Lifeboat Foundation

For most of us, the passage of time flies in just one inexorable direction.

But for theoretical quantum physicists, time’s direction isn’t quite so inflexible. It’s possible to theoretically model, simulate, and observe the backwards flow of time in ways that are impossible to achieve in the real world.

And now, scientists have shown that simulations of backwards time travel can help solve physics problems that cannot be resolved with normal physics.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have demonstrated a new approach to peer deeper into the complex behavior of materials. The team harnessed the power of machine learning to interpret coherent excitations, collective swinging of atomic spins within a system.

This groundbreaking research, published recently in Nature Communications, could make experiments more efficient, providing real-time guidance to researchers during data collection, and is part of a project led by Howard University including researchers at SLAC and Northeastern University to use machine learning to accelerate research in materials.

The team created this new data-driven tool using “neural implicit representations,” a machine learning development used in computer vision and across different scientific fields such as medical imaging, particle physics and cryo-electron microscopy. This tool can swiftly and accurately derive unknown parameters from experimental data, automating a procedure that, until now, required significant human intervention.

Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT and Bard have taken the world by storm this year, with companies investing millions to develop these AI tools, and some leading AI chatbots being valued in the billions.

These LLMs, which are increasingly used within AI chatbots, scrape the entire Internet of information to learn and to inform answers that they provide to user-specified requests, known as “prompts.”

However, computer scientists from the AI security start-up Mindgard and Lancaster University in the UK have demonstrated that chunks of these LLMs can be copied in less than a week for as little as $50, and the information gained can be used to launch targeted attacks.

NEC Corporation has developed a 150 GHz transmitter IC chip and supporting technologies in preparation for Beyond 5G and 6G mobile access radio communication systems. According to an NEC survey, this is the first demonstration of preferred beam steering performance with 4-channel Antenna-on-Chip (AoC) IC technology using On the Air (OTA) radiation pattern measurement.

Based on innovative RF circuit design technology, it has become possible to integrate 150 GHz phased array antenna elements, phase shifters and transmission amplifiers into a single chip. The 22-nm SOI-CMOS technology used for manufacturing this IC is cost effective, suitable for mass production, and has the ability to support large scale integration of digital, analog and RF functionalities in a chip.

This allows for both higher frequencies and smaller sizes, which also contributes to lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and potentially accelerates social implementation.

The future of human-machine interfaces is on the cusp of a revolution with the unveiling of a groundbreaking technology—a stretchable high-resolution multicolor synesthesia display that generates synchronized sound and light as input/output sources. A research team, led by Professor Moon Kee Choi in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at UNIST, has succeeded in developing this cutting-edge display using transfer-printing techniques, propelling the field of multifunctional displays into new realms of possibility.

The team’s research is published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

Traditionally, multifunctional displays have been confined to visualizing mechanical and electrical signals in light. However, this pioneering stretchable synesthesia display shatters preconceived boundaries by offering unparalleled optical performance and precise sound pressure levels. Its inherent stretchability ensures seamless operation under both static and dynamic deformation, preserving the integrity of the sound relative to the input waveform.

A detailed experimental analysis explains the forces by which a spinning magnet can cause another magnet to levitate in midair.

Magnetic levitation is common in floating trains and high-speed machinery, but two years ago, a new type of levitation was discovered that uses a rapidly rotating magnet to suspend a second magnet in the air. Researchers have now clarified that this phenomenon originates from slight tilts in the magnetic axes of the magnets relative to their rotational axes [1]. The research team’s experimental and theoretical work reveals surprises about how magnetic levitation works. The new technique could one day be used as a contact-free tool for manipulating objects.

If you bring together two toy magnets with their north poles facing each other, they will repel each other. You might be tempted to try and use that repulsion to counter the force of gravity by placing one magnet beneath the other. However, common experience shows that this balancing act is unstable.

Lab experiments and theoretical models elucidate how chains of light-harvesting bacteria assemble into various density-dependent structures.

A new method identifies the most sensitive measurement that can be performed using a given quantum state, knowledge key for designing improved quantum sensors.

A quantum sensor is a device that can leverage quantum behaviors, such as quantum entanglement, coherence, and superposition, to enhance the measurement capabilities of a classical detector [1–5]. For example, the LIGO gravitational-wave detector employs entangled states of light to improve the distance-measurement capabilities of its interferometer arms, allowing the detection of distance changes 10,000 times smaller than the width of a proton. Typically, quantum sensors use systems prepared in special quantum states known as probe states. Finding the ideal probe state for a given measurement is a focus of many research endeavors. Now Jarrod Reilly of the University of Colorado Boulder and his colleagues have developed a new framework for optimizing this search [6].

Two different experiments on two different transition metals reveal that a current of electron orbital angular momentum flows in response to an electric field.

In the spin Hall effect, an applied electric field drives a current of electron spin in a direction transverse to the field. In a transition metal, theorists predict that an orbital angular momentum (OAM) current can also flow. Now two groups have independently observed this so-called orbital Hall effect (OHE) [1, 2]. These observations supplement one made by a third group earlier this year [3]. Together these demonstrations constitute a step toward the development of “orbitronic” devices based on an electron’s orbital degree of freedom.

For their demonstration, Giacomo Sala of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich and his colleagues turned to a phenomenon known as Hanle magnetoresistance. In a conductor, when a magnetic field is applied parallel to the direction of electron OAM, orbital moments should accumulate at the edges of the sample because of the OHE. If instead the field is applied perpendicular to electron OAM, the orbital moments should precess. The orbital moments should then fall out of phase with each other, which boosts the material’s magnetoresistance. The team observed these effects in thin films of manganese [1].