Eurekalert May 14, 2019 In the search for new computer concepts, research is concentrating, amongst others, on probability-based computing. Researchers in Germany have succeeded in developing a material in which skyrmions can form. The researchers have also developed a method to exploit thermal diffusion of skyrmions in what is referred to as a reshuffler, a component of probability-based computing that automatically scrambles input data. The reshuffler produces a sequence with the same number of memory units but in a different order. Their probability has therefore remained the same. They have shown according to which laws diffusion occurs, its length and […]
A new sensor for light, heat and touch
Phys.org May 14, 2019 Voltage arises in pyroelectric materials when they are heated or cooled. It is the change in temperature that gives a signal, which is rapid and strong, but it decays almost as rapidly. In thermoelectric materials, in contrast, a voltage arises when the material has one cold and one hot side. The signal here arises slowly, and some time must pass before it can be measured. Researchers in Sweden combined a pyroelectric polymer with a thermoelectric gel developed by them in a previous project. The combination gives a rapid and strong signal that lasts as long as […]
New method developed to detect and trace homemade bombs
Science Daily May 10, 2019 The new method for detecting trace amounts of explosives developed by researchers in the UK uses ion chromatography. The method is less time consuming. The technique can tell us so much more than just the explosives content. They have demonstrated that the technique detects thousands of different compounds simultaneously, which means there is an element of in-built future-proofing capability to detect new types of explosives if needed or provide critical information about where a device came from or who it belongs to. In particular, linearity for 19 targeted compounds yielded R2 > 0.99 across several orders of […]
Locating a shooter from the first shot via cellphone
Phys.org May 13, 2019 Tactical Communication and Protective Systems (TCAPS), earmuffs or earplugs with built-in microphones allowing active hearing protection, have four microphones: two outside the ear canal and two inside it, underneath the hearing protection. Researchers in France have developed a proof of concept shooter location device because most modern combat weapons fire bullets at supersonic speeds, creating two acoustic wave – supersonic shock wave and the second one is a muzzle wave. The device uses the microphone underneath the hearing protection to detect the shock and muzzle waves generated by supersonic shots and record the time difference of […]
Lab builds autopilot software allowing UAVs to soar on thermals
Phys.org May 10, 209 Prior systems relied on batch estimation processes that require storing large arrays of data, which is not ideal for operation on small microcontrollers with limited memory resources. Researchers at Naval Research Laboratory working on the Autonomous Locator of Thermals (ALOFT) project have developed software that uses extended Kalman filtering software which detects and estimates the position of thermals helping orbit drones like the tiny CICADA glider or long-endurance solar-soaring UAVs that might also have photovoltaic or fuel cells feeding battery-powered propellers. UAVs don’t need large batteries because they harvest energy from the environment using intelligent software […]
It’s Official: Atmospheric CO2 Just Exceeded 415 Ppm For The First Time in Human History
Science Alert May 13, 2019 Researchers at UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography sensors in Hawaii recorded Earth’s atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide passing 415 parts per million for the first time since before the ancient dawn of humanity. As recently as 1910, atmospheric CO2 stood at 300 ppm – higher than it had been for some 800,000 years at least. It’s that ongoing fossil fuel use that’s the real problem here. According to the scientists we basically have no idea how bad things could get if we don’t stop adding to the problem at such an accelerated rate. There is […]
Gravitational waves leave a detectable mark, physicists say
Science Daily May 9, 2019 Physicists have long known that gravitational waves leave a memory on the particles along their path and have identified five such memories. An international team of researchers (USA – Cornell University, Ireland, the Netherlands) has identified three more observables that show the effects of gravitational waves in a flat region in spacetime that experiences a burst of gravitational waves, after which it returns to be a flat region. Each new observable provides different ways of confirming the theory of general relativity and offers insight into the intrinsic properties of gravitational waves…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Glassy menagerie of particles in beach sands near Hiroshima is fallout debris, study concludes
Science Daily May 13, 2019 An international team of researchers (Malaysia, France, USA – UC Berkeley, Berkeley Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) recovered complex association of millimeter-sized, aerodynamically-shaped debris, including glass spherules, glass filaments, and composite-fused melt particles was from beach sands on the shores of the Motoujina Peninsula in Hiroshima Bay, Japan. These paticles are generally produced by single high-energy catastrophic events, such as an extraterrestrial body impacting Earth or a nuclear explosion. This study interprets the large volumes of fallout debris generated under extreme temperature conditions as products of the Hiroshima August 6th, 1945 atomic bomb aerial detonation. The […]
Computing faster with quasi-particles
Eurekalert May 10, 2019 Majorana particles can emerge as quasi-particles in topological superconductors and represent ideal building blocks for topological quantum computers. Whereas previous experiments in this field have mostly focused on one-dimensional systems an international team of researchers (USA – Harvard University, Caltech, IBM Watson Research Laboratory, Germany) succeeded in going to two-dimensional systems. They observed a topological phase transition in their proof of concept system which implies the appearance of Majorana fermions in phase-controlled Josephson junctions confirming the advantages of two-dimensional system compared to previous one-dimensional platforms. An improved control of Majorana fermions represents an important step towards […]
This Chilling Simulation Shows What a Measles Outbreak Could Do to Your City
Science Alert May 15, 2019 A team of researchers in the US (University of Pittsburgh, University of South Florida) used a customized simulation tool called FRED (A Framework for Reconstructing Epidemiological Dynamics) to realistically represent the infection risks faced by individual schools in each Floridian county with actual school vaccination data. The tool reveals what could happen if a single student with measles attended schools in the locality – alongside a separate simulation showing what an epidemic might look like if the vaccination rate in schools in the same place were decreased by 10 percent…read more. The US-wide FRED Measles […]