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Category: electronics – Page 5
Physicists harness potential of quantum phase transitions
Researchers at University College Dublin and international collaborators have just published a detailed and accessible guide that aims to translate theoretical ideas into practical devices for quantum enhanced sensing technologies.
Conventional sensors have enabled technologies from global positioning systems to satellite imaging. Quantum systems, however, provide the absolute best precision allowable by the laws of physics.
The challenge, however, is that quantum devices are often fragile. A promising theoretical avenue for designing quantum sensors not hindered by this fragility is called “critical quantum sensing.”
Nvidia is canning the Control Panel, and I can’t be the only one who’s slightly sad to see it go
And two, the Nvidia App can be quite an online-focused affair in a way the old Control Panel was not. Besides the greyed-out checkbox in the Privacy settings labelled “required data” (something Nvidia explains is “Data that is necessary for Nvidia App to operate and cannot be switched off”), it can also lag quite badly on an unstable connection. In my personal experience, anyway.
Still, change comes for us all. I’ll miss the Control Panel’s classic rotating 3D image preview, the charmingly old-school HDCP menu that shows a rendering of an ancient Nvidia GPU plugged into what looks suspiciously like a plasma TV, and of course, the old Global Settings and Program Settings tabs with all of their many intricacies.
But is it progress? Perhaps. You can pry the Windows Control Panel from my cold, dead hands, though. That old clunker simply refuses to die, although I don’t think it’ll be that long before I write a similar obituary.
A new light-based sensor could help make ultrasensitive disease testing more portable
When we think about highly sensitive medical testing, we often imagine a hospital laboratory filled with large instruments, trained technicians, and carefully controlled conditions. This is especially true for optical biosensing, where scientists try to detect extremely small changes caused by biomolecules binding to a sensor surface.
These tiny changes can carry important information about disease, treatment response, or biological function. But detecting them often requires precise spectrometers, stable light sources, and carefully aligned instruments. This makes many advanced biosensing technologies powerful in the laboratory, but difficult to use in smaller clinics, remote regions, or point-of-care settings.
In our recent study, now published in Nature Photonics, we asked a simple question: Can we make high-performance label-free biosensing smaller, more robust, and easier to scale, without sacrificing sensitivity?
Artificial neurons successfully communicate with living brain cells
Engineers at Northwestern University have created printed artificial neurons that go beyond imitation and can directly interact with real brain cells. These flexible, low-cost devices produce electrical signals that closely resemble those generated by living neurons, allowing them to activate biological brain tissue.
In experiments using slices of mouse brain, the artificial neurons successfully triggered responses in real neurons. This result shows a new level of compatibility between electronic devices and living neural systems.
Cav3.1 is a neuronal leucine sensor that mediates satiety and weight loss in response to dietary protein
Online now: Tsang et al. identify the T-type calcium channel Cav3.1 as a neuronal leucine sensor in hypothalamic POMC neurons. Leucine directly binds Cav3.1, lowering its activation threshold. Loss of Cav3.1 in POMC neurons abolishes high-protein diet-induced appetite suppression, while pharmacological activation promotes weight loss and potentiates the effects of anorectic agents.