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Category: computing – Page 575

Army researchers predict quantum computer circuits that will no longer need extremely cold temperatures to function could become a reality after about a decade.

For years, solid-state quantum technology that operates at room temperature seemed remote. While the application of transparent crystals with had emerged as the most likely route to this milestone, the plausibility of such a system always remained in question.

Now, Army scientists have officially confirmed the validity of this approach. Dr. Kurt Jacobs, of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory, working alongside Dr. Mikkel Heuck and Prof. Dirk Englund, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became the first to demonstrate the feasibility of a quantum logic gate comprised of and optical crystals.

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To tackle this problem, researchers at the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research identified a gel that closely mimics the physicochemical properties of organs that have undergone the tissue clearing process. Starting with computer simulations and following up with laboratory tests, the team optimized the soaking solution temperature, dye and antibody concentrations, chemical additives, and electrical properties to produce the best staining and imaging results. They then tested their method with more than two dozen commonly used dyes and antibodies on mouse and marmoset brains.

Scans of an entire mouse brain and one hemisphere of a marmoset brain—rendered into 3D using light sheet microscopy—revealed the similarity between the two animals’ neural vascular systems, showing the use of the system for comparative anatomy, the researchers report this week in. They also showed that they could simultaneously stain and image up to four molecular targets in a mouse brain, a feat that “has never been reported before,” says Ludovico Silvestri, of the European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy, who was not involved in the research.

The team also used its technique to image an entire infant marmoset and a small human brain sample—something that could one day lead to new understandings of solid tumors and neurodegenerative diseases. The team says its approach to optimizing staining can be applied to other techniques to advance the entire field of 3D imaging.

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Researchers at Stanford University have recently carried out an in-depth study of nematic transitions in iron pnictide superconductors. Their paper, published in Nature Physics, presents new imaging data of these transitions collected using a microscope they invented, dubbed the scanning quantum cryogenic atom microscope (SQCRAMscope).

“We invented a new type of scanning probe microscope a few years ago,” Benjamin L. Lev, the researcher who led the study, told Phys.org. “One can think of it like a normal optical microscope, but instead of the lens focused on some sample slide, the focus is on a quantum gas of atoms that are levitated near the sample.”

In the new microscope invented by Lev and his colleagues, atoms are levitated from an ‘atom chip’ trapping device using magnetic fields, until they are merely a micron above the sample slide. These atoms can transduce the magnetic fields that emanate from the sample into the light collected by the microscope’s lens. As a result, SQCRAMscope can be used to image magnetic fields.

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DisplayPort Alt Mode 2.0 is a new standard from the Video Electronics Standards Association that allows USB 4 to offer all the bells and whistles of the DisplayPort 2.0 standard as well as transmitting USB data. That means support for 8K displays at 60Hz with HDR, 4K displays at 144Hz with HDR, or even 16K (15360×8460) displays at 60Hz with compression. It’s a big step towards USB Type-C becoming a true jack-of-all trades connector.

The USB 4 spec can already transmit DisplayPort data, but AnandTech reports that the new standard remaps USB-C’s high speed data pins to unlock more bandwidth for video. USB 4 is bidirectional, meaning it can carry up to 40Gbps of data in either direction. However, video doesn’t need to go both ways — you only really need data to pass from your laptop to your monitor (for example). This alt mode means that all that bandwidth can be used to just send video one way, meaning you get a maximum raw bandwidth of up to 80Gbps.

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Today’s virtual reality systems can create immersive visual experiences, but seldom do they enable users to feel anything—particularly walls, appliances and furniture. A new device developed at Carnegie Mellon University, however, uses multiple strings attached to the hand and fingers to simulate the feel of obstacles and heavy objects.

By locking the strings when the user’s hand is near a virtual wall, for instance, the device simulates the sense of touching the wall. Similarly, the string mechanism enables people to feel the contours of a virtual sculpture, sense resistance when they push on a piece of furniture or even give a high five to a virtual character.

Cathy Fang, who will graduate from CMU next month with a joint degree in mechanical engineering and , said the shoulder-mounted device takes advantage of spring-loaded strings to reduce weight, consume less battery power and keep costs low.

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Scientists typically use a method known as polymerase chain reaction (PCR), but it requires bulky and expensive equipment and considerable expertise to perform correctly. That means DNA samples collected in the field normally have to be sent to dedicated laboratories for testing, which makes it hard to detect diseases or harmful pathogens quickly.

A new testing system developed by researchers at the Army Medical University in China may help to fill that gap by allowing on-the-spot DNA tests in as quick as 80 minutes. According to the researchers, their test achieves 97 percent accuracy using simple 3D printed parts that attach to a standard smartphone and weigh less than 100 g rams (0.22 pounds).

At the heart of the system is an “i-chip” just four centimeters long that includes integrated sample preparation, DNA amplification, and signal detection modules. The various reagents required to carry out the test can be pre-loaded in the device, and the researchers showed that these could be kept for up to ten weeks at room temperature without loss of performance.

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Paralysis used to mean a life sentence of immobility with no way out—until now.

Back in 2010, Ian Burkhart suffered a devastating injury that would leave him mostly paralyzed. Even though he was still able to move his shoulders and elbows, he had lost sensation in his hands. That was until Patrick Ganzer at Battelle Memorial Institute fast-forwarded biotech into the future by developing a brain implant that would turn Burkhart’s life around. When the implant connects to a specialized brain-computer interface, it does something that has never been done before and has restored both movement and touch in his right hand.

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While we might often take our sense of touch for granted, for researchers developing technologies to restore limb function in people paralyzed due to spinal cord injury or disease, re-establishing the sense of touch is an essential part of the process. And on April 23 in the journal Cell, a team of researchers at Battelle and the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center report that they have been able to restore sensation to the hand of a research participant with a severe spinal cord injury using a brain-computer interface (BCI) system. The technology harnesses neural signals that are so miniscule they can’t be perceived and enhances them via artificial sensory feedback sent back to the participant, resulting in greatly enriched motor function.

“We’re taking subperceptual events and boosting them into conscious perception,” says first author Patrick Ganzer, a principal research scientist at Battelle. “When we did this, we saw several functional improvements. It was a big eureka moment when we first restored the participant’s .”

The participant in this study is Ian Burkhart, a 28-year-old man who suffered a spinal cord injury during a diving accident in 2010. Since 2014, Burkhart has been working with investigators on a project called NeuroLife that aims to restore function to his right arm. The device they have developed works through a system of electrodes on his skin and a small computer chip implanted in his motor cortex. This setup, which uses wires to route movement signals from the brain to the muscles, bypassing his spinal cord injury, gives Burkhart enough control over his arm and hand to lift a coffee mug, swipe a credit card, and play Guitar Hero.

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Stephen Wolfram is a cult figure in programming and mathematics. He is the brains behind Wolfram Alpha, a website that tries to answer questions by using algorithms to sift through a massive database of information. He is also responsible for Mathematica, a computer system used by scientists the world over.

Last week, Wolfram launched a new venture: the Wolfram Physics Project, an ambitious attempt to develop a new physics of our Universe.

The new physics, he declares, is computational. The guiding idea is that everything can be boiled down to the application of simple rules to fundamental building blocks.

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