This week, we reported on LIGO upgrades, parasitic fungi and a new analysis of Curiosity rover data. Also, did you know that viruses also attack bacteria? But at that scale, it’s a lot less like catching a cold and a lot more like Harry Dean Stanton encountering the xenomorph in « Alien. »
we reported on LIGO upgrades, parasitic fungi and a new analysis of Curiosity rover data. Also, did you know that viruses also attack bacteria? But at that scale, it’s a lot less like catching a cold and a lot more like Harry Dean Stanton encountering the xenomorph in « Alien. »
The quantum limit is not so limiting for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory anymore, as physicists are now exploiting a quantum effect called « squeezing » that allows them to measure gravitational space-time waves across the entire range of gravitational frequencies the observatory detects. As a result, they expect to observe 60% more space-time-undulating mergers of black holes and neutron stars.
So: Squeezing. This refers to the fact that light can be squeezed to be more precise in one trait, such as its frequency, and simultaneously less precise in another trait, such as power. This is another expression of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which states that you cannot know two traits simultaneously. The upgraded LIGO technology has been in operation since May 2023, when the observatory resumed observations.
« The Last of Us, » a venerable old PlayStation action game and now a pretty great HBO series, posits the collapse of society caused by a parasitic fungus that turns living organisms into mushroom zombies and is now also the cultural touchpoint referenced in every article about fungi, which I’m doing right now.
