Lifeboat Foundation

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

Researchers from the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Engineering are developing a first-of-its-kind innovative system against fake news that relies on blockchain. Their goal? A world where people have greater trust in the news they see and hear.

It is already known that disinformation – especially digitally created – poses a great threat to democracy. There is evidence fake news could have influenced important world events like Brexit, the 2016 US elections, the Russia-Ukraine war, etc. Big tech companies like Facebook and Google have been trying to establish policies to prevent the spread of disinformation on their platforms, with limited success.

There is an intense, worldwide search for novel materials to build computer microchips with that are not based on classic transistors but on much more energy-saving, brain-like components. However, whereas the theoretical basis for classic transistor-based digital computers is solid, there are no real theoretical guidelines for the creation of brain-like computers.

Such a theory would be absolutely necessary to put the efforts that go into engineering new kinds of microchips on solid ground, argues Herbert Jaeger, Professor of Computing in Cognitive Materials at the University of Groningen.

Computers have, so far, relied on stable switches that can be off or on, usually transistors. These digital computers are logical machines and their programming is also based on logical reasoning. For decades, computers have become more powerful by further miniaturization of the transistors, but this process is now approaching a physical limit. That is why scientists are working to find new materials to make more versatile switches, which could use more values than just the digitals 0 or 1.

We live in an era of data deluge. The data centers that are operated to store and process this flood of data use a lot of electricity, which has been called a major contributor to environmental pollution. To overcome this situation, polygonal computing systems with lower power consumption and higher computation speed are being researched, but they are not able to handle the huge demand for data processing because they operate with electrical signals, just like conventional binary computing systems.

Dr. Do Kyung Hwang of the Center for Opto-Electronic Materials & Devices of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and Professor Jong-Soo Lee of the Department of Energy Science & Engineering at Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) have jointly developed a new zero-dimensional and two-dimensional (2D-0D) semiconductor artificial junction material and observed the effect of a next-generation memory powered by light.

Transmitting data between the computing and storage parts of a multi-level computer using light rather than electrical signals can dramatically increase processing speed.

An international team of scientists is rethinking the basic principles of radiation physics with the aim of creating super-bright light sources. In a new study published in Nature Photonics, researchers from the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) in Portugal, the University of Rochester, the University of California, Los Angeles, and Laboratoire d’Optique Appliquée in France proposed ways to use quasiparticles to create light sources as powerful as the most advanced ones in existence today, but much smaller.

Quasiparticles are formed by many electrons moving in sync. They can travel at any speed—even faster than light—and withstand intense forces, like those near a black hole.

“The most fascinating aspect of quasiparticles is their ability to move in ways that would be disallowed by the laws of physics governing individual particles,” says John Palastro, a senior scientist at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and an associate professor at the Institute of Optics.

The Georgia Institute of Technology course teaches engineering students to create art using brainwaves, either their own or someone else’s.

An uncanny course is being taught in the halls of the Georgia Institute of Technology. While the course, called Arts and Geometry, itself isn’t uncanny, it’s the distinct approach taken by the professor that is making waves, literally and figuratively.

The course teaches engineering students to create art using brainwaves, either their own or someone else’s. When the ions and neurons go about their business inside our brains, brainwaves are created in a pattern of electrical activity in the brain.

Nanozymes are synthetic materials that mimic the properties of natural enzymes for applications in biomedicine and chemical engineering. Historically, they are generally considered too toxic and expensive for use in agriculture and food science. Now, researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a nanozyme that is organic, non-toxic, environmentally friendly, and cost effective.

In a newly published paper, they describe its features and its capacity to detect the presence of glyphosate, a common agricultural herbicide. Their goal is to eventually create an user-friendly test kit for consumers and agricultural producers.

“The word nanozyme is derived from nanomaterial and enzyme. Nanozymes were first developed about 15 years ago, when researchers found that iron oxide nanoparticles may perform catalytic activity similar to natural enzymes (peroxidase),” explained Dong Hoon Lee, a doctoral student in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ABE), part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) and The Grainger College of Engineering at U. of I.

Researchers at Tokyo Tech have demonstrated that in-cell engineering is an effective method for creating functional protein crystals with promising catalytic properties. By harnessing genetically altered bacteria as a green synthesis platform, the researchers produced hybrid solid catalysts for artificial photosynthesis.

Photosynthesis is how plants and some microorganisms use sunlight to synthesize carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water.

Art and science combine in this engineering course to let students turn their brainwaves into creative works.

Ceramic nanowires could essentially be used even for car tires reducing even hazardous rubber waste.

A team of MIT-led engineers found a simple, inexpensive way to strengthen Inconel 718 with ceramic nanowires to be used in metal PBF AM processes. The team believes that their general approach could be used to improve many other materials. “There is always a significant need for the development of more capable materials for extreme environments. We believe that this method has great potential for other materials in the future,” said Ju Li, the Battelle Energy Alliance Professor in Nuclear Engineering and a professor in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE).

Li, who is also affiliated with the Materials Research Laboratory (MRL), is one of three corresponding authors of a paper on the work that appeared in the April 5 issue of Additive Manufacturing. The other corresponding authors are Professor Wen Chen of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Professor A. John Hart of the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Continue reading “MIT researchers develop Inconel 718-ceramic nanowires powder for AM” »