University of Queensland

Science world: AUSTRALIAN PHYSICISTS PROVED TAHT TIME TRAVEL IS POSSIBLE

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Scientists from the University of Queensland have used photons (single particles of light) to simulate quantum particles travelling through time. The research is cutting edge and the results could be dramatic!

Their research, entitled “Experimental simulation of closed timelike curves “, is published in the latest issue of Nature Communications. The grandfather paradox states that if a time traveler were to go back in time, he could accidentally prevent his grandparents from meeting, and thus prevent his own birth.

However, if he had never been born, he could never have traveled back in time, in the first place. The paradoxes are largely caused by Einstein’s theory of relativity, and the solution to it, the Gödel metric.

How relativity works

Einstein’s theory of relativity is made up of two parts – general relativity and special relativity. Special relativity posits that space and time are aspects of the same thing, known as the space-time continuum, and that time can slow down or speed up, depending on how fast you are moving, relative to something else.

Gravity can also bend time, and Einstein’s theory of general relativity suggests that it would be possible to travel backwards in time by following a space-time path, i.e. a closed timeline curve that returns to the starting point in space, but arrives at an earlier time.

It was predicted in 1991 that quantum mechanics could avoid some of the paradoxes caused by Einstein’s theory of relativity, as quantum particles behave almost outside the realm of physics.

“The question of time travel features at the interface between two of our most successful yet incompatible physical theories – Einstein’s general relativity and quantum mechanics,” said Martin Ringbauer, a PhD student at UQ’s School of Mathematics and Physics and a lead author of the paper.

“Einstein’s theory describes the world at the very large scale of stars and galaxies, while quantum mechanics is an excellent description of the world at the very small scale of atoms and molecules.”

Simulating time travel

The scientists simulated the behavior of two photons interacting with each other in two different cases. In the first case, one photon passed through a wormhole and then interacted with its older self. In the second case, when a photon travels through normal space-time and interacts with another photon trapped inside a closed timeline curve forever.

“The properties of quantum particles are ‘fuzzy’ or uncertain to start with, so this gives them enough wiggle room to avoid inconsistent time travel situations,” said co-author Professor Timothy Ralph. “Our study provides insights into where and how nature might behave differently from what our theories predict.”

Although it has been possible to simulate time travel with tiny quantum particles, the same might not be possible for larger particles or atoms, which are groups of particles.

The largest dinosaur footprint ever has been found in Australia’s ‘Jurassic Park’.

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This thing is huge.

On a 25 kilometre (15.5 mile) stretch of coastline in Western Australia, there lies a prehistoric treasure trove.

Thousands of approximately 130-million-year-old dinosaur footprints are embedded in a stretch of land that can only be studied at low tide, when the sea – and the sharks and crocodiles that inhabit the region  – can’t hide them.

 What scientists found there is truly special, according to a study recently published in The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

“Nowhere else in the world has as many dinosaurs represented by track that Walmadany does,” Steve Salisbury, a palaeontologist at the University of Queensland and lead author of the study, says in a video describing the area.

Included among those many dinosaur tracks is the largest dinosaur footprint ever found. At approximately 1.75 metres long (about 5 feet, 9 inches), the track came from some sort of giant sauropod, a long-necked herbivore.

“There’s nothing that comes close” in terms of size, Salisbury tells CNN.

But there’s far more there than one giant footprint.

Dinosaur footprints australia

“We see a unique dinosaur fauna that includes things like stegosaurs and some of the biggest dinosaurs to have ever walked the planet, gigantic sauropods,” Salisbury says in the video.

This was the first evidence of stegosaurs ever found in Australia.

 There are also tracks from meat-eating theropods that walked on two feet and left three-toed prints with shapes similar to those many remember from the film Jurassic Park.

In this case, the three-toed prints have a special significance: in local lore, the tracks belong to Marala, an Emu man who journeyed through the region, giving laws that dictated how people should behave.

Dinosaur footprints

In a press release announcing the findings, Salisbury also describes the various other types of dinosaur tracks discovered.

“There were five different types of predatory dinosaur tracks, at least six types of tracks from long-necked herbivorous sauropods, four types of tracks from two-legged herbivorous ornithopods, and six types of tracks from armoured dinosaurs,” he says.

Dinosaur australia footprints

The University of Queensland researchers were brought in more than five years ago by the aboriginal Goolarabooloo community, who are the traditional custodians of the area and have known about the tracks for many years.

The Western Australian Government had selected the region as a processing site for liquid natural gas, and the local groups wanted experts to help protect the region and show what was at stake.

The area was designated a National Heritage site in 2011, and two years later it was announced that the gas production project wouldn’t happen.

Dinosaur australia footprints

Since no equipment could be left out when the tide came in, the researchers used drones to map the area with digital photography and laser scans.

According to Salisbury, they have spent more than 400 hours out on the reefs.

“It’s such a magical place – Australia’s own Jurassic Park, in a spectacular wilderness setting.

Soure:sciencealert.com

Australian Scientists Prove Time Travel Is Possible.

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There are some physicists who believe that time travel can be done.

At the University of Queensland, Australia a team of scientists have examined how time-traveling photons react; proving that, at the quantum level, the grandfather paradox-which makes time travel impossible-could be fixed. In the study, photons (single particles of light) to play out quantum particles traveling back from time. Through behavioral study, scientists have unveiled much stranger aspects of modern physics. 

“The properties of quantum particles are ‘uncertain to start with, so this gives them enough wiggle room to avoid inconsistent time travel situations. Our study provides insights into where and how nature might behave differently from what our theories predict,” says co-author Professor Timothy Ralph.

The Daily Mail further states: In the simulation, the researchers examined the behavior of a photon traveling through time and interacting with its older self. In their experiment they made use of the closely related, fictitious, case where the photon travels through normal space-time and interacts with another photon that is stuck in a time-travelling loop through a wormhole, known as a closed timelike curve (CTC).

Simulating the behavior of this second photon, they were able to study the behavior of the first – and the results show that consistent evolutions can be achieved when preparing the second photon in just the right way.

Physicists believe that due to Albert Einstein’s theories of general and special relativity, time travel is indeed a possibility. Special Relativity means that time and space are the same aspect, known as the space-time continuum, and time can either speed up or slow down, depending on your speed, relative to something other.

General Relativity states that it would be entirely possible to go back in time through a space-time path. In 2012, physicists Serge Haroche and David Wineland shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for the demonstration of “quantum weirdness” and how it can’t exist at the subatomic micro-world level, and how it can appear itself in the macro-world.

“The question of time travel features at the interface between two of our most successful yet incompatible physical theories – Einstein’s general relativity and quantum mechanics. Einstein’s theory describes the world at the very large scale of stars and galaxies, while quantum mechanics is an excellent description of the world at the very small scale of atoms and molecules,” says Martin Ringbauer, a PhD student at University of Queensland’s School of Mathematics and Physics, and a lead author of the paper.

In a documentary from the BBC, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking finds that it isn’t possible to go back into time. There isn’t a lot to look forward to at all.

Now, there are some developments in quantum theories that could deliver understanding of how to take on time travel paradoxes.

 

Zinc ‘starves’ deadly bacteria.

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Australian researchers have found that zinc can ‘starve’ one of the world’s most deadly bacteria by preventing its uptake of an essential metal.

The finding, by infectious disease researchers at the University of Adelaide and The University of Queensland, opens the way for further work to design antibacterial agents in the fight against Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Streptococcus pneumoniae is responsible for more than one million deaths a year, killing children, the elderly and other vulnerable people by causing pneumonia, meningitis, and other serious infectious diseases.

Published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, the researchers describe how zinc “jams shut” a protein transporter in the bacteria so that it cannot take up manganese, an essential metal that Streptococcus pneumoniae needs to be able to invade and cause disease in humans.

“It’s long been known that zinc plays an important role in the body’s ability to protect against bacterial infection, but this is the first time anyone has been able to show how zinc actually blocks an essential pathway causing the bacteria to starve,” says project leader Dr Christopher McDevitt, Research Fellow in the University of Adelaide’s Research Centre for Infectious Diseases.

“This work spans fields from chemistry and biochemistry to microbiology and immunology to see, at an atomic level of detail, how this transport protein is responsible for keeping the bacteria alive by scavenging one essential metal (manganese), but at the same time also makes the bacteria vulnerable to being killed by another metal (zinc),” says Professor Bostjan Kobe, Professor of Structural Biology at The University of Queensland.

The study reveals that the bacterial transporter (PsaBCA) uses a ‘spring-hammer’ mechanism to bind the metals. The difference in size between the two metals, manganese and zinc, causes the transporter to bind them in different ways. The smaller size of zinc means that when it binds to the transporter, the mechanism closes too tightly around the zinc, causing an essential spring in the protein to unwind too far, jamming it shut and blocking the transporter from being able to take up manganese.

“Without manganese, these bacteria can easily be cleared by the immune system,” says Dr McDevitt. “For the first time, we understand how these types of transporters function. With this new information we can start to design the next generation of antibacterial agents to target and block these essential transporters.”

Global impact of depression revealed

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Depression is the second most common cause of disability worldwide after back pain, according to a review of research.

Depression

The disease must be treated as a global public health priority, experts report in the journal PLOS Medicine.

The study compared clinical depression with more than 200 other diseases and injuries as a cause of disability.

Globally, only a small proportion of patients have access to treatment, the World Health Organization says.

“Start Quote

Depression is a big problem and we definitely need to pay more attention to it than we are now”

Dr Alize Ferrari University of Queensland

Depression was ranked at number two as a global cause of disability, but its impact varied in different countries and regions. For example, rates of major depression were highest in Afghanistan and lowest in Japan. In the UK, depression was ranked at number three in terms of years lived with a disability.

Dr Alize Ferrari from the University of Queensland’s School of Population Health led the study.

“Depression is a big problem and we definitely need to pay more attention to it than we are now,” she told BBC News.

“There’s still more work to be done in terms of awareness of the disease and also in coming up with successful ways of treating it.

“The burden is different between countries, so it tends to be higher in low and middle income countries and lower in high income countries.”

Policy-makers had made an effort to bring depression to the forefront, but there was a lot more work to be done, she added.

“There’s lots of stigma we know associated with mental health,” she explained.

“What one person recognises as disabling might be different to another person and might be different across countries as well, there are lots of cultural implications and interpretations that come in place, which makes it all the more important to raise awareness of the size of the problem and also signs and how to detect it.”

The data – for the year 2010 – follows similar studies in 1990 and 2000 looking at the global burden of depression.

Commenting on the study, Dr Daniel Chisholm, a health economist at the department for mental health and substance abuse at the World Health Organization said depression was a very disabling condition.

“It’s a big public health challenge and a big problem to be reckoned with but not enough is being done.

“Around the world only a tiny proportion of people get any sort of treatment or diagnosis.”

The WHO recently launched a global mental health action plan to raise awareness among policy-makers.

Brain tumour genes identified.

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The team was led by Professor Brandon Wainwright, Dr Laura Genovesi and Dr Melissa Davis from The University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience.

Professor Brandon Wainwright said these genes provided potential targets for treatment.

“Brain tumours are the most common cause of cancer death in children,” Professor Wainwright said.

“Those who do survive often experience significant neurological, intellectual and physical disabilities as a result of their treatment, which involves surgical removal of the tumour followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

“We clearly need more effective and less invasive options to treat medulloblastoma and improve outcomes for both children and adults with this devastating disease.”

There are four different sub-types of medulloblastoma, each with their own molecular signature.

The researchers identified underlying genetic regulatory networks that were present in all of the sub-types, a discovery that Professor Wainwright said was important in advancing treatments.

“We are now searching for existing drugs that may block these gene networks and act as viable treatment alternatives for medulloblastoma.”

The team, which included researchers from Australia, Singapore, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, made the discovery after screening 85 tumours.

The results were published in the highly prestigious scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.

Bees inspire robot aircraft.

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Scientists at Australia’s Vision Centre have discovered how the honeybee can land anywhere with utmost precision and grace – and the knowledge may soon help build incredible robot aircraft.

By sensing how rapidly their destination ‘zooms in’ as they fly towards it, honeybees can control their flight speed in time for a perfect touchdown without needing to know how fast they’re flying or how far away the destination is.

Srinivasan-Groening-Soccol-McGrath_honeybee

This discovery may advance the design of cheaper, lighter robot aircraft that only need a video camera to land safely on surfaces of any orientation, says Professor Mandyam Srinivasan of The Vision Centre (VC) and The University of Queensland Brain Research Institute.

“Orchestrating a safe landing is one of the greatest challenges for flying animals and airborne vehicles,” says Prof. Srinivasan. “To achieve a smooth landing, it’s essential to slow down in time for the speed to be close to zero at the time of touchdown.”

Humans can find out their distance from an object using stereovision – because their two eyes, which are separated by about 65 mm, capture different views of the object. However, insects can’t do the same thing because they have close-set eyes, Prof. Srinivasan explains.

“So in order to land on the ground, they use their eyes to sense the speed of the image of the ground beneath them,” he says. “By keeping the speed of this image constant, they slow down automatically as they approach the ground, stopping just in time for touchdown.

“However, in the natural world, bees would only occasionally land on flat, horizontal surfaces. So it’s important to know how they land on rough terrain, ridges, vertical surfaces or flowers with the same delicacy and grace.”

In the study, the VC researchers trained honeybees to land on discs that were placed vertically, and filmed them using high speed video cameras.

“The boards carried spiral patterns that could be rotated at various speeds by a motor,” says Prof. Srinivasan. “When we spun the spiral to make it appear to expand, the bees ‘hit the brakes’ because they thought they were approaching the board much faster than they really were.

“When we spun the spiral the other way to make it appear to contract, the bees sped up, sometimes crashing into the disc. This shows that landing bees keep track of how rapidly the image ‘zooms in’, and they adjust their flight speed to keep this ‘zooming rate’ constant.”

“Imagine you’re in space and you don’t know how far away you are from a star,” Prof. Srinivasan says. “As you fly towards it, the other stars ‘move away’ and it becomes the focus. Then when the star starts to ‘zoom in’ faster than the regular rate, you’ll slow down to keep the ‘zooming rate’ constant.

“It’s the same for bees – when they’re about to reach a flower, the image of the flower will expand faster than usual. This causes them to slow down more and more as they get closer, eventually stopping when they reach it.”

The VC researchers also developed a mathematical model for guiding landings, based on the bees’ landing strategy. Prof. Srinivasan says unlike all current engineering-based methods, this visually guided technique does not require knowledge about the distance to the surface or the speed at which the surface is approached.

“The problem with current robot aircraft technology is they need to use radars or sonar or laser beams to work out how far the surface is,” Prof. Srinivasan says. “Not only is the equipment expensive and cumbersome, using active radiation can also give the aircraft away.

“On the other hand, this vision-based system only requires a simple video camera that can be found in smartphones. The camera, by ‘seeing’ how rapidly the image expands, allows the aircraft to land smoothly and undetected on a wide range of surfaces with the precision of a honeybee.”

Treatable cancer subtype found.

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Australian researchers have identified a potentially treatable subtype of pancreatic cancer, which accounts for about 2% of new cases. This subtype expresses high levels of the HER2 gene. HER2-amplified breast and gastric cancers are currently treated with Herceptin.

Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in Western societies, with a 5-year survival rate of less than 5%. It is a molecularly diverse disease, meaning that each tumour will respond only to specific treatments that target its unique molecular make-up.

Sebastian_Kaulitzki_PancreaticCancer_shutterstock

A new study, published in Genome Medicine, used a combination of modern genetics and traditional pathology to estimate the prevalence of HER2-amplified pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic surgeon Professor Andrew Biankin, from Sydney’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research and the Wolfson Wohl Cancer Research Centre at the University of Glasgow, worked with pathologist Dr Angela Chou and bioinformatician Dr Mark Cowley from Garvan, as well as cancer genomics specialist Dr Nicola Waddell from the Queensland Centre for Medical Genomics at the University of Queensland.

Using data sourced from the Australian Pancreatic Cancer Genome Initiative1 (APGI), the team identified a patient with high-level HER2 amplification. Using whole genome DNA sequencing of the tumour, Dr Nicola Waddell pinpointed the specific region of the genome that contains HER2.

Dr Angela Chou then performed detailed histopathological characterisation of HER2 protein in tissue samples taken in the past from 469 pancreatic cancer patients. This produced a set of standardised laboratory testing guidelines for testing HER2 in pancreatic cancer, and showed the frequency of HER2 amplified pancreatic cancer of 2.1%. 

Dr Chou also found that – like HER2-amplified breast cancer patients – the cancers of those with HER2-amplification in the pancreas tended to spread to the brain and lung, rather than the norm, which is the liver.

Dr Mark Cowley analysed all the data generated by the project and compared it to other sequences from many cancer types produced by the International Cancer Genome Consortium and The Cancer Genome Atlas project. “HER2 amplification was prevalent at just over 2% frequency in 11 different cancers,” he observed.

“We make the case that if HER2 is such a strong molecular feature of several cancers, then perhaps recruiting patients to clinical trials on the basis of the molecular features rather than the anatomical region of their cancer could have a significant impact on patient outcomes, and still make economic sense for pharmaceutical companies.”

“Such ‘Basket trials’ as they are sometimes called, may advance treatment options for those with less common cancer types.”

In Australia, 2,000 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer each year, and so 40 are likely to have the HER2 amplified form. 

While Herceptin is available through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for treating breast and gastric cancer, it is not available for treating HER2-amplified pancreatic cancer as no clinical trial has yet been conducted to determine the drug’s efficacy in that case.

The Garvan Institute in collaboration with the Australasian Gastro-Intestinal Trials Group, is recruiting pancreatic cancer patients through the APGI for a pilot clinical trial, known as ‘IMPaCT’2, to test personalised medicine strategies. 

Potential patients will be screened for specific genetic characteristics, including high levels of HER2, based on their biological material sequenced as part of the APGI study. Once these characteristics are confirmed, patients will be randomised to receive standard therapy or a personalised therapy based on their unique genetic make-up.