Miguel Robles

How a solar farm in the Gobi Desert created a new ecosystem

MIT’s origami robot starts as a flat sheet, folds itself when heated, and becomes a tiny robot that can crawl, climb, and swim.

It took 9 years and 3 billion miles to get this shot. Pluto’s icy Mountains.

These are the 25 highest-cited papers published this century, and why they are breaking records go.nature.com/4rV7KV4

This Dad Mapped The Lives of Over 4,000 Of His Daughter’s Ancestors Over 400 Years More about the map: brilliantmaps.com/4000-ancestors/

Fascinating paper just published in Science. The authors analyze the career trajectories of top performers across multiple domains, including Nobel laureates, elite chess players, Olympic gold medalists, and more. Their central finding challenges a common belief. Intensive, single-discipline training at a young age does confer an early advantage, but this advantage fades over time. By contrast, individuals exposed to multidisciplinary practice early in life tend to start more slowly. Yet, over the long run, they are more likely to reach world-class performance, eventually overtaking early specialists, who often plateau just below the very top. An important reminder that breadth early on can be a powerful investment in long-term excellence. Link to the paper in the first reply.

«Todo indica que Elon Musk no solo participará en la carrera de la IA. Será el dueño de la pista.» La disputa por el futuro open.substack.com/pub/pablomajlu…

Topologically protected vortex knots are shown to undergo fusion and fission, with electric pulses acting as a switch between the two processes. This might enable applications in electro-optics and photonics. nature.com/articles/s4156…

A warp drive is a theoretical idea from physics in which a spacecraft does not travel through space in the usual way, but instead warps space itself. By compressing space in front of the ship and expanding space behind it, the spacecraft sits inside a stable “bubble” of space while the universe around it moves. This could, in theory, allow travel across vast cosmic distances much faster than light would normally allow—without the ship locally breaking the speed-of-light limit. In a recent peer-reviewed research paper, scientists showed that such a warp-drive-like system is not forbidden by known laws of physics. Unlike earlier proposals that required exotic “negative energy,” which may not exist, this model demonstrates that a warp bubble could theoretically be created using positive energy and normal matter. However, the idea remains purely theoretical: the energy needed would be unimaginably large, and no experiments or prototypes exist. In short, warp drives are not real or practical today, but modern physics no longer rules them out in principle. Reference: research.monash.edu/en/publication…

More than 99.9999999% of an atom is empty space, a fact that can make matter seem strangely insubstantial at first glance. Instead of solid structures, atoms are mostly tiny nuclei surrounded by distant electrons. Yet modern physics reveals that this apparent emptiness is anything but idle. Inside every atom, an intricate web of quantum fields is in constant motion, generating the forces and interactions that give matter its stability. What seems like a hollow framework is actually a stage where energy, probability, and fundamental fields never stop shifting. Electromagnetic fields bind electrons to the nucleus, keeping the atom intact despite the vast distances between its components. Within the nucleus itself, quark and gluon fields create the strong force that holds protons and neutrons together. On top of that, quantum vacuum fluctuations fill the “empty” space with virtual particles that appear and vanish in unimaginably short intervals. Far from a silent void, the atomic interior operates as a dynamic landscape shaped by the continuous activity of invisible fields. The consequence is extraordinary: the solidity we perceive in everyday objects does not arise from tightly packed matter, but from interactions among energetic quantum fields. What feels hard or stable is actually the resistance created when these fields overlap and repel one another. In this sense, the true essence of matter is motion, interaction, and vibration rather than physical substance. Quantum physics shows that the universe is built not from solid blocks, but from energy in constant flux a reminder that the familiar world rests on foundations far stranger and more elegant than it appears. Source: CERN / American Physical Society (APS) / Quantum Field Theory Reference Data

Math. Conway. Life. Imagine studying cellular automata that evolve over years to create vast machine civilizations. Research on "Multiple Neighborhood Cellular Automata" by @slackermanz, linktr.ee/slackermanz, Used with permission.

A droplet “walking” on a vibrating fluid can mimic quantum physics, forming diffraction patterns just like electrons in the Kapitza-Dirac effect. A rare, visible model of wave-particle duality, letting us watch quantum-like behavior in the macroscopic world.

A photon never experiences time from its perspective. T=0 as per Special Relativity and to the photon, the Big Bang, just took place. The photon may be a product of the new theory of—the Quantum Platform? If it is proven accurate, reality is not unfolding… It is deploying.

Space remembers. Physicists analyzing 100+ gravitational wave detections are searching for permanent memory imprints in spacetime, suggesting that space stores information like a cosmic hard drive—validating predictions that memory generates time itself bit.ly/47Cle01

Scientists revealed the exact shape of a photon: a 3D field emerging from an atom. For decades, we only had approximate models of light and matter. Now, with precise equations, we unlock potential for quantum computers, advanced solar panels, and more. Read more - bit.ly/4hy9L4R #QuantumPhysics #FutureTech #Science #CleanEnergy

#Europa busca reducir su dependencia de #China sobre las tierras raras Tu teléfono, tu coche eléctrico y hasta los misiles dependen de estos minerales estratégicos. Y China tiene un control casi total sobre su extracción, procesamiento y refinado. Europa dice tener un plan, pero ¿será viable?

Science doesn’t need to go according to plan; it just needs to lead to a discovery. If doesn’t have to be done alone or together with a buddy; there just needs to be a discovery. It doesn’t need to happen fast or slow; just as long as there’s a discovery, then everybody is happy.

⚡️EU power is becoming less and less reliant on fossil fuels EU countries with the largest fall in fossil share (2004 vs. 2024): 🇩🇰Denmark: 76% → 12% 🏆 🇵🇹Portugal: 73% → 15% 🇳🇱The Netherlands: 91% → 46% 🇮🇪Ireland: 95% → 55% 🇬🇷Greece: 90% → 50% 🇫🇮Finland: 44% → 5%

Solar and batteries are a game-changer: New @ember_energy analysis in @CarbonBrief shows that in major sunny cities, such as Las Vegas or Mexico City, solar + batteries can now get more than 90% of the way to continuous generation, at costs below those of coal or nuclear power.

Esta semana se publicó el Índice de Competitividad Estatal que elabora el IMCO. Por ochorrocentésima vez, Morelos en la cola de la competitivad nacional. La competitividad puede resumirse como la capacidad de un estado para atraer inversión y talento. Abro hilo 🧵