Simulations of ‘Backwards Time Travel’ can Improve Scientific Experiments

Digital generated image of abstract glowing tech data tunnel
Digital generated image of abstract glowing tech data tunnel
Credit: Yaroslav Kushta via Getty Images

Physicists have shown that simulating models of hypothetical time travel can solve experimental problems that appear impossible to solve using standard physics.

If gamblers, investors and quantum experimentalists could bend the arrow of time, their advantage would be significantly higher, leading to significantly better outcomes.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have shown that by manipulating entanglement — a feature of quantum theory that causes particles to be intrinsically linked — they can simulate what could happen if one could travel backwards in time...

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Finding Explanation for Milky Way’s Warp Astronomers’ results Bolster Hypothesis of How Galaxy Evolved

The Milky Way’s galactic disk is warped and flared, similar to Galaxy ESO pictured here. Credit: NASA/Space Telescope Science Institute
The Milky Way’s galactic disk is warped and flared, similar to Galaxy ESO pictured here. 
Credit: NASA/Space Telescope Science Institute

The Milky Way is often depicted as a flat, spinning disk of dust, gas, and stars. But if you could zoom out and take an edge-on photo, it actually has a distinctive warp — as if you tried to twist and bend a vinyl LP.

Though scientists have long known through observational data that the Milky Way is warped and its edges are flared like a skirt, no one could explain why.

Now, Harvard astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian (CfA) have performed the first calculations that fully explain this phenomenon, with compelling evidence pointing to the Milky Way’s envelopment in an off-kilter halo of dark matter...

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Obesity leads to a Complex Inflammatory Response inside Fat Tissue, study finds

Obesity leads to a complex inflammatory response inside fat tissue
Credit: JCI Insight (2023). DOI: 10.1172/jci.insight.171701

Fat tissue, for as much as it’s been vilified, is an incredibly complex and essential bodily organ involved in energy storage and hormone production, among other functions. Yet, modern lifestyles have led to a worldwide epidemic of obesity, and a corresponding increase in related conditions like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Researchers are attempting to uncover the basics of how fat tissue is structured and, specifically, inflammation associated with obesity, in the hopes of unlocking the connection between the accumulation of fat and poor health outcomes.

A new study from Lindsey Muir, Ph.D., Ph.D...

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Toward Metropolitan Free-Space Quantum Networks

Towards metropolitan free-space quantum networks
Metropolitan entanglement-based free-space network. a) A standardized centrally located entanglement server (ES, black box) is streaming entangled photons into the network. Free-space channels are used to connect distant buildings and parts of a metropolitan area, while fiber connections may still be used in a complementary way, for example, to connect to offices within the central building. Each end user owns an application-specific quantum receiver subsystem (green boxes). b) The corresponding physical layer network topology. At the quantum communication layer, the network is a pairwise connected mesh, so that every end user can communicate with any other (not shown). c) A near-term extension possibility using several ESs and a central trusted node...
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