There is considerable debate over whether plants are conscious and this, indeed, is an important question. Here I look at developments in neuroscience, physics and mathematics that may impact on this question. Two major concomitants of consciousness in animals are microtubule function and electrical gamma wave synchrony. Both these factors may also play a role in plant consciousness. I show that plants possess aperiodic quasicrystal structures composed of ribosomes that may enable quantum computing, which has been suggested to lie at the core of animal consciousness. Finally I look at whether a microtubule fractal suggests that electric current plays a part in conventional neurocomputing processes in plants.
SN10 Successful Flight and soft Landing, 🚀15min later methane leak goes boom 💥😅STARSHIP SN10 10KM FLIGHT Links: SpaceX Official: www.SpaceX.comSpaceX YouTu… See More.
As early as Wednesday, March 3, the SpaceX team will attempt a high-altitude flight test of Starship serial number 10 (SN10) – our third high-altitude suborbital flight test of a Starship prototype from SpaceX’s site in Cameron County, Texas. Similar to the high-altitude flight tests of Starship SN8 and SN9, SN10 will be powered through ascent by three Raptor engines, each shutting down in sequence prior to the vehicle reaching apogee – approximately 10 km in altitude. SN10 will perform a propellant transition to the internal header tanks, which hold landing propellant, before reorienting itself for reentry and a controlled aerodynamic descent.
The Starship prototype will descend under active aerodynamic control, accomplished by independent movement of two forward and two aft flaps on the vehicle. All four flaps are actuated by an onboard flight computer to control Starship’s attitude during flight and enable precise landing at the intended location. SN10’s Raptor engines will then reignite as the vehicle attempts a landing flip maneuver immediately before touching down on the landing pad adjacent to the launch mount.
A controlled aerodynamic descent with body flaps and vertical landing capability, combined with in-space refilling, are critical to landing Starship at destinations across the solar system where prepared surfaces or runways do not exist, and returning to Earth. This capability will enable a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo on long-duration, interplanetary flights and help humanity return to the Moon, and travel to Mars and beyond.
Given the dynamic schedule of development testing, stay tuned to our social media channels for updates as we move toward SpaceX’s third high-altitude flight test of Starship!
| Phononic crystals as a nanomechanical computing platform.
Without electronics and photonics, there would be no computers, smartphones, sensors, or information and communication technologies. In the coming years, the new field of phononics may further expand these options. That field is concerned with understanding and controlling lattice vibrations (phonons) in solids. In order to realize phononic devices, however, lattice vibrations have to be controlled as precisely as commonly realized in the case of electrons or photons.
Here you go, the non sensational reasoning behind owning lots of land:
Late last year, Eric O’Keefe was researching a mysterious recent purchase of 14500 acres of prime Washington state farmland. His magazine, The Land Report, tracks major land transactions and produces an annual list of the 100 biggest US landowners.
Sales of more than a thousand acres are “blue-moon events,” O’Keefe noted, so this one stood out. And Eastern Washington has some of the richest, most expensive farmland in the country. But the purchaser of record was a small, obscure company in Louisiana.
Is that Trump in your picture profile, Roger? I don’t think I can take this post seriously for various reasons.
16 Replies.
Trent Condellone.
He’s going to chip the farmland, wait and see.
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Allow me one more indulgence, would you? I remember finding this on a bottom shelf in my local library when I was just a young kid with dreams of scientific study in my future. This was one of the first books I read on the study of chimpanzees. Next of Kin is a fascinating glimpse into the work of Roger Fouts and the surrounding team of scientists who attempted to teach a chimpanzee named Washoe how to communicate through sign language. This story has stayed with me for years as one I remember fondly and with great interest—and I’m not the only one. It currently holds a five-star rating on Amazon. Curious? Give it a read!
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found a new way to harness properties of light waves that can radically increase the amount of data they carry. They demonstrated the emission of discrete twisting laser beams from antennas made up of concentric rings roughly equal to the diameter of a human hair, small enough to be placed on computer chips.
The total amount of data generated worldwide is expected to reach 175 zettabytes (1 ZB equals 1 billion terabytes) by 2025. If 175 ZB were stored on Blu-ray disks, the stack would be 23 times the distance to the moon. There is an urgent need to develop storage technologies that can accommodate this enormous amount of data.
