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Circa 2014


For most of us, even one bite of chocolate is enough to send our taste buds into ecstasy. Now, scientists have concocted a process to make these dark, dulcet morsels look as decadent as they taste.

Switzerland-based company Morphotonix has given traditional Swiss chocolate-making a colorful twist: It’s devised a method to imprint shiny holograms onto the sweet surfaces — sans harmful additives. Which means when you tilt the goodies from side to side, rainbow stars and swirly patterns on the chocolate’s surface dance and shimmer in the light.

Typically, holograms are laser-imprinted onto a flat, metallic surface such as aluminum; the rainbow-colored hologram appears when light hits the surface at a certain angle (Think of the security sticker on the back of your credit card). But aluminum-drenched chocolate doesn’t sound very appetizing, so confectioners pour the chocolate into a mold etched with a patchwork of minuscule bumps, or microstructures, that bend light at specific angles — embedding a hologram directly onto its surface.

Quanta of light—photons—form the basis of quantum key distribution in modern cryptographic networks. Before the huge potential of quantum technology is fully realized, however, several challenges remain. A solution to one of these has now been found.

In a paper published in the journal Science, teams led by David Novoa, Nicolas Joly and Philip Russell report a breakthrough in frequency up-conversion of single photons, based on a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) filled with hydrogen gas. First a spatio-temporal hologram of molecular vibrations is created in the gas by stimulated Raman scattering. This hologram is then used for highly efficient, correlation-preserving frequency conversion of single photons. The system operates at a pressure-tuneable wavelength, making it potentially interesting for quantum communications, where efficient sources of indistinguishable single-photons are unavailable at wavelengths compatible with existing fiber networks.

The approach combines , gas-based , hollow-core PCF, and the physics of molecular vibrations to form an efficient tool that can operate in any spectral band from the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared—an ultra-broad working range inaccessible to existing technologies. The findings may be used to develop fiber-based tools in technologies such as , and quantum-enhanced imaging.

The manipulation of electromagnetic waves and information has become an important part of our everyday lives. Intelligent metasurfaces have emerged as smart platforms for automating the control of wave-information-matter interactions without manual intervention. They evolved from engineered composite materials, including metamaterials and metasurfaces. As a society, we have seen significant progress in the development of metamaterials and metasurfaces of various forms and properties.

In a paper published in the journal eLight on May 6, 2022, Professor Tie Jun Cui of Southeast University and Professor Lianlin Li of Peking University led a research team to review intelligent metasurfaces. “Intelligent metasurfaces: Control, Communication and Computing” investigated the development of intelligent metasurfaces with an eye for the future.

This field has refreshed human insights into many fundamental laws. They have unlocked many novel devices and systems, like cloaking, tunneling, and holograms. Conventional structure-alone or passive metasurfaces has moved towards intelligent metasurfaces by integrating algorithms and nonlinear materials (or active devices).

Consciousness defines our existence. It is, in a sense, all we really have, all we really are, The nature of consciousness has been pondered in many ways, in many cultures, for many years. But we still can’t quite fathom it.

web1Why consciousness cannot have evolved

Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved Read more Consciousness is, some say, all-encompassing, comprising reality itself, the material world a mere illusion. Others say consciousness is the illusion, without any real sense of phenomenal experience, or conscious control. According to this view we are, as TH Huxley bleakly said, ‘merely helpless spectators, along for the ride’. Then, there are those who see the brain as a computer. Brain functions have historically been compared to contemporary information technologies, from the ancient Greek idea of memory as a ‘seal ring’ in wax, to telegraph switching circuits, holograms and computers. Neuroscientists, philosophers, and artificial intelligence (AI) proponents liken the brain to a complex computer of simple algorithmic neurons, connected by variable strength synapses. These processes may be suitable for non-conscious ‘auto-pilot’ functions, but can’t account for consciousness.

Finally there are those who take consciousness as fundamental, as connected somehow to the fine scale structure and physics of the universe. This includes, for example Roger Penrose’s view that consciousness is linked to the Objective Reduction process — the ‘collapse of the quantum wavefunction’ – an activity on the edge between quantum and classical realms. Some see such connections to fundamental physics as spiritual, as a connection to others, and to the universe, others see it as proof that consciousness is a fundamental feature of reality, one that developed long before life itself.

Not even death itself will prevent this tech-savvy grandfather from meeting his future great-grandchildren.


Not even death will stop this tech-savvy grandfather from meeting his great-grandchildren.

Jerry Terrance, an 85-year-old grandfather from Los Angeles, California, has turned himself into a 3D hologram that will serve as a humanoid time capsule for future generations. According to the Daily Mail, Jerry’s ‘hologram twin’ will guide his two children and four grandchildren, as well as future great-grandchildren, through his family’s history, even after his death.

“I think it is a wonderful way to preserve my family’s history for future generations,” said Jerry while speaking to Jam Press. “To see myself like that, is just mind-blowing — it feels like watching a movie. By not just reading the words as in my memoir but to actually get the chance to see and hear me recalling the stories is just magical.”

Developed by StoryTerrace in partnership with 8i, the 3D hologram was captured in a custom green screen studio using 30 individual cameras. As Jerry thoughtfully recites his family history, accompanying home videos and photos are projected on the wall behind him. While explaining his creation of the Carpet Bag handbag in the 1960s, for example, we see some of the original promotional material for the item displayed throughout his virtual environment.

You read that right, a hologram doctor.


It’s not science fiction: Hologram doctors beamed to space to visit astronauts.

In 2021, a team of hologram doctors was “holoported” to space to visit astronauts living aboard the International Space Station, NASA has revealed in a new post. The hologram teams, led by NASA flight surgeon Dr. Josef Schmid and Fernando De La Peña Llaca, CEO of software provider Aexa Aerospace, were the first humans to ever be “holoported” from Earth to space.

In a remarkable development, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) ‘holoported’ the first human being into space late last year. Holoportation is the process through which a three dimensional holographic representation of an individual is created, in a combination of a ‘hologram’ and ‘teleportation’. NASA revealed the development late last week, as it announced that it had transported flight surgeon Dr. Josef Schmid, mixed and virtual reality firm AEXA Aerospance’s chief executive officer Dr. Fernando De La Pena Llaca and others to the International Space Station (ISS) during October 2021 while the ISS was orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 250 miles above the Earth’s surface.

NASA Uses Microsoft’s Hololens Konnect Camera To Create Live Hologram of Flight Surgeon In Space

The event place last year when NASA’s Crew 2 astronauts were present on the ISS. The astronauts took to the skies in April last year and returned in November, soon after Dr. Schmid and others were holoportated to the orbiting space laboratory.

Dude, what if everything around us was just … a hologram?

The thing is, it could be—and a University of Michigan physicist is using quantum computing and machine learning to better understand the idea, called holographic duality.

Holographic duality is a mathematical conjecture that connects theories of particles and their interactions with the theory of gravity. This conjecture suggests that the theory of gravity and the theory of particles are mathematically equivalent: what happens mathematically in the theory of gravity happens in the theory of particles, and vice versa.