Search
1000 results for “science_george”
-
So, these were my predictions for the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics:
1/
-
And here's the whole thing posted with just a bit more than two hours to spare:
https://mastodon.world/@Science_George/117392789470815916 -
All of the above was premised on the Nobel Committee recognizing cosmology/astrophysics this year, but, assuming my suspicion is wrong about that (as is usually the case!), my next guess would be the Nobel Committee will recognize contributions in materials science this year.
6/
-
A follow-up here, as the deadline rapidly approaches, but then, if you know me, that shouldn't be surprising.
I've been suspecting the Nobel Committee might lean in the direction of materials science this year, or (considering recipient longevity, to be honest) maybe cosmology.
-
Anyway, for what they're worth, those are my predictions for how today's announcement for the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics might go.
As always, my congratulations go out to all of the above for all the work they've done, and my congratulations to whomever wins today!
/11
-
My final guess for this year is that David D. Awschalom might win for discovering the spin Hall effect in semiconductors &/or that Lene V. Hau might win/share for slowing/stopping light with Bose-Einstein condensates.
10/
-
Next I'd guess Yakir Aharonov & Michael V. Berry to win for their contributions to foundational quantum mechanics
If not, then I'd guess Časlav Brukner, Massimiliano Proietti, & Alessandro Fedrizzi to win for their experimental verification of local observer independence.
9/
-
Next, I'd guess that Alexander Polyakov might win for his contributions to quantum field theory - a win he might share with Zhang Xiang for his 1st detecting heat transfer across a vacuum gap, via quantum fluctuations resulting from the Casimir effect.
If neither win today,
8/
-
Specifically, that Rafi Bistritzer, Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, & Allan H. MacDonald will each share this Nobel for their theoretical & experimental work on twisted bilayer graphene.
Alternatively, Aephraim Steinberg might win for 1st measuring the duration of quantum tunneling.
7/
-
as he did when he won 2024's Wolf Prize in Physics - it's possible he may share* this year's Nobel with Alan Guth & Andrei Linde for their work on cosmic inflation.
*(Paul Steinhardt should also, but almost certainly won't because he's since rejected his previous work.)
5/
-
She might also share that Nobel with Sandra M. Faber for the contributions to cosmology made by her work in extra-galactic astronomy.
If neither of those two women are awarded a share of this year's Nobel, and assuming that Martin Rees still wins but doesn't do so alone -
4/
-
That Nobel may be shared with Jocelyn Bell Burnell for her pulsar research, which, in recent years, had already been recognized by her Breakthrough Prize win, and her having been only the 2nd woman to win the Royal Society's Copley Medal, the world's oldest scientific prize.
3/
-
My suspicion is that the Nobel Committee is leaning towards recognizing something in cosmology/astrophysics this year, so that's where I'll start.
My 1st guess is that Martin Rees will be awarded this year's Physics Nobel for his career worth of contributions in cosmology.
2/
-
Here are my predictions for today's announcement of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics - in descending order of my expectations for the likelihood of each.
I was totally incorrect for nine of the past thirteen years, so don't bet on any of these, but just laugh when I'm wrong!
1/
-
Ok, I've just finished my predictions for this year - and with only a couple hours & change to spare!
-
CW: This article discusses deaths, alleged government secrecy, scientific controversy, and conspiracy theories surrounding claims of anti-gravity research. Some claims remain unverified or disputed.
The Scientists Who “Disappeared” After Anti-Gravity Research: What We Actually Know
Artistic depiction of superconducting gravity research inspired by the controversial work associated with Ning Li and advanced propulsion studies.Dear Cherubs, the internet loves a vanished scientist almost as much as it loves a secret government laboratory. Add anti-gravity, superconductors, Chinese-born physicists and a mysterious silence in the research record, and suddenly we have the ingredients for a conspiracy theory with its own soundtrack.
Ning Li is the name most often attached to the story. Born in China in 1943, Li moved to the United States in 1983 and eventually worked at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where she researched possible interactions between gravity and superconductors.
THE SCIENCE WAS REAL
This part is important: Li’s research was not invented by YouTube.
NASA’s Technical Reports Server contains records of experiments involving high-temperature superconductors and proposed gravitational effects. A 1997 paper involving Li and colleagues reported that experiments using superconductors produced acceleration changes of less than two parts in 100 million of normal gravity. In other words, the documented result was tiny — nowhere near a working anti-gravity machine.
NASA also investigated earlier claims that rotating superconductors could produce measurable reductions in weight. Its later technical material noted that such effects had not been independently confirmed, while NASA documentation described the evidence for gravity modification as anecdotal.
Li left the university in 1999 and founded AC Gravity LLC. In 2001, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded the company a reported $448,970 grant for further research. The grant ended in 2002, but its results were never publicly published.
And that is where the mystery gets interesting.
THE “DISAPPEARANCE”
According to the Huntsville Business Journal, Li later appeared at a 2003 MITRE conference discussing “AC Gravity Fields.” Her son, George Men, told the publication that she continued research connected with the Department of Defense and stopped publicly discussing her work after obtaining a top-secret security clearance.
That does not prove she discovered anti-gravity. It does explain why a researcher who had previously published openly could suddenly become difficult to find in the public scientific record.
It also turns out that Li did not literally disappear. Her family knew where she was. In 2014, she was seriously injured after being struck by a vehicle in Huntsville and subsequently developed Alzheimer’s disease. She died in 2021.
Then there is Amy Eskridge, another Huntsville researcher associated with gravity modification and advanced propulsion. Eskridge discussed anti-gravity research publicly and claimed some work required NASA approval before publication. She died in 2022, aged 34, and her death has since become part of online claims about scientists being silenced.
But there is no established evidence that Eskridge was killed because of her research, nor that Li was eliminated for discovering a revolutionary technology. Those are allegations and theories, not established facts.
As noted by thisclaimer.com, stories sitting at the intersection of science, secrecy and the internet deserve curiosity — but also receipts.
The genuinely fascinating story is therefore not “scientists discovered anti-gravity and vanished.” It is that real researchers investigated extraordinary gravitational claims, government agencies showed enough interest to fund or test some of the work, and parts of the later research trail became difficult to reconstruct.
That is intriguing enough without adding a villain in a black helicopter.
Sources:
NASA Technical Reports Server — https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19990039542
NASA Technical Reports Server — https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19990104365
NASA Technical Reports Server — https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20020016600
NASA Technical Reports Server — https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20070004897/downloads/20070004897.pdf
Huntsville Business Journal — https://huntsvillebusinessjournal.com/news/2023/07/30/solving-the-mystery-of-huntsvilles-brilliant-scientist-disappearing/
Thisclaimer — https://thisclaimer.com
The Thisclaimer logo blends a classic warning symbol with a brain icon to represent critical thinking, curiosity, and thoughtful disclaimers #advancedPropulsion #amyEskridge #antiGravity #departmentOfDefense #gravityResearch #NASA #ningLi #scienceMysteries #superconductors -
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Medicine goes to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel for optogenetics — switching individual neurons on and off with light. A light-sensitive protein from pond algae became the tool mapping the circuits behind memory, mood and disease.
-
🧠 ON PEUT ALLUMER DES NEURONES AVEC DE LA LUMIÈRE.
Ce n'est pas une métaphore.
Dans un laboratoire, des chercheurs peuvent envoyer de la lumière dans le cerveau d'un animal et provoquer l'activation de populations précises de neurones.
Un flash.
Quelques millisecondes.
Et des cellules nerveuses jusque-là silencieuses se mettent à produire un signal électrique.
On peut également utiliser d'autres protéines pour inhiber leur activité.
Cela permet de poser au cerveau une question d'une manière assez brutale :
« Est-ce que CE groupe de neurones est réellement responsable de ce que j'observe ? »
On l'active.
On regarde ce qui change.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🔦 Pendant longtemps, étudier le cerveau ressemblait en partie à observer une ville depuis très loin.
On pouvait constater qu'une région s'activait lorsqu'un animal effectuait une action.
On pouvait stimuler électriquement une zone.
On pouvait utiliser des molécules agissant sur l'activité neuronale.
Mais un cerveau n'est pas constitué de quartiers où tous les habitants font le même métier.
Dans une même région coexistent différentes populations de neurones.
Les chercheurs rêvaient donc d'un interrupteur beaucoup plus précis.
Quelque chose capable de cibler certains neurones…
et de les commander suffisamment rapidement pour suivre le rythme du cerveau.
Cet interrupteur existait déjà.
Simplement, personne ne l'avait inventé.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🌱 Il nageait dans l'eau.
Chlamydomonas reinhardtii est une algue verte unicellulaire.
Une cellule.
Deux flagelles.
Et une capacité particulièrement utile lorsqu'on dépend de la lumière pour vivre :
elle peut s'orienter en fonction de celle-ci.
Pendant des années, des chercheurs ont essayé de comprendre comment un organisme aussi minuscule pouvait détecter la lumière et transformer cette information en mouvement.
Peter Hegemann et Georg Nagel ont notamment travaillé sur d'étranges protéines présentes dans sa membrane.
Les channelrhodopsines.
Lorsque certaines d'entre elles reçoivent de la lumière, elles ouvrent un canal permettant à des ions chargés de traverser la membrane.
Autrement dit :
la lumière peut déclencher un signal électrique dans une cellule.
Et là, quelqu'un a fini par poser une question extraordinaire.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🧠 Et si on mettait cet interrupteur…
dans un neurone ?
Les chercheurs peuvent introduire le gène permettant de fabriquer une channelrhodopsine dans certaines cellules nerveuses.
Le neurone fabrique alors lui-même cette protéine sensible à la lumière.
On éclaire.
Le canal s'ouvre.
Des ions traversent la membrane.
L'activité électrique du neurone peut être déclenchée.
En 2005, l'équipe de Karl Deisseroth montre notamment que cette stratégie permet de contrôler avec une grande précision temporelle l'activité de neurones de mammifères.
L'optogénétique était en train de devenir l'un des outils les plus puissants des neurosciences modernes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
💥 ET L'UN DES OUTILS QUI NOUS PERMET AUJOURD'HUI D'INTERROGER LE CERVEAU EST NÉ EN CHERCHANT À COMPRENDRE COMMENT UNE ALGUE REGARDE LA LUMIÈRE.
Hier, cette histoire a reçu le prix Nobel de physiologie ou médecine 2026.
Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann et Georg Nagel ont été récompensés pour leurs découvertes concernant les canaux ioniques activés par la lumière et l'optogénétique.
Et c'est là que cette histoire devient encore plus intéressante.
Parce qu'elle aurait été très difficile à vendre avec une promesse spectaculaire au départ.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Imaginez la question quelques décennies plus tôt :
« Pourquoi financez-vous des chercheurs qui étudient la réaction d'une algue unicellulaire à la lumière ? »
Réponse :
Parce qu'on veut comprendre comment elle fonctionne.
C'est tout.
Personne ne pouvait promettre :
« Cela permettra un jour de contrôler précisément des populations de neurones dans un cerveau vivant. »
La recherche fondamentale fonctionne souvent comme ça.
On étudie quelque chose parce qu'on ne le comprend pas encore.
Et parfois, beaucoup plus tard, quelqu'un réalise qu'une bizarrerie découverte dans une algue, une bactérie ou une moisissure résout un problème qui semblait n'avoir absolument aucun rapport.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⚠️ Cela ne signifie évidemment pas que nous pouvons désormais « télécommander » facilement un cerveau humain.
Pour rendre un neurone sensible à cette lumière, il faut notamment lui faire produire la protéine correspondante, cibler les cellules voulues et parvenir à leur apporter la lumière.
L'essentiel de l'utilisation de l'optogénétique reste aujourd'hui un outil de recherche.
Des applications médicales sont cependant explorées, notamment pour restaurer certaines fonctions visuelles.
Le Nobel ne récompense donc pas une télécommande pour humains.
Il récompense quelque chose de beaucoup plus intéressant :
un moyen exceptionnellement précis de tester les relations de cause à effet dans les circuits du vivant.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Et tout cela laisse une petite question.
Lorsque quelqu'un étudie un organisme minuscule, une protéine étrange ou un phénomène apparemment inutile, nous adorons demander :
« Oui… mais à quoi ça sert ? »
Le problème, c'est que si le chercheur connaissait déjà toutes les applications de ce qu'il allait découvrir…
ce ne serait probablement plus vraiment de la recherche.
🔎 Certaines découvertes changent le monde parce que quelqu'un cherchait une solution.
D'autres le changent parce que quelqu'un voulait simplement comprendre.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📚 SOURCES :
Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet (2026)
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2026.
Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann et Georg Nagel, récompensés « for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics ».
NobelPrize.orgNagel G. et al. (2003)
Channelrhodopsin-2, a directly light-gated cation-selective membrane channel.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100(24), 13940–13945.
DOI : 10.1073/pnas.1936192100Boyden E. S., Zhang F., Bamberg E., Nagel G. & Deisseroth K. (2005)
Millisecond-timescale, genetically targeted optical control of neural activity.
Nature Neuroscience, 8, 1263–1268.
DOI : 10.1038/nn1525#science #neurosciences #cerveau #Nobel #optogénétique #recherche #EspritCritique #QUAERO
#Science #Neuroscience #Brain #NobelPrize #Optogenetics -
https://www.bytesde.com/2051084/ Der Nobelpreis für Physiologie oder Medizin 2026: Verliehen an Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann und Georg Nagel „für ihre Entdeckungen über lichtgesteuerte Ionenkanäle und Optogenetik“ #Science #Wissenschaft
-
https://www.bytesde.com/2051081/ Nobelpreis für Physiologie oder Medizin 2026 an Karl Deisseroth, Georg Nagel und Peter Hegemann für Arbeiten zur Optogenetik #EverythingScience #Science #Wissenschaft
-
The 2026 Nobel Prize was announced today and it’s a genetics thing. Yay, Mind controlled mice. The Nobel committees announced the year’s first winners on Monday, awarding the prize for physiology or medicine to a trio of scientists who the committees said have “laid the foundation of a new era in neuroscience.”
Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, & Georg Nagel were awarded the Nobel Prize in #physiology or #medicine for their pioneering discoveries in optogenetics, a method that uses light to determine how cells operate in the brain or even to exert control over those processes.
Optogenetics provides opportunities for mapping the brain.
That’s how light went from being simply something we see to becoming a tool for manipulating neural circuits. So, scientists can essentially use light as a remote ON/OFF switch for selected neurons to observe what happens to behavior or brain function.
https://www.tiktok.com/@dr.cal.ur.science.pal/video/7693228143196310806
-
SILENT ENGRAMS: Amnesia as a GRAVIS Singularity — and what is conserved there
On the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, what its instrument found, and the more careful claim this model makes alongside it I. THE INSTRUMENT On 5 October 2026 the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel, for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics. It began with an alga. Chlamydomonas senses light through an eyespot, using proteins that open an ion channel when light strikes them. […] -
Keurig Alta First-Look: No More Plastic K-Cups
https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.wired.com/story/keurig-alta-coffee-brewer/
-
Keurig Alta First-Look: No More Plastic K-Cups
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.wired.com/story/keurig-alta-coffee-brewer/
-
The Nvidia Shield TV Is 7 Years Old. It Just Got a $100 Price Hike
-
The Nvidia Shield TV Is 7 Years Old. It Just Got a $100 Price Hike
-
Scientists find planet made on new matter recipe, and it formed after a Red Giant ate a solar system
science Death of a star may not be game over for the inner solar system after all When…
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #Space #Science
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/872655/