A Sixth Ocean, The Fastest Punch and Quantum Teleportation

February 13

This week we discover a new ocean being formed in real time. We investigate the world’s fastest punch. Way faster than any human can manage. We look at the changing shape of the inner core of the earth and finally we examine a breakthrough in Quantum Teleportation.

A Sixth Ocean

There are currently 5 oceans on Earth (Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern and Arctic) however it was recently discovered that a sixth ocean is emerging. The new ocean is emerging from under Ethiopia’s desert in East Africa. In 2005 a 35 mile long crack opened up like a gash in the Ethiopian desert. This was the beginning of the East African Rift, a geological process in which the African continent is being torn in two.

The rift that runs through Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania is being created by the very slow movement of the Somali tectonic plate. This plate is moving away from the Nubian plate. It will take between 5 and 10 million years for the split to be complete and the new ocean to be fully formed.

Whilst it will take millions of years for the ocean to form, the effects are already being felt. There are earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that result from the movement of the earth’s crust. The changes may lead to community relocation as the land beneath slowly shifts. The new ocean will affect climatic conditions and marine biodiversity. The rift is similar to the split that occurred between South America and Africa millions of years ago to form the Atlantic ocean.

Additionally deep inside the earth’s mantle a huge reservoir of water 700 kilometers below the surface has been discovered. The subsurface sea is contained in a mineral called ringwoodite, which can hold water within its crystal structure. This has lead to speculation that there may be more water captured under the surface of the earth than exists in all the world’s oceans.

This discovery may change how we believe that water first arrived on our planet (most speculate that water came on asteroids that hit the earth in the early years of its’ formation).

The World’s Fastest Punch

The Mantis Shrimp is only 4 inches long however it can throw a punch that moves at 23 meters per second creating 1,500 newtons of force per punch. 1,500 newtons is the roughly the force required to move a 100kg adult from standing to 50 kilometers per hour in one second.

Researchers have only recently discovered what allows the creature to deliver such a force without damaging itself in the process. The shrimp’s dactyl clubs (one on each side of the body) use a series of phononic structures that selectively filter stress waves. This enables the creature to persevere its’ striking ability and to prevent soft tissue damage.

As the punch moves through water at high speed it creates an cavitation bubble. As the water is pushed aside its density lowers to the point that water within the low density bubble vaporizes. The bubble does not last long and it quickly implodes into a burst of heat, light and sound. The energy of the colapsing bubble is what cracks the shells of the target animal.

The structure of the dactyl club is layered like a lasagne. The impact surface is mostly made up of calcium and phosphorous. Below is a layer of chitin fibers arranged in a herringbone patters that optimizes the structural integrity. Below this is a corkscrew like structure of chitin fibre bundles. Each bundle is rotated a little compared to its’ neighbor. This Bouligand structure increases the fracture resistance. This layer also filters out sound and stress waves by controlling how they react with the material’s structure.

The team is continuing the research to determine if this unique structure might inspire new material designs. Finally the Mantis Shrimp is not a prawn, it is a relative of the crab.

The Earth’s Core is Changing Shape

The Earth’s inner core is a ball of iron and nickel about 2,400 kilometers wide. Researchers have always thought the core to be solid however recent research has shown that the shape of the core to have changed over the past few decades.

We have known for some time that the inner core does not spin at the same rate as the rest of the earth. Additionally the pace of its’ rotation changes. A few decades ago it was spinning faster than the outer layers however now it is spinning slower.

We can not see or drill into the inner core (nowhere near it in fact). We infer knowledge about the core from the vibrations generated by earthquakes that pass through the planet. The speed and direction of the seismic vibrations change depending upon the density and elasticity of the rocks.

The team looked at earthquakes in the South Sandwich islands which experiences an average of 277 earthquakes of magnitude 3 or higher each year. There are so many that is easy to find data for earthquakes of similar magnitudes over different years. 100 such pairs were identified from between 1991 and 2004. Data from three array seismometers more than 13,000 kilometers apart were analyzed (South Sandwich Islands, Fairbanks Alaska and Yellowknife in Canada).

The differences in the seismic waves suggested that something is changing near the surface of the earth’s core. Turbulent flow in the outer core or gravitational pull from the earth’s mantle may have deformed the inner core boundary.

These changes have opened new questions about how the change in the core may affect the length of our 24 hour day, the Earth’s magnetic field and more. As of now, we don’t know if there will be any affect.

Quantum Teleportation

A team at Oxford University have stitched together separate quantum computers and run an algorithm collaboratively across a distance via the use of Quantum Teleportation. The team linked the two quantum processors that were six and a half feet apart using a “photonic network interface”.

This is not the first time that quantum teleportation has been demonstrated. Previously quantum bits (qubits) have been superimposed and entangled and transferred between physically separated systems. However this time the team used quantum teleportation to create interactions between the distant systems.

This breakthrough allows distinct quantum processors to be “wired” together. This is the equivalent to linking together traditional computers to create a supercomputer. By linking multiple modules it allows individual modules to be swapped out for upgrading without disrupting the entire architecture.

The team hopes that this may be the architecture required to develop a quantum internet. A quantum internet is likely to be a much more secure infrastructure.

Paying it Forward

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