TIGERISS (Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder on the International Space Station) is the third-generation successor to the TIGER balloon experiments, which measured statistically meaningful data on the elemental composition of galactic cosmic rays beyond iron. TIGERISS will extend this methodology to a long duration platform on the ISS, increasing measurement resolution up to lead nuclei (Z=82) with a combination of experimental methods.

The magnetorotational instability (MRI) is the leading mechanism that enable angular momentum transport in magnetized, differentially rotating astrophysical systems such as accretion disks and hypermassive neutron stars. In this talk we will look at the properties of MRI and how they are derived from first principles.

Since LIGO's first detection a decade ago, gravitational waves have pioneered new frontiers in physics and astronomy. In addition to these contributions, gravitational wave observations are also poised to explore the nature of dark matter beyond the CDM regime. In particular, dissipative dark matter halos can fragment and cool to form black hole binaries whose mergers emit gravitational waves. In this talk, I will discuss how gravitational wave observations constrain dark sector microphysics.

I will give arguments for the two seemingly controversial claims: (1) in thermodynamics, the 2nd law alone is silent on the direction of time for non-cyclic processes (2) in statistical mechanics, it requires a cosmological principle to arrive at irreversible macrophysics from reversible microphysics