Lifeboat Foundation

Some signed third-party bootloaders for the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) could allow attackers to execute unauthorized code in an early stage of the boot process, before the operating system loads.

Vendor-specific bootloaders used by Windows were found to be vulnerable while the status of almost a dozen others is currently unknown.

Threat actors could exploit the security issue to establish persistence on a target system that cannot be removed by reinstalling the operating system (OS).

Optics, technologies that leverage the behavior and properties of light, are the basis of many existing technological tools, most notably fiber communication systems that enable long-and short-distance high-speed communication between devices. Optical signals have a high information capacity and can be transmitted across longer distances.

Researchers at California Institute of Technology have recently developed a new device that could help to overcome some of the limitations of existing optical systems. This device, introduced in a paper published in Nature Photonics, is a lithium niobate-based device that can switch ultrashort light pulses at an extremely low optical pulse energy of tens of femtojoules.

“Unlike electronics, optics still lacks efficiency in required components for computing and signal processing, which has been a major barrier for unlocking the potentials of optics for ultrafast and efficient computing schemes,” Alireza Marandi, lead researcher for the study, told Phys.org. “In the past few decades, substantial efforts have been dedicated to developing all–optical switches that could address this challenge, but most of the energy-efficient designs suffered from slow switching times, mainly because they either used high-Q resonators or carrier-based nonlinearities.”

I’ll admit that I didn’t see this one coming: Retraction Watch is reporting that the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Center (CCDC), the world’s main repository of small-molecule crystal data, is on the way to pulling nearly a thousand deposited crystal structures because they appear to have been faked. A preprint from earlier this year from David Bimler flagged what seems to be a paper-mill operation flooding out bogus papers on metal-organic frameworks: hundreds and hundreds of weirdly worded manuscripts on nonexistent MOFs and their imaginary applications, full of apparently randomly selected “references” to the rest of the literature. And these things depositited crystal data with the CCDC, which is the step that I really didn’t expect.

After all, anyone who studies the scientific literature has (especially in recent years) seen these auto-generated papers full of crap. But faked crystal structure files? That’s nasty. The record of these papers shows a sudden jump in 2020 and 2021, leading Bimler to wonder:

The dates paint a picture of accelerating publication, as if a small-scale cottage industry had been scaled up to a production line with a larger staff. One can imagine crystallographers initially ghostwriting manuscripts as a favour for friends, moonlighting from their day job, and becoming progressively more professional, though this must remain speculation.

Summary: Researchers say they have created the most bio-realistic and complex computer models of individual brain cells.

Source: Cedars Sinai.

Cedars-Sinai investigators have created the most bio-realistic and complex computer models of individual brain cells—in unparalleled quantity.

A research team succeeded in executing the world’s fastest two-qubit gate (a fundamental arithmetic element essential for quantum computing) using a completely new method of manipulating, with an ultrafast laser, micrometer-spaced atoms cooled to absolute zero temperature. For the past two decade.

“ data-gt-translate-attributes=’[{“attribute”:” data-cmtooltip”, “format”:” html”}]’quantum computing ) using a completely new method of manipulating, with an ultrafast laser, micrometer-spaced atoms cooled to absolute zero.

Absolute zero is the theoretical lowest temperature on the thermodynamic temperature scale. At this temperature, all atoms of an object are at rest and the object does not emit or absorb energy. The internationally agreed-upon value for this temperature is −273.15 °C (−459.67 °F; 0.00 K).

Continue reading “World’s Fastest 2-Qubit Gate: Breakthrough for the Realization of Ultrafast Quantum Computers” »

A new study corrects an important error in the 3D mathematical space developed by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Erwin Schrödinger and others, and used by scientists and industry for more than 100 years to describe how your eye distinguishes one color from another. The research has the potential to boost scientific data visualizations, improve TVs and recalibrate the textile and paint industries.

“The assumed shape of color space requires a paradigm shift,” said Roxana Bujack, a computer scientist with a background in mathematics who creates scientific visualizations at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Bujack is lead author of the paper by a Los Alamos team in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the mathematics of color perception.

Continue reading “Math error: A new study overturns 100-year-old understanding of color perception” »

It’s “a revolutionary scientific advance in molecular data storage and cryptography.”

Scientists from the University of Texas at Austin sent a letter to colleagues in Massachusetts with a secret message: an encryption key to unlock a text file of L. Frank Baum’s classic novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The twist: The encryption key was hidden in a special ink laced with polymers, They described their work in a recent paper published in the journal ACS Central Science.

When it comes to alternative means for data storage and retrieval, the goal is to store data in the smallest amount of space in a durable and readable format. Among polymers, DNA has long been the front runner in that regard. As we’ve reported previously, DNA has four chemical building blocks—adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), and cytosine ©—which constitute a type of code. Information can be stored in DNA by converting the data from binary code to a base-4 code and assigning it one of the four letters. A single gram of DNA can represent nearly 1 billion terabytes (1 zettabyte) of data. And the stored data can be preserved for long periods—decades, or even centuries.

Continue reading “Scientists hid encryption key for Wizard of Oz text in plastic molecules” »

Computers that think more like human brains are inching closer to mainstream adoption. But many unanswered questions remain. Among the most pressing, what types of materials can serve as the best building blocks to unlock the potential of this new style of computing.

For most traditional computing devices, silicon remains the gold standard. However, there is a movement to use more flexible, efficient and environmentally friendly materials for these brain-like devices.

In a new paper, researchers from The University of Texas at Austin developed synaptic transistors for brain-like computers using the thin, flexible material graphene. These transistors are similar to synapses in the brain, that connect neurons to each other.

Quantum computing will change everything.

“I think I can safely say that nobody really understands quantum mechanics,” renowned physicist Richard Feynman stated once. That shouldn’t come as a big surprise as quantum physics has a reputation for being exceptionally enigmatic. This was the selling point for the quantum physicist Dr. Shohini Ghose from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Having always excelled at mathematics and physics, Ghose was always interested in mysteries, detective stories, and mathematics. This led her to an intense fascination with physics, as she quickly discovered that she could use mathematics to help solve the mysteries of the universe.

Continue reading “Quantum in 2027: Take a quantum leap into the future of IT” »