Global Biodefence January 30, 2021 According to a team of researchers in the US (American University, NASA Ames Research Center) due to its interdisciplinary dependencies and broadness of scales from nanometers to kilometers, atmospheric biology research is highly fragmented in the U.S. science community. It lacks shared paradigms and common vocabulary. This deficit calls for recognizing atmospheric biology as a research community, thereby linking human health to climate change. While it makes sense for each department or agency to carry out research relevant to its responsibilities and interests, the lack of coordination and information-sharing can effectively cripple the U.S. response […]
Author Archives: Hema Viswanath
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of January 27, 2021
01. Optimal information about the invisible 02. Adding or subtracting single quanta of sound 03. “Liquid” machine-learning system adapts to changing conditions 04. Long-distance and secure quantum key distribution (QKD) over a free-space channel 05. Record-breaking laser link could help us test whether Einstein was right 06. Researchers achieve extreme-ultraviolet spectral compression by four-wave mixing 07. Researchers construct molecular nanofibers that are stronger than steel 08. Defects may help scientists understand the exotic physics of topology 09. Rapid Identification of Ricin in Serum Samples Using LC–MS/MS 10. Solar material can ‘self-heal’ imperfections, new research shows And others… Audio long-read: Push, […]
Adding or subtracting single quanta of sound
Science Daily January 25, 2021 An international team of researchers (UK, Denmark, Australia) injected laser light into a crystalline microresonator that supports both the light and the high-frequency sound waves. The two types of waves coupled to one another via an electromagnetic interaction creates light at a new frequency. To subtract a single phonon, the team detected a single photon that has been up shifted in frequency. Detecting a single photon indicates that a subtracted single phonon. When the experiment is performed at a finite temperature, the sound field has random fluctuations from thermal noise. Counterintuitively, when you subtract a […]
Audio long-read: Push, pull and squeeze – the hidden forces that shape life (podcast)
Nature Podcast January 28, 2021 Researchers are probing the subtle physical forces that sculpt cells and bodies. At every stage of life, from embryo to adulthood, physical forces tug and squeeze at bodies from within. These forces are vital, ensuring that cells are correctly positioned in a developing embryo. But they also play a role in diseases like cancer. Yet despite their importance, relatively little is known about how cells sense, respond to and generate these forces. To find out, researchers have turned to bespoke tools and methods, using them to probe lab-cultured cells and whole animals to get to […]
Autofocusing of microscopy images using deep learning
Phys.org January 25, 2021 Autofocusing is a critical step for high-quality microscopic imaging of specimens, especially for measurements that extend over time covering large fields of view. Hardware-based optical autofocusing methods rely on additional distance sensors that are integrated with a microscopy system; Algorithmic autofocusing methods require axial scanning through the sample volume, leading to longer imaging times, which might also introduce phototoxicity and photobleaching on the sample. Researchers at UCLA have demonstrated a deep learning-based offline autofocusing method, termed Deep-R, that is trained to rapidly and blindly autofocus a single-shot microscopy image of a specimen that is acquired at […]
Defects may help scientists understand the exotic physics of topology
Science Daily January 22, 2021 Researchers at the University of Illinois engineered metamaterials to include defects to show that defects and structural deformations can provide insights into a real material’s hidden topological features. They experimentally demonstrated that disclination defects can robustly trap fractional charges in topological crystalline insulators (TCI) metamaterials, and the trapped charge can indicate non-trivial, higher-order crystalline topology even in the absence of any spectral signatures. They uncovered a connection between the trapped charge and the existence of topological bound states localized at these defects. By testing the robustness of these topological features when the protective crystalline symmetry […]
“Liquid” machine-learning system adapts to changing conditions
MIT News January 28, 2021 An international team of researchers (USA – MIT, Austria) designed a neural network that can adapt to the variability of real-world systems. They took inspiration from C.elegans which has only 302 neurons in its nervous system, yet it can generate unexpectedly complex dynamics. The equations they used to structure their neural network allowed the parameters to change over time based on the results of a nested set of differential equations. Most neural networks’ behavior is fixed after the training phase. The fluidity of their “liquid” network makes it more resilient to unexpected or noisy data and […]
Long-distance and secure quantum key distribution (QKD) over a free-space channel
Phys.org January 25, 2021 Measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) protocol can help in closing all loopholes on detection at once. It has only been successfully implemented using fiber optics. To implement the protocol across free-space channels two main challenges need to be addressed. One is to reduce the gap between theory and practice of QKD, and the other one is to extend the distance of QKD. Researchers in China have developed a robust adaptive optics system – high-precision time synchronization and frequency locking between independent photon sources located far apart to realize free-space MDI-QKD over a 19.2-km urban atmospheric channel. […]
Microbes fueled by wind-blown mineral dust melt the Greenland ice sheet
Science Daily January 25, 2021 Melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet is a leading cause of land-ice mass loss and cryosphere-attributed sea level rise. Blooms of pigmented glacier ice algae lower ice albedo and accelerate surface melting in the ice sheet’s southwest sector. Although glacier ice algae cause up to 13% of the surface melting in this region, the controls on bloom development remain poorly understood. An international team of researchers (US, Canada, Germany, Denmark) has shown a direct link between mineral phosphorus in surface ice and glacier ice algae biomass through the quantification of solid and fluid phase phosphorus […]
Optimal information about the invisible
Phys.org January 25, 2021 If the laser beam is deflected, scattered, and refracted, often it impossible to obtain useful data from the measurement. According to an international team of researchers (the Netherlands, Austria) if you know exactly what the disturbing environment is doing to the light beam, you can reverse the situation: Then it is possible to create a complicated wave pattern instead of the simple, straight laser beam, which gets transformed into exactly the desired shape due to the disturbances and hits right where it can deliver the best result. It is enough to first send a set of […]