionally misleading because it does not reveal to the National Review’s readers that the United States Department of Justice has prosecuted election fraud as a violation of Section 241 for generations and has been repeatedly upheld by the courts in doing so. The National Review describes the charge as “remarkable.” Without adding that the charge is based on a widely accepted interpretation of Section 241 [conspiracy to interfere with the exercise of constitutional or statutory rights] upheld by the courts, this argument is deceitful.

The National Review also flat-out lies. It says:

Here, it is not even clear that Smith has alleged anything that the law forbids. The indictment relates in detail Trump’s deceptions, but that doesn’t mean they constitute criminal fraud. As the Supreme Court reaffirmed just a few weeks ago, fraud in federal criminal law is a scheme to swindle victims out of money or tangible property. Mendacious rhetoric in seeking to retain political office is damnable — and, again, impeachable — but it’s not criminal fraud, although that is what Smith has charged.

But National Review is lying to you about the Supreme Court and about what’s charged here. The Special Counsel charged Trump with defrauding the United States under Section 371. The Supreme Court and lower courts have repeatedly and specifically ruled that Section 371 doesn’t require a scheme to take money or property. National Review is referring to the latest in a line of cases interpreting a completely different statute, the wire fraud statute, that includes a “money or property” requirement in its text ....

The PHR article is long and it lays out some analysis for the other other laws that DJT is accused of violating, (i) conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 1512(k), and (ii) obstructing an official proceeding under 18 U.S.C. section 1512(c) — which applies to someone who “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so”.  

Qs: At this point in time, can "passionate partisans" (as TPR puts it) who knowingly deceive and lie about the indictment and/or the law be fairly called tyrant wannabes? If they are merely ignorant but wrong, does that make any difference, i.e., does the culpability and implications of dark free speech vary depending on the source and its motives?

A popehat

News bits: US restarts virus biowarfare research: Gigantic superconductor breakthrough?; Gigantic supercapacitor breakthrough?

Just when you thought it could not get any worse, it gets worse. Science.org wrote last May: 

Three years after then-President Donald Trump pressured the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to suspend a research grant to a U.S. group studying bat coronaviruses with partners in China, the agency has restarted the award.

Critics, including several Republicans in Congress, argued this work qualified as risky “gain-of-function” (GOF) research that makes potential pandemic viruses more dangerous and should have undergone a special review. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and its director at the time, Anthony Fauci, responded that the work did not fit NIH’s risky GOF definition; the bat viruses weren’t known to infect people and WIV had no intention of making them more dangerous. NIH also pointed out that the WIV chimeras were only distantly related to SARS-CoV-2.

NIH told EcoHealth in August 2022 that because WIV had not responded to requests to turn over lab notebooks and electronic records, it had terminated the subaward to WIV. But the agency also said EcoHealth could renegotiate the grant without WIV. As discussions continued, in January a federal audit found that EcoHealth had misreported nearly $90,000 in expenses, and that NIH had also erred by not justifying the grant’s April 2020 termination.

Refusal to turn over lab books constitutes science fraud on a massive scale, far worse than fabricating data in a research paper or two. In my opinion, Biden and the NIH are arrogant, incompetent, ignorant and out of control. That combination of bad could get tens of millions of Americans killed. The Chinese government will control everything that happens in China, including what real or fabricated data get turned over to the NIH. If  Biden or the NIH think they are in control, they are gullible, shockingly stupid or both. 

Searching for killer viruses in bats and bat 

guano in China!

Not to worry, what could possibly go wrong?

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Could this be for real?: A couple day ago, reports surfaced that South Korean researchers announced they had made and tested a new metallic material (LK-99) that was a superconductor at room temperature and pressure. I ignored it. The announcement was met with a solid wall of skepticism from experts. 

Nonetheless, labs rushed to try to confirm or disconfirm the asserted results. Tom's hardware writes that two separate labs are claiming they have preliminary evidence to support (but not yet confirm) the original finding: 

Superconductor Breakthrough Replicated, Twice, in Preliminary Testing

A tentative but less nebulous step toward superconductor-fueled electronics

Humanity may be in the throes of another breakthrough that's every bit as impactful as the invention of the transistor and the advent (and eventual vindication) of quantum computing. LK-99, as it's been named, is a new compound that researchers believe will enable the fabrication of room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductors. Initially published by a Korean team last Friday, frantic work is underway throughout the research world to validate the paper's claims. For now, two separate sources have already provided preliminary confirmations that this might actually be the real thing — Chinese researchers have even posted video proof. Strap in; this is a maglev-powered, superconducting ride.

Superconductors, a wild category of compounds that can conduct electricity without any losses, have been a metaphorical goose chase for years now, with multiple research teams claiming (and then retracting) papers and announcements of its achievement. The reason is simple: Few things come close to the potential of an actual superconductor discovery in terms of what it can do for humanity's current and future technology. Imagine if your 16-core mainstream CPU (which likely requires a competent watercooling solution to avoid incinerating itself) operated without power losses — no current leakage, no electricity waste in the form of heat. Superconductors mean almost perfectly efficient computing.

Researcher Sinéad Griffin from the U.S.'s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab pored over the original paper, taking advantage of the supercomputing capabilities within the Department of Energy to simulate the LK-99 material. This complex-yet-simple concoction results from combining the minerals lanarkite (Pb₂SO₅) and copper phosphide (Cu₃P), which are then baked within a 4-day, multi-step, small batch, solid-state synthesis process.

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab results support LK-99 as a room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor. Simulations published 1 hour ago on arxiv support LK-99 as the holy grail of modern material science and applied physics. [Note: this is computer simulated data, not making and testing the material like the Chinese group claims to have done]

As a result of the simulations, the researcher published an analysis letter in pre-print form to Arxiv, where she confirmed that the resulting material should manifest the superconduction pathways for electrons to travel through unimpeded and without any resistance. Interestingly, she noticed that these superconducting pathways only form in very specific areas of the compound, namely the highest-energy areas of the resulting crystal lattice.

Maybe this will turn out to be a true breakthrough of gigantic proportions. I still doubt it, but now that some preliminary supporting evidence is dribbling out, it's worth mentioning. Even if this is confirmed, it will take time (~2 years?) to figure out how to efficiently make LK-99 before it can have a major impact. That assumes it can ever be made efficiently, which is currently unknown. The current method is extremely inefficient. 

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Could this be for real?: Boffins at MIT have published a shocker of a paper describing a low cost supercapacitor that could utterly revolutionize energy storage. Right now, existing battery technology is puny compared to needs for greatly boosting the usefulness of intermittent power from wind and solar. Supercapacitors are akin to batteries but work in a different way. The new capacitor is made out of cement, water and disordered microporous carbon black. I can't find an online price for disordered microporous carbon black per ton or kilogram. The Register writes:

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology claim to have found a novel new way to store energy using nothing but cement, a bit of water, and powdered carbon black – a crystalline form of the element.

The materials can be cleverly combined to create supercapacitors, which could in turn be used to build power-storing foundations of houses, roadways that could wirelessly charge vehicles, and serve as the foundation of wind turbines and other renewable energy systems – all while holding a surprising amount of energy, the team claims.

According to a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 45 cubic meters of the carbon-black-doped cement could have enough capacity to store 10 kilowatt-hours of energy – roughly the amount an average household uses in a day. A block of cement that size would measure about 3.5 meters per side and, depending on the size of the house, the block could theoretically store all the energy an off-grid home using renewables would need.

"You have the most-used man-made material in the world, cement, that is combined with carbon black, that is a well-known historical material – the Dead Sea Scrolls were written with it," said MIT Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Admir Masic.

"You have these at least two-millennia-old materials that when you combine them in a specific manner you come up with a conductive nanocomposite, and that's when things get really interesting," Masic added.

The capacity of a capacitor or supercapacitor is largely determined by the surface area of its plates, and the MIT researchers explained that the material they've explored has an exceptionally high internal surface area thanks to the way the carbon black and water interact.

"The hydration reactions of cement in the presence of carbon generate a fractal-like electron-conducting carbon network that permeates the load-bearing cement-based matrix," the authors note. In essence, a block of this carbon-rich cement has highly-conductive carbon black wires running through it which drastically increase the surface area, and thus storage capacity.

Masic said that as the mixture cures, water is absorbed into the cement. Carbon black, which is highly hydrophobic, can't be dispersed in the same way, thus "the carbon black is self-assembling into a connected conductive wire."

In their paper, the researchers assert that this technology is immediately available, versatile, low cost and scalable to huge structures like concrete highways, bridges, buildings. Structures with high energy storage capacity, high-rate energy charge/discharge capabilities and structural strength can be built right now. This applies to residential and industrial applications including self-sufficient energy buildings and self-charging roads for electric vehicles, to intermittent energy storage for wind turbines and tidal power stations. 

So, if a house is built on a concrete slab that is made as a giant capacitor, it could be used to store excess daytime power from solar panels on the roof and then power the house during the night. Or, a concrete highway could be made as a gigantic miles-long capacitor that stores extra wind or solar power and then uses that power to recharge electric cars or trucks, presumably by radio waves or maybe long-range induction, as they drive down the highway.

Strange as this is, this one feels like it's for real, right now.