Tag: science

Scientists Use Novel Materials That Mimic Wormholes and Multiple Realities to “Transcend the Limitations of Physical Dimensions”

In Erwin Schrödinger’s most famous thought experiment, a cat is seemingly able to be alive and dead simultaneously, as it exists in superposition within a closed box alongside a radioactive atom, a detector, a hammer, and a vial of poison.

Now, reaching into similar mind-bending territory that blurs the lines between practical science and science fiction, researchers in China report in a new study that they have successfully used nonlocal artificial materials to create what they call “photonic parallel spaces,” emulating the effects of wormholes, and even multiple realities.

At the heart of the new research are optical systems, in which a single material is able to perform the role of two distinct optical devices at the same time—not unlike the bizarre “superposition” of Schrödinger’s cat—whereby light is able to display multiple properties at once.

The experiments, detailed in a new paper in Nature Communications, allowed the researchers to produce invisible pathways and other optical effects that could pave the way toward the creation of a range of new technological applications in the coming years.

Photonic Parallel Spaces

“The concepts of the multiverse and wormholes in dimensions beyond our physical space have long captivated curiosity and imagination,” the authors of the new paper write. However, demonstrating such ideas in an experimental setting has long been challenging.

To overcome such hurdles, the research team relied on special artificial materials that allowed them to develop what they characterize as a “photonic analogy” of parallel spaces, which they describe as conditions where “two distinct effective optical media coexist within a single artificial material,” each of which is accessible using different boundaries in the respective material.

The team’s method, which was complemented with machine learning for their study, successfully helped them to create analogies for what they call “photonic wormholes,” which function as invisible optical tunnels, as well as “photonic multiple realities” where the independent function of two different optical devices occurred within a single location. The effect, the researchers describe, produced optical scatterers that functioned “as if they exist in separate dimensions.”

“Higher-Dimensional Phenomena” in the Lab

When light enters one boundary in the artificial materials used by the team, it experiences an entirely different set of optical effects compared with light entering from another boundary. Surprisingly, each of these optical experiences can occur without any interference between them.

The researchers liken this effect to C.S. Lewis’s classic, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where different “doors” could lead to entirely separate worlds located in a single place.

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Thousands of potential UFOs spotted in 1950s photos — before satellites even dotted the sky: studies

A pair of new peer-reviewed scientific papers claim to have detected the presence of UFOs in photographs taken in the 1950s.

Astronomer Beatriz Villarroel from the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics claimed in two papers that “transients” — fleeting star-like objects of unknown origin — which appear in “historic photographic plates” of the night sky could represent visitors from a far-off planet.

“We speculate that some transients could potentially be [unidentified aerial phenomena] in Earth orbit that, if descending into the atmosphere, might provide the stimulus for some [unidentified aerial phenomenon] sightings,” the paper published in Nature’s Scientific Reports claimed.

There was a “small positive correlation” between UAP sightings and transients that was “well beyond chance,” she argued in the paper published on Oct. 20.

Researchers analyzed roughly 2,000 photographic plates which were taken between 1949 to 1958 at the Palomar Observatory in California for one of the first detailed astronomical surveys of the sky, called the Palomar Sky Survey, Scientific American reported.

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The Study That Changes Everything: McCullough Foundation Drops Bomb on Autism Debate

The most comprehensive analysis of autism risk factors ever conducted just landed, and it’s about to blow up decades of carefully constructed lies. The McCullough Foundation Report titled “Determinants of Autism Spectrum Disorder” reviewed more than 300 studies across every known risk domain—genetic, environmental, and vaccine-related—and the conclusion is devastating for the vaccine cartel: combination routine childhood vaccination is the dominant modifiable risk factor for autism.

Let me be blunt: This isn’t another small study you can dismiss. This is 80 pages of systematically integrated evidence spanning epidemiologic, clinical, mechanistic, and molecular domains. This is Dr. Peter McCullough, cardiologist and epidemiologist. This is Dr. Andrew Wakefield returning to the scientific literature after years of being crucified by the pharmaceutical industry. This is a team of researchers who had the guts to do what the CDC has refused to do for decades—actually compare vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

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The Geometric Code: Genome’s 3D Shape Functions as the Living Computer that Enabled Complex Life

New research reveals the second language of the human genome – one not written in its chemical letters but in its physical shape.

Scientists have long thought of DNA as an instruction manual written in the four- chemical bases—A, C, T, and G—that make up the genetic code. The prevailing belief was that by decoding these sequences, we could unlock how cells and organisms fundamentally work. Now, research from Northwestern Engineering’s Vadim Backman reveals a second “language” of life: the “geometric code” embedded in the genome’s physical shape. Like a blueprint for making living microprocessors, the geometric code helps cells store and process information. 

“Rather than a predetermined script based on fixed genetic instruction sets, we humans are living, breathing computational systems that have been evolving in complexity and power for millions of years,” Backman said.

Backman is the Sachs Family Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, where he directs the Center for Physical Genomics and Engineering. He also is an associate director of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University.

The study, led by Backman in collaboration with Igal Szleifer, Christina Enroth-Cugell Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering; Luay Almassalha, of the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology within the Feinberg School of Medicine; and Kyle MacQuarrie, assistant professor of pediatrics within the department of hematology, oncology, and stem cell transplantation at Feinberg, titled “Geometrically Encoded Positioning of Introns, Intergenic Segments, and Exons in the Human Genome,” published Oct. 27 in Advanced Science, decodes this language, showing how cells can perform computations through the physical shape of their genomes.

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Lawsuit Targeting Decades-Old Journal Article Triggers Renewed Scrutiny of Fraudulent Scientific Studies

A lawsuit demanding the retraction of a decades-old peer-reviewed article that claimed the antidepressant paroxetine, sold as Paxil, is safe and effective has put the issue of fraud in scientific and medical journals back in the spotlight, Paul D. Thacker wrote today in The Disinformation Chronicle.

The lawsuit, filed last month against the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and its publisher, Elsevier, demands the retraction of a 2001 article in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP).

The article was based on Study 329, which the suit claims distorted data to claim Paxil was effective.

The complaint alleges that JAACAP editors and Elsevier refused to retract the article “in an apparent attempt to shield at least five of the … authors who are prominent members of the AACAP from possible ramifications of retraction.”

Study 329 was ghostwritten by Paxil manufacturer GSK — which Thacker discussed in a 2011 report he republished today.

Several of the journal article’s co-authors worked for GSK or went on to hold key positions within the AACAP.

According to Thacker, one of the co-authors, Stan Kutcher, is now a member of the Canadian Senate and co-founded “Science Up First,” an initiative that purportedly targets scientific “misinformation.”

During a roundtable discussion on the weaponization of science that the MAHA Institute organized last week, Thacker cited Study 329 as an example of fraud in scientific and medical publishing.

Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for Children’s Health Defense, spoke at the roundtable. He said the discussion, in which “panelists described horror stories of their own scientific research under attack through targeted retractions of papers, denial of research funding, and disciplinary actions,” was “stunning.” He added:

“There is a huge cost in falling out of line with established institutions in science and medicine, whether corporate, university or private organizations. And these highly credentialed panelists paid a huge cost for ‘doing the right thing’ in exposing malfeasance and bad science.”

Research scientist and author James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., also participated in the roundtable. He said it “explored how science-like activities have been systematically re-engineered to serve political and corporate interests rather than truth.” He said:

“Study 329 exemplifies the collapse of accountability that follows when industry, regulators and journals form a closed feedback loop of self-validation. What’s marketed as ‘misinformation control’ today is often a continuation of that same pattern — protecting narratives, not people.”

‘One of the best documented case studies of corruption in modern biomedicine’

Study 329, completed in 1998 and funded by GSK, revealed serious safety risks — including suicidal behavior — associated with Paxil. Later studies confirmed those risks.

However, the study showed a few minor positive results that suggested possible efficacy, as it met 15% of the outcomes the researchers had initially said would prove Paxil’s effectiveness.

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Quantum Breakthrough? Scientists Demonstrate First Quantum Sensor Approaching the Heisenberg Limit

Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) scientists have successfully demonstrated the world’s first ultra-precise, ultra-sensitive distributed quantum sensor network sensitive enough to approach the Heisenberg limit, where distinguishing the desired signal from the noise becomes impossible.

The approach is also among the first in the field to conduct experiments that simultaneously employ multiple quantum entangled photons, enabling unprecedented sensitivity and precision beyond single-entangled-photon approaches.

While previous approaches to a distributed quantum sensor network aimed to increase measurement precision, the new approach is the first to leverage this unprecedented level of precision for higher-resolution imaging. Using several quantum sensors in concert is similar to astronomers employing several observatories to measure a single phenomenon with more detail than any individual observatory could achieve on its own.

The research team behind the accomplishment suggests their approach could improve applications from space observation to medical imaging by offering previously unattainable fine details collected from multiple sensors working together rather than a lone sensor.

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Astronomers Say They Just Detected Radio Signals Coming from This Comet

Evidently, it’s a big week for news involving comets, as a team of astronomers now reports the detection of an intriguing series of radio signals emanating from one of the speeding objects (no, not that comet) currently making its way through our solar system.

The surprising news comes to us courtesy of a research team led by the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and was reportedly made possible with the Tianma Radio Telescope.

During multi-band radio observations of comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, the team detected an interesting series of radio signals coming from the returning comet, which is also one of the brightest comets astronomers have ever seen.

At a glance, this all sounds pretty tantalizing… but what does the detection of radio signals from a comet in our solar system actually mean?

A Returning Comet Stops In

First discovered in 1812, 12P/Pons-Brooks possesses an orbital period of around 71 years, meaning that this is actually the fourth time astronomers have had an opportunity to watch it during its journeys through the solar system.

During their recent observations of the Halley-type comet, the Chinese team says they measured the rate at which water was being produced by 12P/Pons-Brooks, which revealed the most distant known detection of ammonia molecules known to astronomers from such observations.

Since comets are known to contain a variety of icy components—many of which are as old as the solar system itself—they are ideal for observations by astronomers, particularly when these materials begin to bake off as the speeding objects make their way toward the Sun.

In the case of comets like 12P/Pons-Brooks, the presence of volatile ices shows that they haven’t been subjected to large amounts of thermal evolution since they were born in our solar system eons ago. Because of this, the study of the ices they carry and their composition offers a way for astronomers to look back in time at the chemical and thermal conditions that were present in our planetary neighborhood around 4.6 billion years ago.

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What is mirror life? Scientists are sounding the alarm

Scientist Kate Adamala doesn’t remember exactly when she realized her lab at the University of Minnesota was working on something potentially dangerous — so dangerous in fact that some researchers think it could pose an existential risk to all life forms on Earth.

She was one of four researchers awarded a $4 million US National Science Foundation grant in 2019 to investigate whether it’s possible to produce a mirror cell, in which the structure of all of its component biomolecules is the reverse of what’s found in normal cells.

The work was important, they thought, because such reversed cells, which have never existed in nature, could shed light on the origins of life and make it easier to create molecules with therapeutic value, potentially tackling significant medical challenges such as infectious disease and superbugs. But doubt crept in.

“It was never one light bulb moment. It was kind of a slow boiling over a few months,” Adamala, a synthetic biologist, said. People started asking questions, she added, “and we thought we can answer them, and then we realized we cannot.”

The questions hinged on what would happen if scientists succeeded in making a “mirror organism” such as a bacterium from molecules that are the mirror images of their natural forms. Could it inadvertently spread unchecked in the body or an environment, posing grave risks to human health and dire consequences for the planet? Or would it merely fizzle out and harmlessly disappear without a trace?

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Scientists Are Putting $14.2M Behind an Ambitious New Effort to Map the Body’s “Hidden” Sixth Sense

Your body is constantly communicating with your brain, sending silent signals about everything from your heartbeat to your blood pressure. It’s an ongoing internal conversation that keeps you alive. However, it is also a system that science still barely understands.

Now, a new $14.2 million research effort led by Scripps Research Institute, a non-profit medical research center based in San Diego, California, aims to change that by mapping the body’s mysterious “hidden sixth sense.”

The five-year project, funded through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s Transformative Research Award, will attempt to decode interoception—the process by which the nervous system monitors and interprets internal physiological signals.

Researchers hope their work will produce the first-ever atlas of this inner sensory system, revealing how the brain keeps tabs on vital functions such as breathing, digestion, and immune responses.

“My team is honored that the NIH is supporting the kind of collaborative science needed to study such a complex system,”  Scripps project lead, Dr. Ardem Patapoutian, said in a statement.

Dr. Patapoutian is no stranger to decoding the body’s hidden senses. In 2021, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering how cells sense touch and pressure, a finding that fundamentally reshaped our understanding of sensation. Now, he and colleagues at Scripps believe that interoception could hold the key to the next great understanding of how the brain maintains internal balance.

Interoception isn’t like the classic five senses. You can’t see or hear your blood pressure or digestion. Instead, this “sixth sense” operates through a network of sensory neurons that relay information from deep inside the body to the brain, often without conscious awareness.

These neurons weave through organs and tissues—heart, lungs, stomach, kidneys—forming a hidden communication network that ensures your body’s systems stay in sync.

The project represents a partnership between Scripps Research and the Allen Institute, combining expertise in molecular genetics, whole-body imaging, and neuroscience. Dr. Patapoutian will be joined by Dr. Li Ye, the N. Paul Whittier Chair in Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Scripps Research, and Dr. Bosiljka Tasic, Director of Molecular Genetics at the Allen Institute.

The NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award is part of the agency’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program,  designed to fund bold ideas that push scientific boundaries. Established in 2009, the NIH describes the award as “supporting exceptionally innovative and/or unconventional research projects with the potential to create or overturn fundamental paradigms.”

Interoception remains one of biology’s least understood systems, partly because it’s so difficult to study. Unlike external senses that rely on clearly defined organs—eyes, ears, nose—interoceptive pathways are diffuse and overlapping. Signals from the heart, gut, or lungs intermingle as they travel to the brain, blurring the boundaries between systems.

Since the sensations monitored by interoception originate deep within the body and are interpreted largely without our conscious awareness, researchers often liken it to a kind of “hidden sixth sense.” Understanding how this internal sensory network functions could profoundly reshape how medicine approaches everything from stress regulation to chronic disease.

With NIH backing, the researchers plan to systematically map how sensory neurons connect to internal organs, including the heart and gastrointestinal tract.

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Physicists Change the Nature of Matter With Light in Breakthrough That Blurs the Line Between Science and Magic

When physicists at the University of Konstanz shone a flash of light on a simple iron crystal, they weren’t expecting to watch the rules of matter change before their eyes. Yet that seems to be what happened.

In an experiment that reads like science fiction, the team discovered a way to use light—not heat or exotic materials—to alter a substance’s magnetic properties, effectively turning one material into another in a fraction of a trillionth of a second.

The results, published in Science Advances, show that the effect doesn’t require supercooling or specialized alloys: it happens at room temperature. The light responsible doesn’t melt, burn, or deform the crystal. Instead, it simply changes the way its atoms behave. This process opens a door to new physics that merges the quantum and the macroscopic. With this, light itself can rewrite the physical identity of matter.

The researchers describe their discovery as a way to “change the frequencies and properties of the material in a non-thermal way.” In other words, they have shown that light alone, “not temperature,” can alter a material’s magnetic behavior, offering a new route to control magnetism without heat.

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“Every solid has its own set of frequencies: electronic transitions, lattice vibrations, magnetic excitations,” lead author and physicist at the University of Konstanz, Dr. Davide Bossini, said in a statement. “Every material resonates in its own way. It changes the nature of the material, the ‘magnetic DNA of the material,’ so to speak, its ‘fingerprint.’ It has practically become a different material with new properties for the time being.”

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Researchers used laser pulses to excite pairs of “magnons”—quantum waves that represent collective spin oscillations in a magnetic material. These magnons act like tiny disturbances or waves in a sea of electron spins. By controlling them, researchers found they could change the material’s magnetic “fingerprint.”

“The result was a huge surprise for us,” Dr. Bossini said. “No theory has ever predicted it.”

In essence, when light strikes the hematite crystal, it excites pairs of magnons to vibrate in sync. Those vibrations cascade through the lattice, coupling with other magnetic modes—types of oscillations in the arrangement of atomic spins—and reshaping the entire magnetic spectrum.

That transformation lasts only as long as the excited states persist—mere trillionths of a second—but it’s long enough to prove that light can temporarily redefine the intrinsic behavior of matter itself.

To achieve the effect, researchers used haematite, a naturally occurring iron ore once used in medieval compasses. “Haematite is widespread. Centuries ago, it was already used for compasses in seafaring,” Dr. Bossini said.

Using ultrafast laser pulses, each less than a millionth of a billionth of a second, the researchers could excite high-momentum magnons—quantized packets of spin waves that carry magnetic energy—within the hematite, a type of iron oxide. When these tiny magnetic waves coupled with lower-energy modes (slower, less energetic oscillations), the material’s resonance pattern shifted. This wasn’t a thermal effect from heating; it was purely quantum mechanical.

In their paper, the researchers verified this by changing the laser’s pulse rate and intensity. Even when the overall heat input varied by a factor of four, the results were identical. The magnetic states had changed, but not because of temperature. “The effects are not caused by laser excitation. The cause is light, not temperature,” Dr. Bossini confirmed.

In traditional physics, to alter a material’s state—for example, turning metal into a magnet—you’d need to heat, cool, or chemically modify it. However, here, the transformation is instantaneous and reversible.

Once the light stops, the material returns to its normal state. But for those fleeting moments, its magnetic behavior, and potentially its quantum properties, become something entirely new.

The experiment demonstrates a fundamental ability to control quantum phenomena at room temperature, something that has long eluded researchers. Normally, the delicate interactions behind quantum behavior collapse at everyday temperatures. However, by exciting magnon pairs, researchers achieved effects previously observable only near absolute zero.

These findings could have big implications for quantum technology. In quantum tech, information is stored and processed using magnetic spins and waveforms, not electric charges. This technique offers a way to modulate those spins without heat or energy loss. Heat and energy loss are major hurdles for developing fast and efficient quantum devices.

This ability to control magnetism with light could one day enable faster data storage and transmission at terahertz rates—without the thermal slowdowns that limit current electronic systems.

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