Science Daily August 19, 2021 Researchers in Singapore have provided data showing that potent cross-clade pan-sarbecovirus neutralizing antibodies are induced in survivors of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 1 (SARS-CoV-1) infection who have been immunized with the BNT162b2 messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine. The antibodies are high-level and broad-spectrum, capable of neutralizing not only known variants of concern but also sarbecoviruses that have been identified in bats and pangolins and have the potential to cause human infection. These findings show the feasibility of a pan-sarbecovirus vaccine strategy…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
One material with two functions could lead to faster memory
Science Daily August 23, 2021 Previous versions of light-emitting memories required the integration of two separate devices with differing materials, complicating fabrication. Using just one perovskite layer between contacts an international team of researchers (Taiwan, Japan) fabricated a device that works both as a RRAM and a light-emitting electrochemical cell. By taking advantage of the fast, electrically switchable ionic motion that enables this dual functionality in a single layer of perovskite they connected two devices together and developed an all-inorganic perovskite light-emitting memory. They used perovskite quantum dots of two different sizes for the two devices in the light-emitting memory […]
Precipitation in Central Asia shaped by sea surface temperature over tropical Pacific and North Atlantic
Phys.org August 26, 2021 Central Asia is one of the major food-producing regions in the world. Its agricultural production relies heavily on climate conditions, especially precipitation. Researchers in China found that both the decadal scale warming over the tropical Pacific and North Atlantic are favorable for wetter conditions over Central Asia. During the positive phase of tropical Pacific decadal variability (TPDV) (warm tropical Pacific), the sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies over tropical Pacific can lead to more precipitation over Central Asia, especially the southern and southeastern region. The warm phase of AMV (warm North Atlantic) can excite a circumglobal teleconnection […]
National Ignition Facility experiment puts researchers at threshold of fusion ignition
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory August 18, 2021 On Aug. 8, 2021, an experiment at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL’s) National Ignition Facility (NIF) made a significant step toward ignition, achieving an yield of more than 1.3 megajoules. This advancement puts researchers at the threshold of fusion ignition, an important goal of the NIF, and opens access to a new experimental regime. The experiment was enabled by focusing laser light onto a target that produces a hot-spot the diameter of a human hair, generating more than 10 quadrillion watts of fusion power for 100 trillionths of a second. While a full […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of August 20, 2021
01. Engineers make critical advance in quantum computer design 02. An artificial ionic neuron for tomorrow’s electronic memories 03. A complete platform for quantum computing 04. Metasurfaces control polarized light at will 05. Nanostructure-based lasers for information and communication technologies 06. On the road to faster and more efficient data storage 07. A peculiar state of matter in layers of semiconductors 08. Scientists realize noiseless photon-echo protocol 09. ‘Shadow waveguide’ casts complex acoustic patterns to control particles 10. Woven nanotube fibers turn heat into power And others… Effectively removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere Ice formation on surfaces enhanced via […]
An artificial ionic neuron for tomorrow’s electronic memories
Nanowerk August 17, 2021 Researchers in France report that devices made of a single layer of water transporting ions within graphene nanoslits have the same transmission capacity as a neuron. They developed an analytical theory, backed up by molecular dynamics simulations, that predicts strongly nonlinear effects in ion transport across quasi–two-dimensional slits. They showed that under an electric field, ions assemble into elongated clusters, whose slow dynamics result in hysteretic conduction. The memristor effect, can be harnessed to build an elementary neuron. As a proof of concept, they carried out molecular simulations of two nanofluidic slits that reproduced the Hodgkin-Huxley […]
A complete platform for quantum computing
Phys.org August 13, 2021 A promising and potentially scalable hardware platforms and computational protocols is to combine a photonic platform with measurement-induced quantum information processing. Gate operations can be implemented through optical measurements on a cluster state. Researchers in Denmark designed and demonstrated the deterministic implementation of a multi-mode set of measurement-induced quantum gates in a large two-dimensional optical cluster state using phase-controlled continuous-variable quadrature measurements. Each gate is programmed into the phases of high-efficiency quadrature measurements, which execute the transformations by teleportation through the cluster state. They executed a small quantum circuit consisting of 10 single-mode gates and 2 […]
Effectively removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
Phys.org August 13, 2021 Direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) is a comparatively new technology for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Since it would allow large amounts of CO2 to be trapped this technology could also reduce the greenhouse effect. To investigate how effectively this could be implemented with different system configurations of a certain process, researchers in Switzerland analyzed a total of five different configurations for capturing CO2 from the air and their use at eight different locations around the world. Autonomous system layouts prove to be a promising alternative, with a green house gases removal efficiency […]
Engineers make critical advance in quantum computer design
Phys.org August 13, 2021 Advancing from the current few-qubit devices to silicon quantum processors with upward of a million qubits, as required for fault-tolerant operation, presents several unique challenges, one of the most demanding being the ability to deliver microwave signals for large-scale qubit control. Researchers in Australia have demonstrated a potential solution to this problem by using a three-dimensional dielectric resonator to broadcast a global microwave signal across a quantum nanoelectronic circuit. The technique uses only a single microwave source and can deliver control signals to millions of qubits simultaneously. They have shown that the global field can be […]
Ice formation on surfaces enhanced via a non-classical nucleation process
Phys.org August 17, 2021 Understanding the process of ice formation can decelerate the rate at which glaciers melt and sea levels rise and alleviate other major environmental concerns. To better understand the non-classical nucleation theories researchers at the University of Hong Kong combined Markov State Models (MSMs) and transition path theory (TPT) to identify intermediate states of disordered ice mixtures and compare parallel pathways (classical vs. non-classical). This advantage helped unravel the underlying mechanisms of non-classical nucleation processes and the co-existence of the two pathways. They showed that the disordered mixing of ice stabilizes the critical nucleus and makes the […]