[QUOTE=Till;518557]Good read.[/QUOTE]

May 29th was the 100th anniversary of the famous eclipse - nice anniversary article, that.

[url=https://m.phys.org/news/2019-06-physicists-schrodinger-cat.html]Physicists can predict the jumps of Schrodinger's cat (and finally save it)[/url] | PhysOrg
[quote]The quantum jump is the discrete (non-continuous) and random change in the state when it is observed.

The experiment, performed in the lab of Yale professor Michel Devoret and proposed by lead author Zlatko Minev, peers into the actual workings of a quantum jump for the first time. The results reveal a surprising finding that contradicts Danish physicist Niels Bohr's established view—the jumps are neither abrupt nor as random as previously thought.

For a tiny object such as an electron, molecule, or an artificial atom containing quantum information (known as a qubit), a quantum jump is the sudden transition from one of its discrete energy states to another. In developing quantum computers, researchers crucially must deal with the jumps of the qubits, which are the manifestations of errors in calculations.

The enigmatic quantum jumps were theorized by Bohr a century ago, but not observed until the 1980s, in atoms.

"These jumps occur every time we measure a qubit," said Devoret, the F.W. Beinecke Professor of Applied Physics and Physics at Yale and member of the Yale Quantum Institute. "Quantum jumps are known to be unpredictable in the long run."

"Despite that," added Minev, "We wanted to know if it would be possible to get an advance warning signal that a jump is about to occur imminently."

Minev noted that the experiment was inspired by a theoretical prediction by professor Howard Carmichael of the University of Auckland, a pioneer of quantum trajectory theory and a co-author of the study.

In addition to its fundamental impact, the discovery is a potential major advance in understanding and controlling quantum information. Researchers say reliably managing quantum data and correcting errors as they occur is a key challenge in the development of fully useful quantum computers.
...
Microwave radiation stirs the artificial atom as it is simultaneously being observed, resulting in quantum jumps. The tiny quantum signal of these jumps can be amplified without loss to room temperature. Here, their signal can be monitored in real time. This enabled the researchers to see a sudden absence of detection photons (photons emitted by an ancillary state of the atom excited by the microwaves); this tiny absence is the advance warning of a quantum jump ... This is a crucial point, the researchers said. While quantum jumps appear discrete and random in the long run, reversing a quantum jump means the evolution of the quantum state possesses, in part, a deterministic and not random character; the jump always occurs in the same, predictable manner from its random starting point.

"Quantum jumps of an atom are somewhat analogous to the eruption of a volcano," Minev said. "They are completely unpredictable in the long term. Nonetheless, with the correct monitoring we can with certainty detect an advance warning of an imminent disaster and act on it before it has occurred.[/quote]

[QUOTE=xilman;518543][QUOTE=rogue;518539][[URL="https://futurism.com/the-byte/jupiter-great-red-spot-dying"]JUPITER’S GREAT RED SPOT IS DYING[/URL][/QUOTE]About time too.

People have been speculating for centuries about why it is the only storm in the entire solar system which is so long-lived.[/QUOTE]
I am reminded of the following:

[i]Big whorls have little whorls
That feed on their velocity,
And little whorls have lesser whorls
And so on to viscosity.[/i]

-- Lewis F. Richardson

The question of what makes the Great Red Spot [i]Red[/i] is yet to be answered.

Apparently it is an [i]anti[/i]cyclone -- a high-pressure area.

Jovian weather is far different from that on earth. Clearly it isn't being driven by Mr. Sun. Instead, it's driven by heat emanating from the interior, which continues to be generated as Jupiter undergoes compaction under its own gravity. There is speculation that lightning on Jupiter creates diamonds.

The fact that Jupiter has a tremendous magnetic field indicates a large mass of conducting material hidden within. This is generally thought to be metallic hydrogen.

[QUOTE=rogue;518539][URL="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48369980"]The man who made Einstein world-famous[/URL][/QUOTE]
Well, [URL="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-46778879"]Einstein fooled us all[/URL] ...

[QUOTE=LaurV;518603]Well, [URL="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-46778879"]Einstein fooled us all[/URL] ...[/QUOTE]

I'm gonna speculate that the "gravitational repulsive force" stuff is somhow related to [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_Meditation_technique]yogic flying[/url]. Man, that is a lot of wackiness there at that "major conference" - wonder if the heat has something to do with it.

[QUOTE=LaurV;518603]Well, [URL="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-46778879"]Einstein fooled us all[/URL] ...[/QUOTE]
Wow. And I thought [i]Il Duce[/i] & Co. were waging a war on science. These guys have left our anti-thinkers in the dust.

[url]https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/05/20/724136568/how-the-brain-shapes-pain-and-links-ouch-with-emotion[/url]
I relate strongly to the effects described. At 66 years, I am still troubled by extreme physical traumas which happened in my tweens or earlier.

[QUOTE=kladner;518722][url]https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/05/20/724136568/how-the-brain-shapes-pain-and-links-ouch-with-emotion[/url]
I relate strongly to the effects described. At 66 years, I am still troubled by extreme physical traumas which happened in my tweens or earlier.[/QUOTE]I first head of [url=https://www.umassmed.edu/cfm/about-us/people/2-meet-our-faculty/kabat-zinn-profile/]this guy[/url] and his "Stress Reduction Clinic" on the PBS series "Healing and the Mind." One thing I remember was another physician saying that the other doctors really looked up to him, because he was helping patients the other doctors had given up on -- they simply couldn't do anything about their persistent severe pain.

From the section of [u]A Short Account of the History of Mathematics[/u] by W.W. Rouse Ball on [url=https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/218/a-short-account-of-the-history-of-mathematics/5531/blaise-pascal/]Blaise Pascal[/url], [quote]The only mathematical work that he produced after retiring to Port Royal was the essay on the cycloid in 1658. He was suffering from sleeplessness and toothache when the idea occurred to him, and to his surprise his teeth immediately ceased to ache. Regarding this as a divine intimation to proceed with the problem, he worked incessantly for eight days at it, and completed a tolerably full account of the geometry of the cycloid.[/quote]

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;518780]I first head of [URL="https://www.umassmed.edu/cfm/about-us/people/2-meet-our-faculty/kabat-zinn-profile/"]this guy[/URL] and his "Stress Reduction Clinic" on the PBS series "Healing and the Mind." One thing I remember was another physician saying that the other doctors really looked up to him, because he was helping patients the other doctors had given up on -- they simply couldn't do anything about their persistent severe pain.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks!

In other news, : Jupiter again,observed by Juno, has some spectacular image. One of the latest one have been given the name of Abyss :
[code]
The color-enhanced image was taken at 12:55 a.m. PDT (3:55 a.m. EDT) on May 29,
2019, as the spacecraft performed its 20th science flyby of Jupiter. At the time,
Juno was about 9,200 miles (14,800 kilometers) from the planet's cloud tops, above
approximately 52 degrees north latitude.

[/code] [URL]https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/news/jupiter_abyss[/URL]


edit : I realise that it should go to the space mission thread

[QUOTE=firejuggler;518803]In other news, : Jupiter again,observed by Juno, has some spectacular image. One of the latest one have been given the name of Abyss :[/QUOTE]

Wow, that brings to mind the swirling-ocean special effects in Tarkovsky's 1972 sci-fi classic [url=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(1972_film)]Solaris[/url].

===============

p.s.: The Schrödinger's Cat article I linked a couple days ago was rather uninformative on the "artificial atom" aspect of the story. Here a couple better ones:

[url]https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-leaps-long-assumed-to-be-instantaneous-take-time-20190605/[/url]

[url]https://gizmodo.com/scientists-save-schrodingers-cat-1835208353[/url]

[url=https://aeon.co/essays/gut-worms-were-once-a-cause-of-disease-now-they-are-a-cure]Gut worms were once a cause of disease, now they are a cure[/url] | Aeon Essays
[quote]Did you ever wonder why one in six children has a mental health disorder? One in every six seems to be a few too many, I would think. Did you ever wonder why 20 per cent of women, in the United States at least, have been diagnosed with depression after menopause, and why ‘chronic fatigue syndrome’ has mysteriously emerged? Why should almost half of us be allergic to something? Why should more than four in every 10 children be on medication for a chronic condition? Why do more than one in 10 women have an autoimmune condition? When asking why we get sick, we take the first step in understanding the origins of disease. If we find the answer to that question, we become empowered to prevent disease.
...
I started out in biomedical research asking what and how, but after stumbling into some inexplicable questions that cannot be addressed by the what and the how, I started asking [i]why[/i]. Our Western diet is certainly a factor. And our stressful lifestyle. But we and others are coming to a fascinating conclusion: intestinal worms are almost certainly involved. But it’s not the presence of the worms that is hurting us. To the contrary, the almost complete loss of intestinal worms in modern society is, surprisingly, a very significant problem. Intestinal worms, called ‘helminths’, have caused untold human suffering, killing the weak and disabling the strong. Labelled uniformly as disease-causing parasites by biologists, they have inspired fear and hate, leading to major campaigns aimed at their eradication. The Rockefeller Foundation, for example, was originally formed to eliminate hookworm from the southern US. Their genocidal campaign was very successful, and similar campaigns are now underway in developing countries. This fearsome menace has been virtually eradicated in the US and in western Europe, and we hope to accomplish the same in developing countries. Good riddance.

But what if we erred? What if our bias against a handful of helminths led us to slaughter billions of innocent and even helpful worms? Indeed, my research and the research of many others tell us that helminths are necessary for our health. A barrage of scientific evidence points toward helminths as being important regulators of immune function. Because of this, our genocidal campaign against intestinal worms apparently has a very nasty backlash that nobody saw coming. But science moves very slowly. All helminths are still labelled as parasites in textbooks, despite the fact that we now know this to be incorrect.[/quote]
The growing list of diseases shown to respond favorably to helminthic immunomodulation is quite stunning:
[quote]One of the first to light the way was Peter J Preston, a medical doctor with the Royal Navy. In 1970, Preston reported that 12 naval officers who ‘had suffered from hayfever for some years’ were free of hayfever after acquiring the human roundworm. Preston reported that other individuals ‘amongst a large series of patients’ continued to suffer from allergy. Then, six years later, a young British scientist, John Turton, found that intentionally inoculating himself with hookworms eliminated his seasonal allergies.

These early observations led to numerous additional studies, summarised in 2004 by Rick Maizels at the University of Edinburgh, showing inverse relationships between helminths and allergies in various human populations. At the same time, Maizels also compiled an impressive list of studies using laboratory mice, showing that helminths attenuate a multiple sclerosis (MS)-like syndrome, a Type 1 diabetes-like condition, inflammatory bowel disease, gastric ulcers and allergic reactions, including allergic reactions to peanuts.

Mice experiments were quickly followed by studies in humans: in 2005, Joel Weinstock and colleagues at the University of Iowa used porcine whipworms to treat patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Most of the patients had proven unresponsive to pharmaceutical intervention, but 2,500 porcine whipworms administered orally every three weeks for 24 weeks effectively treated more than half of their patients.

Then, in 2007, shortly after Weinstock’s work came to light, the neurologists Jorge Correale and Mauricio Farez at the Institute for Neurological Research in Buenos Aires published results looking at the effects of intestinal worms in humans with MS. At that time, the disease was essentially untreatable and deadly, and, as Maizels had pointed out, work in laboratory animals had suggested that intestinal worms might help.

A complete loss of intestinal worms has something to do with the high rates of mental-health disorders in children

But Correale and Farez took a different approach than Weinstock. They had hundreds of patients with MS, and decided to see if any who accidentally got an intestinal worm might get relief from their disease. Eventually, Correale found a dozen patients who had accidentally contracted an intestinal worm. During the study period, there were three clinical relapses of MS in the infected group compared with 56 relapses in the uninfected group, showing that, in general, the presence of worms offers protection against the symptoms of MS. Correale followed his patients for more than 10 years, and found that, as long as patients kept their worms, their autoimmune disease did not progress. But if they lost their worms, their disease returned. Importantly, it did not seem to matter which intestinal worm the patients had. Some patients had flatworms, while others had roundworms, two very different types of worms, both apparently having the same benefits.

My own research has shown that thousands of humans are now using intestinal worms, from a variety of sources, to effectively treat a wide range of allergic, autoimmune and digestive diseases. Based on previous studies, we were not surprised that people were having success. But we did find one puzzler: people and their doctors were reporting that helminths were helping to treat neuropsychiatric problems such as anxiety disorders and migraine headaches.

Ultimately, we began back-translating the results we were finding in people to see if we could recapitulate the effect in laboratory animals. In collaboration with Staci Bilbo, a renowned neuroscientist at Duke University in North Carolina, we gave benign (harmless) helminths to female rats before the rats became pregnant. Surprising to some but anticipated by us, we found that the brains of baby rats (pups) are protected from inflammation if their mother has an intestinal worm. Thus, it seems likely that a complete loss of intestinal worms has something to do with the high rates of mental-health disorders in our children. Of course, most studies tapping these finds are aimed at using something the helminths make, the molecules produced by the worms, to design a new anti-inflammatory drug. The thought of actually using a helminth as a cure doesn’t seem to be under consideration, perhaps because we are locked into the view that only a drug can help us.

But based on available evidence, we and others conclude that we don’t need to take the risky and potentially very long route of trying to make a worm-inspired drug. In fact, trying to recapitulate a complex biological relationship using a single molecule in a pill might be a lost cause. In contrast, the naturally occurring worm will apparently work just fine.

If we could treat or even prevent many of our modern inflammatory diseases with harmless intestinal worms, why don’t we?[/quote]
The article goes on to answer the latter question, in predictable "follow the money" terms.