A Horse-Sized Dinosaur Paved the Way for T. Rex
The newly identified specimen is named Khankhuuluu mongoliensis after the Mongolian words for 'dragon prince.' About the size of a horse, it lived 86 million years ago in what is now the Gobi Desert.
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Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Yahoo
China's new electronic warfare tech disrupts enemy systems while protecting friendly signals
Chinese researchers have reportedly developed a new electronic warfare (EW) system that can simultaneously interfere with enemy systems while keeping friendly ones untouched in a 'null zone'. Likened to the eye of a storm, this new technology represents a significant shift in conventional EW systems. To help conceptualize how it works, think of a storm. Everything inside it is disrupted by intense electromagnetic noise. But the center of a hurricane, colloquially called 'the eye', is completely calm. The new technology intentionally creates the 'eye' for friendly forces, even in the middle of aggressive electronic warfare. The innovation reportedly works on coordinated drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) acting as precise jamming sources. These drones emit carefully crafted radio signals that can be adjusted for waveform, amplitude, phase, and timing (all controllable radio frequency signal parameters). Dual drones act in tandem to create 'the eye' The dual feature of both jamming enemy devices while allowing ally communication involves two drones acting in conjunction. While the first acts as the primary jammer, neutralizing enemy signals through disruptive waves; the second emits a counter signal that nullifies the jamming wave at an location where friendly forces are operating. The signals cancel each other out at the point they intersect, creating 'the eye' or the calm. In signal processing terms, the technology uses beamforming and phase cancellation strategies, typically found in advanced communications but now repurposed for electronic warfare. Older conventional jamming or suppression EW systems tend to be omnidirectional, with the signal effectively broadcast in all directions in a 3D space. Such systems are not picky, and tend to suppress all vulnerable electronic systems within range. These systems tend to be manned to some extent and have a relatively low precision. More advanced systems, like those used on the EA-6B 'Prowler', EA-18G 'Growler', or even Russia's 'Khibiny', use directional jamming techniques that are more focused. Potentially revolutionary but only in simulation stage The new Chinese system, on the other hand, would overcome many of these downsides. During computer simulations, the researchers tested the system under heavy jamming conditions. The jamming signals were 100 times stronger than the target signal (20 dB = 10^2). Despite this, they were able altogether to cancel out the interference at the friendly receiver. "Under the simulation condition of a 20 dB interference-to-signal ratio, electromagnetic interference at the target legitimate user can be reduced to zero," wrote the team led by Yang Jian, a professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology, in a peer-reviewed paper published in the Chinese journal Acta Electronica Sinica. The feat is impressive if the claims are true, as it implies extremely precise spatial control of the electromagnetic environment. For military applications, this would be very useful as it would enable a kind of 'selective jamming', offering a huge tactical edge. It would enable secure operations in contested environments (e.g., GPS-denied zones). Such a system would also make EW less of a blunt instrument and more of a surgical tool. As impressive as all this sounds, it is essential to note that the system is currently simulation only and not proven in real-world tests. It also relies heavily on precise drone coordination and advanced real-time signal control, which is technically difficult to pull off under combat conditions.
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Yahoo
Photons pass the famous Bell test but without entanglement, shows latest study
For decades, entanglement has been the hallmark of quantum weirdness, a ghostly connection between particles that Einstein famously called "spooky action at a distance." It is at the heart of quantum computing, encryption, and our deepest understanding of the recently, researchers in China have pulled off something that sounds almost impossible. They passed one of the toughest tests in quantum physics, the Bell test, without using entangled result is shaking up how scientists think about non-locality, a mysterious property that allows particles to affect each other no matter how far apart they are. It has always been thought that entanglement was the key ingredient behind such non-local effects. However, the new study suggests that non-locality might arise even without entanglement. "Our new work may provide a new perspective to people's understanding of non-local correlations," said Xiao-Song Ma, one of the authors of the study and a professor at Nanjing University. How to entangle without entanglement The foundation of this breakthrough lies in a 60-year-old idea. In 1964, physicist John Bell designed a test, now known as the Bell test, to check whether nature follows the rules of quantum mechanics or obeys more traditional, local theories, where distant objects can't instantly influence each strong violations of Bell's inequality so far have relied on entangled particles. That's because entanglement was believed to be the only way to produce the non-local correlations needed to beat Bell's test. However, in this new study, scientists built a setup that seemed to defy this rule. Instead of using entangled particles, they created photons using four special illuminated with lasers, each crystal emitted a pair of photons with measurable properties like polarization (the direction the light wave oscillates) and phase (how its wave wiggles in space and time). The photons then traveled through a carefully designed maze of optical devices, crystals, lenses, and beam splitters before reaching two separate detectors, labeled Alice and Bob. Normally, in a Bell test, Alice and Bob each measure one half of an entangled interesting here is that the experiment was built in a way that explicitly avoided creating entanglement. The researchers even included extra components to block any accidental entanglement between properties like frequency or speed. Yet, when they crunched the numbers using Bell's inequality, the photons seemed to talk to each other in a non-local way, just like entangled ones—but how was this even possible? The answer may lie in a lesser-known quantum property, called indistinguishability by path identity. "We report the violation of the Bell inequality that cannot be described by quantum entanglement in the system but arises from quantum indistinguishability by path identity," the study authors note. Due to this property, it became impossible to tell which photon came from which crystal, and the paths taken by photons overlapped and blended perfectly. The particles became fundamentally indistinct and led to non-local correlations that entanglement usually provides. The significance of indistinguishability The experiment raises exciting but controversial possibilities. If indistinguishability can mimic or even replace entanglement in some cases, it might open up new routes for building quantum devices, especially ones that are simpler to engineer. However, there are also important caveats. Some physicists point out that the team used a method called post-selection, where only certain photon detection events are counted. They argue this might artificially boost the appearance of quantum correlations. Moreover, it is also possible that there might still be entanglement involved, just not between photons, but at the level of the quantum fields that create them. The study authors acknowledge these concerns and are already working on improvements. They aim to eliminate post-selection by increasing the number of photons their crystals can produce. If successful, it could mark a major milestone in quantum foundations. The study is published in the journal Science Advances. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Yahoo
China takes bold step forward in global race for limitless energy device: 'We have fully mastered the core technologies'
China takes bold step forward in global race for limitless energy device: 'We have fully mastered the core technologies' China is rapidly closing in on an achievement that could transform the way we power homes, cities, and industries forever. The country has entered the final assembly phase of a next-generation fusion reactor called the Burning Plasma Experiment Superconducting Tokamak, which is expected to be operational by 2027, per Popular Mechanics. If it's successful, BEST would mark a major milestone in the race toward achieving fusion energy, a process that mimics the same physics that power the sun. Unlike conventional energy sources, fusion doesn't rely on fossil fuels such as coal and oil. It's more environmentally friendly because it does not produce heat-trapping pollution or long-lived radioactive waste (like fission energy does) and uses abundant fuel sources such as hydrogen. The potential payoff is limitless, low-cost, renewable power. According to state media and the South China Morning Post, BEST is an intermediary step between China's earlier tokamak project and a much larger demonstrator called the Chinese Fusion Engineering Test Reactor. "We have fully mastered the core technologies, both scientifically and technically," chief engineer Song Yuntao told the Post. In 2022, the United States made global headlines when researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved net energy output from fusion for the first time. China is now doubling down on its own efforts, building not only BEST but a network of other fusion and hybrid reactors. Fusion energy could someday power entire cities with minimal fuel and near-zero pollution. This would dramatically slash energy costs for residents and businesses while also reducing the amount of heat-trapping gases we generate, which is driving rising global temperatures. That means cleaner air and fewer health issues, such as respiratory and heart diseases, linked to pollution. While skeptics have said that fusion is always "30 years away," the BEST project and its American counterpart, SPARC — built by a startup spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — are showing real results. With a target date of 2027, BEST may help bring fusion's promise into the real world much sooner than expected. Should the U.S. be investing more in battery production to catch up with China? Absolutely We're investing a good amount We should be investing less I have no idea Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet. Solve the daily Crossword
