Science Daily May 15, 2019 When two people talk to each other, the brain waves of the speaker begin to resemble the brain waves of the listener. Using this knowledge a team of researchers in the US (Columbia University, Hofstra-Northwell School of Medicine and Feinstein Institute for Medical Research) combined powerful speech-separation algorithms with neural networks, complex mathematical models that imitate the brain’s natural computational abilities to create a system that first separates out the voices of individual speakers from a group, and then compares the voices of each speaker to the brain waves of the person listening. The speaker […]
Dynetics Will Build and Test a US Army 100 Kilowatt Combat Laser
Next Big Future May 16,2019 The US Army wants 100-kilowatt laser on larger armored trucks. The Army wants tests in 2022 of integrated lasers on High Energy Laser Tactical Vehicle Demonstrator. The design integrated power and thermal management system to successfully meet or exceed the requirements of the HEL TVD program. The system will provide the high level of electrical power and thermal management required in a compact, power dense package with the responsiveness required for directed energy applications. There are also plans for smaller Stryker armored vehicles with 50-kilowatt lasers that could see deployment starting as early as 2024…read […]
Developing biosecurity tool to detect genetically engineered organisms in the wild
Science Daily May 21, 2019 A team of researchers in the US (Raytheon, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Princeton University, UC San Francisco, industry) is working on FELIX https://www.iarpa.gov/index.php/research-programs/felix (Finding Engineering-Linked Indicators) sponsored by IARPA. The program aims to develop a suite of tools for the agnostic detection of engineered biological organisms, ranging from viruses, bacteria, insects, animals and plants that are either purposefully or accidentally developed and/or released with the potential to cause harm. Ideally, the tools will expand the quality and amount of information available to distinguish engineered organisms from natural organisms, i.e., natural variation from intentional […]
Creating high-capacity long-life batteries
Science Daily May 16, 2019 Lithium- and sodium-rich layered transition-metal oxides have large capacity because of additional oxygen-redox reactions. However, they exhibit structural degradation such as cation migration, layer exfoliation or cracks upon deep charge. An international team of researchers (Japan, Spain, France) has demonstrated a self-repairing phenomenon of stacking faults upon desodiation from an oxygen-redox layered oxide Na2RuO3. The phase transformations upon charging A2MO3 can be dominated by three-dimensional Coulombic attractive interactions driven by the existence of ordered alkali-metal vacancies, leading to counterintuitive self-repairing of stacking faults. The vacancy in lithium-/sodium-rich layered transition-metal oxides is shown to play an […]
Counter-intuitive climate change solution
EurekAlert May 20, 2019 According to an international team of researchers (USA – Sanford University, Australia) some sources of methane emissions – from rice cultivation or cattle- may be very difficult or expensive to eliminate. An alternative is to offset these emissions via methane removal, so there is no net effect on warming the atmosphere. They argue that methane concentrations could be restored to pre-industrial levels by removing about 3.2 billion tons of the gas from the atmosphere and converting it into an amount of carbon dioxide equivalent to a few months of global industrial emissions. They describe a potential […]
12 irreplaceable innovations made possible by NSF
NSF May 22, 2019 Before the internet was commercialized, before your phone was smart, before there was a picture of a black hole, there was an NSF–funded researcher pursuing their curiosity. NSF funded research has laid the foundation for many of the groundbreaking discoveries and game–changing technologies we know today. Here are 12 innovations and discoveries made possible through NSF support…read more.
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of May 17, 2019
01. New method developed to detect and trace homemade bombs 02. Underwater power generation 03. Virtually energy-free superfast computing invented by scientists using light pulses 04. Locating a shooter from the first shot via cellphone 05. Silicon two-qubit gate achieves 98% fidelity 06. Lab builds autopilot software allowing UAVs to soar on thermals 07. A new sensor for light, heat and touch 08. Computing faster with quasi-particles 09. A step towards probabilistic computing (w/video) 10. Better microring sensors for optical applications And others… Assessing battery performance: Compared to what? This Chilling Simulation Shows What a Measles Outbreak Could Do to […]
Silicon two-qubit gate achieves 98% fidelity
Physics World May 13, 2019 Two-qubit gates are essential for creating practical quantum computers. An important parameter is how resistant a qubit is to decoherence which can very quickly destroy quantum information. While the fidelity does not have to be a perfect 100%, anything lower will eventually lead to errors creeping into calculations after multiple operations are performed. An international team of researchers (Australia, UK, Japan) has created a two-qubit gate from two silicon quantum dots and using Clifford-based fidelity benchmarking system they demonstrated that it can achieve a fidelity of 98% when performing the controlled-rotation operation. More than 50 […]
Virtually energy-free superfast computing invented by scientists using light pulses
Science Daily May 15, 2019 An international team of researchers (Germany, USA- UC Santa Barbara, Russia, the Netherlands) utilized the efficient interaction mechanism of coupling between spins and terahertz electric field, which was discovered by the same team. They developed and fabricated a very small antenna on top of the magnet to concentrate and thereby enhance the electric field of light. This strongest local electric field was sufficient to navigate the magnetization of the magnet to its new orientation in just one trillionth of a second without increasing the temperature. Future storage devices would also exploit the excellent spatial definition […]
Underwater power generation
Science Daily May 13, 2019 Inspired by marine organisms that have switchable energy extraction modes (aerobic respiration for long‐term living or anaerobic respiration to propose instantaneously high output power for fast movement),researchers in China have designed an auto‐switchable dual‐mode seawater energy extraction system to provide high energy density and power density both by initiatively choosing different solutes in seawater as electron acceptors. The key to the discovery is a cathode made of Prussian blue, an open framework structure with cyanide ions as “struts” and iron ions as “nodes,” which can easily accept and release electrons. When combined with a metal […]