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Quantum thermal transistor can control heat currents

(Phys.org)—Researchers have designed a quantum thermal transistor that can control heat currents, in analogy to the way in which an electronic transistor controls electric current. The thermal transistor could be used in applications that recycle waste heat that has been harvested from power stations and other energy systems. Currently, there are methods for transporting and guiding this heat, but not for controlling, amplifying, and switching the heat on and off, as the quantum thermal transistor can do.

The researchers, Karl Joulain et al., at the University of Poitiers and CNRS in France, have published a paper on the quantum thermal transistor in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters.

“To manage electricity, one uses electronic diodes, transistor and amplifiers,” Joulain told Phys.org. “We would like to do the same thing with thermal currents. We would like to make logical thermal circuits in the same way electronic thermal circuits have been designed. In this way, wasted heat could be guided, switched on or off, amplified or modulated.”

North Korean Facebook clone spotted; hacked shortly

According to Mirror Online, the youngster is studying computing at college.

This gave the 18-year-old full control over the site, including the ability to “delete and suspend users, change the site’s name, censor certain words and manage the eventual ads”, as well as being able to “see everyone’s emails”.

Go to starcon.net.kp and you’ll find a very familiar looking website.

Engineering nanodevices to store information the quantum way

Wonderful! We’re well on our way of making QC more available on many devices in the near future.


Creating quantum computers which some people believe will be the next generation of computers, with the ability to outperform machines based on conventional technology—depends upon harnessing the principles of quantum mechanics, or the physics that governs the behavior of particles at the subatomic scale. Entanglement—a concept that Albert Einstein once called “spooky action at a distance”—is integral to quantum computing, as it allows two physically separated particles to store and exchange information.

Stevan Nadj-Perge, assistant professor of and , is interested in creating a device that could harness the power of entangled particles within a usable technology. However, one barrier to the development of quantum computing is decoherence, or the tendency of outside noise to destroy the quantum properties of a quantum computing device and ruin its ability to store information.

Nadj-Perge, who is originally from Serbia, received his undergraduate degree from Belgrade University and his PhD from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. He received a Marie Curie Fellowship in 2011, and joined the Caltech Division of Engineering and Applied Science in January after completing postdoctoral appointments at Princeton and Delft.

Fast, stretchy circuits could yield new wave of wearable electronics

The consumer marketplace is flooded with a lively assortment of smart wearable electronics that do everything from monitor vital signs, fitness or sun exposure to play music, charge other electronics or even purify the air around you — all wirelessly.

Now, a team of University of Wisconsin—Madison engineers has created the world’s fastest stretchable, wearable integrated circuits, an advance that could drive the Internet of Things and a much more connected, high-speed wireless world.

Led by Zhenqiang “Jack” Ma, the Lynn H. Matthias Professor in Engineering and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in electrical and computer engineering at UW–Madison, the researchers published details of these powerful, highly efficient integrated circuits today, May 27, 2016, in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

The Future of Humanity’s Food Supply Is in the Hands of AI

Perhaps it’s serendipitous, then, that the machines have finally arrived. Truly smart, truly impressive robots and machine learning algorithms that may help usher in a new Green Revolution to keep humans fed on an increasingly mercurial planet. Think satellites that automatically detect drought patterns, tractors that eyeball plants and kill the sick ones, and an AI-powered smartphone app that can tell a farmer what disease has crippled their crop.

Forget scarecrows. The future of agriculture is in the hands of the machines.

A Digital Green Thumb

Deep learning is a powerful method of computing in which programmers don’t explicitly tell a computer what to do, but instead train it to recognize certain patterns. You could feed a computer photos of diseased and healthy plant leaves, labeled as such. From these it will learn what diseased and healthy leaves look like, and determine the health of new leaves on its own.

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