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As nasty as these are, the Japanese Giant Hornet is notably smaller than the Asian Giant Hornet which hails from China. And like all dangerous Chinese products, that one is being exported to the US. To Illinois, in fact:
After stage separation, the center engine of the recent Falcon 9 launch was re-lighted. While the stage went wobbly and the engine shut down due to the stage spinning, it was a step on the way to demonstrating a booster stage that can re-enter and land. How much of a step? The next Falcon 9 launch to the ISS, scheduled for February, is to have landing legs, and an attempt will be made to land back at the Cape.
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Here we demonstrate a quantum nonlinear medium inside which individual photons travel as massive particles with strong mutual attraction, such that the propagation of photon pairs is dominated by a two-photon bound state. We achieve this through dispersive coupling of light to strongly interacting atoms in highly excited Rydberg states. We measure the dynamical evolution of the two-photon wave function using time-resolved quantum state tomography, and demonstrate a conditional phase shift exceeding one radian, resulting in polarization-entangled photon pairs. Particular applications of this technique include all-optical switching, deterministic photonic quantum logic and the generation of strongly correlated states of light.
Ummm, sure. How’s about we convert that into popcultureese?
“It’s not an in-apt analogy to compare this to lightsabers,” said Professor Mikhail Lukin. “When these photons interact with each other, they’re pushing against and deflect each other. The physics of what’s happening in these molecules is similar to what we see in the movies.”
The translation seems to be that scientists have found a way to make photons interact with each other and actually bind together into “molecules.” I’m not entirely sure how that translates to “light saber;” my first thought was more along the lines of those damned Death Star laser beams that come together at a point in empty space and change direction.
For a number of years, numerous police departments around the US have been operating “bait cars:” cars owned by the police that are loaded with tracking systems, hidden cameras and the ability to shut off the engine and lock the doors remotely. These cars, typically expensive-looking, are left in high-crime areas, often with a little play-acting to draw attention to them. The police then watch and wait, and sooner or later someone will come along and get in. Sometimes the criminal just digs aroudn and steals stuff from inside the car (laptops seem popular), but they are caught on several cameras. Sometimes the criminals steal the car, and are now arrested for a much bigger crime. The concept was sufficiently interesting to merit a five-year TV series. The show is entertaining in that funny-yet-sad way that “Hard Core Pawn” and “Idiocracy” are, and for the same reason: these people are friggen’ morons.
Well, the Brits have their own unique take on the concept. Instead of cars used to trap the genetic defectives who think stealing stuff is a good idea, the Brits modify apartments. And not just with hidden cameras… they’re using chemical warfare.
While the headline says “houses,” it appears they’re actually modifying apartments. One of the things they use is “SmartWater,” a liquid that is sprayed in a very fine mist when an intrusion is detected. The mist lands on the intruder and fluoresces under UV light, making the intruder glow green.
Once again this is an area of life that saddens me that we’re not living in a more sci-fi reality: would it not be better if bait cars and bait houses had built-in interdimensional teleporters? Instead of arrests and trials and all that, anyone who breaks in is automatically dimensionally shifted to an alternate reality. Or even just beamed up to the moon, where a few hundred pounds of water and carbon would come in handy.