Science Daily December 7, 2018 Coupling spin qubits to electric fields is attractive for simplifying qubit manipulation and couple qubits over long distances. Electron spins in silicon offer long lifetimes, but their weak spin-orbit interaction makes electrical coupling challenging. An international team of scientists (Australia, France) has shown that boron and phosphorus atoms in silicon couple efficiently to electric fields, enabling rapid qubit manipulation and qubit coupling over large distances. Those bound to phosphorus donor qubits revealed a previously unknown coupling of the electron spin to the electric fields typically found in device architectures created by control electrodes. By careful […]
The dry history of liquid computers
Arxiv November 25, 2018 A liquid can be used to represent signals, actuate mechanical computing devices and to modify signals via chemical reactions. Researchers in the UK give a brief overview of liquid-based computing devices developed over hundreds of years. These include hydraulic calculators, fluidic computers, micro-fluidic devices, droplets, liquid marbles and reaction-diffusion chemical computers…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Defenses Against the Biggest Risk We Face
Next Big Future December 9, 2018 One [Open Access] study found the worldwide spread of a serious infectious disease could result in pandemic-related deaths of 700,000 and annual economic losses of $500 billion. The World Health Organization had a scientific report that modeled the impact of a 1918 style flu pandemic in 2018. They estimated that there would still be 20 to 33 million deaths. This took into account modern vaccination, drugs and public health procedures…read more.
Deep-learning technique reveals ‘invisible’ objects in the dark
Science Daily December 12, 2018 Using deep neural network technique researchers at MIT reconstructed transparent objects from images of those objects, taken in almost pitch-black conditions. A computer was trained to recognize more than 10,000 transparent glass-like etchings, based on extremely grainy images of those patterns, with about one photon per pixel. They found that the computer learned to reconstruct the transparent object from the new grainy image, not included in the training data. The technique is of practical importance for medical imaging to lower the exposure of the patient to harmful radiation, and for astronomical imaging…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Color-changing fabric warns military about chemical agents
Eurekalert December 11, 2018 A team of researchers in the US (University of Cincinnati, University of Florida) is working with a polymer called Nafion which has unique structural properties that provide for electrical insulation and gas separation, while also promoting the passage of ions but at the same time, it hinders the transport of gases, like oxygen. The idea is to incorporate the naturally flexible Nafion membrane into a soldier’s clothes to detect chemical agents in the air while preventing them from interacting with the skin. Nafion could react with chemical warfare agents to form benign products when applied to […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of December 7, 2018
01. New quantum materials could take computers beyond the semiconductor era 02. On the cusp of valleytronics 03. Researchers map light and sound wave interactions in optical fibers 04. Seeing through walls: Indoor positioning system 05. To Crack the Toughest Optimization Problems, Just Add Lasers 06. Innate ‘fingerprint’ could detect tampered steel parts 07. Photonic radiation sensors survive huge doses undamaged 08. Harvard Scientists Will Actually Launch a Geoengineering Experiment Next Year 09. New device for manipulating and moving tiny objects with light 10. Breaking Through to Next Levels of Technology And others… Companies fed up with crappy Wi-Fi are […]
Six feet under, a new approach to global warming
Science Daily November 26, 2018 A team of researchers in the US (Washington State University, UC Santa Barbara) measured carbon held by reactive minerals across a broad range of climates. Carbon retained by reactive minerals was found to contribute between 3 and 72% of organic carbon found in mineral soil, depending on mean annual precipitation and potential evapotranspiration. They estimate globally ~600 Gt of soil carbon is retained by reactive minerals, with most occurring in wet forested biomes. For many biomes, the fraction of organic carbon retained by reactive minerals is responsive to slight shifts in effective moisture, suggesting high sensitivity […]
Seeing through walls: Indoor positioning system
Eurekalert December 3, 2018 According to an international team of researchers (Russia, China, India) none of the existing systems is accurate enough: they are unable to track an item inside a place from door to door with a centimeter-level precision. They are developing algorithms and software and hardware systems for high-precision indoor positioning. According to the researchers this type of technology is particularly relevant when it comes to unmanned production settings where precision positioning of components is required…read more
Researchers rise to challenge of predicting hail, tornadoes three weeks in advance
Science Daily November 28, 2018 A team of researchers in the US (Colorado State University, Stoney Brook University) used a reliable tropical weather pattern called the Madden-Julian Oscillation, which can influence weather in distant parts of the Earth, to demonstrate the ability to make skillful predictions of severe weather across the Plains and southeastern United States, including hail and tornadoes, in 2-to-5-weeks-in-advance period. They validated their predictions using available datasets looking at what the Madden-Julian Oscillation was doing about three weeks ahead of severe weather in these areas during the typical severe-weather months of March through June. Although forecasting weeks […]
Researchers map light and sound wave interactions in optical fibers
Science Daily November 28, 2018 Optical fibers carry data and guide ultrasound waves. Earlier this year researchers showed that mutual effects of light and sound waves that co-propagate in a fiber. In their research researchers in Israel constructed a distributed spectrometer, a measurement protocol that can map local power levels of multiple optical wave components over many kilometers of fiber. The measurements unravel how the generation of ultrasonic waves can mix these optical waves together. Rather than propagate independently, the opto-mechanical interactions lead to the amplification of certain optical waves, and to the attenuation of others, in a complicated fashion. […]