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MIT creates a pocket-sized 3D printer that prints objects in seconds

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States have created a tiny 3D printer chip-sized device that forms the necessary objects using light in a matter of seconds.

A team of researchers led by Professor Elena Nataros has created a 3D printer that emits a reconfigurable beam of light into resin to create solid forms. This tiny printer fits in the palm of your hand. It is expected that users will be able to quickly create customized, low-cost objects.

According to the developers, the system consists of a single photonic chip measuring a few millimeters, without any additional moving parts. It emits visible light into the resin, allowing for non-mechanical 3D printing.

Researchers develop two-layer neural model that matches complex visual processing in the brain

Neuroscientists want to understand how individual neurons encode information that allows us to distinguish objects, like telling a leaf apart from a rock. But they have struggled to build computational models that are simple enough to allow them to understand what individual neurons are doing.

To address this challenge, researchers in the Stringer and Pachitariu labs at Janelia set out to create a simpler model to explain what’s going on in the —the first stop in the brain for . Their paper is published in the journal Nature Communications.

“We are trying to build a model that can predict the visual responses of each individual neuron,” says Fengtong Du, a graduate student in the Stringer Lab who led the new research.

New imaging technique captures every twist of polarized light

EPFL scientists have developed a new technique that lets researchers watch, with unprecedented sensitivity, how materials emit polarized light over time.

Light isn’t just bright or dim, colored or plain. Its waves can also twist and turn, in a phenomenon called . Think about the glasses you wear at a 3D movie, which use light polarization to make each eye see a slightly different image, creating the illusion of depth.

Polarization is key for future technologies, from quantum computers to secure communication and holographic displays. Many materials emit light in ways that encode information in its polarization, as if we were using the direction of light waves to send a message. Among these phenomena is a form known as circularly polarized luminescence (CPL), a special type of light emission produced by chiral materials where light waves spiral either left or right as they travel.

DNA as a perfect quantum computer based on the quantum physics principles

I believe that dna will be able to answer just about all our genetic coding questions so much that it will lead to even better breakthroughs in the future and use hardly any energy. I believe also that the master algorithm can eventually be derived from DNA as dna seems already a perfect master algorithm for human beings where human beings are the key to all future progress. I say this as quantum computing is still not stable but we already know that dna computers seem already a masterpiece already especially even organoids of the human brain. Really it becomes really quite simple as even the quantum realm is unstable but dna computers that are quantum would stabilize this currently unstable realm.


Riera Aroche, R., Ortiz García, Y.M., Martínez Arellano, M.A. et al. DNA as a perfect quantum computer based on the quantum physics principles. Sci Rep 14, 11,636 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-62539-5

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Quantum computer simulates spontaneous symmetry breaking at zero temperature

For the first time, an international team of scientists has experimentally simulated spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) at zero temperature using a superconducting quantum processor. This achievement, which was accomplished with over 80% fidelity, represents a milestone for quantum computing and condensed matter physics.

The results are published in the journal Nature Communications.

The system began in a classical antiferromagnetic state, in which particles have spins that alternate between one direction and the opposite direction. It then evolved into a ferromagnetic quantum state, in which all particles have spins that point in the same direction and establish quantum correlations.

Faster topology optimization: An emerging industrial design technique gets a speed boost

With the rise of 3D printing and other advanced manufacturing methods, engineers can now build structures that were once impossible to fabricate. An emerging design strategy that takes full advantage of these new capabilities is topology optimization—a computer-driven technique that determines the most effective way to distribute material, leading to an optimized design.

Now, a research team including mathematicians from Brown University has developed a new approach that dramatically improves the speed and stability of topology optimization algorithms. The team, a collaboration between researchers at Brown, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Simula Research Laboratory in Norway, detailed their work in two recently published papers in the SIAM Journal on Optimization and Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization.

“Our method beats some existing methods by four or five times in terms of efficiency,” said Brendan Keith, an assistant professor of applied mathematics at Brown. “That’s a huge computational savings that could enable people to make designs more quickly and inexpensively, or to develop more complex designs with higher resolution.”

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