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Category: information science – Page 56

Theoretical physicists unveil ‘supermazes’ to decode black-hole microstructure

A team of physicists have discovered a new approach that redefines the conception of a black hole by mapping out their detailed structure, as shown in a research study recently published in Journal of High Energy Physics.

The study details new theoretical structures called “supermazes” that offer a more universal picture of to the field of theoretical physics. Based in , supermazes are pivotal to understanding the structure of black holes on a microscopic level.

“General relativity is a powerful theory for describing the large-scale structure of black holes, but it is a very, very blunt instrument for describing black-hole microstructure,” said Nicholas Warner, co-author of the study and professor of physics, astronomy and mathematics at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. In a framework of theories extending beyond Einstein’s equations, supermazes provide a detailed portrait of the microscopic structure of brane black holes.

Quantum statistical approach quiets big, noisy data

Big data has gotten too big. Now, a research team with statisticians from Cornell has developed a data representation method inspired by quantum mechanics that handles large data sets more efficiently than traditional methods by simplifying them and filtering out noise.

This method could spur innovation in data-rich but statistically intimidating fields, like and epigenetics, where traditional data methods have thus far proved insufficient.

The paper is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Scientists Reveal the Hidden Chemistry of Air Pollution

The interactions between light and nitroaromatic hydrocarbon molecules have important implications for chemical processes in our atmosphere that can lead to smog and pollution. However, changes in molecular geometry due to interactions with light can be very difficult to measure because they occur at sub-Angstrom length scales (less than a tenth of a billionth of a meter) and femtosecond time scales (one millionth of a billionth of a second).

The relativistic ultrafast electron diffraction (UED) instrument at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory provides the necessary spatial and time resolution to observe these ultrasmall and ultrafast motions. The LCLS is a Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science light source user facility.

In this research, scientists used UED to observe the relaxation of photoexcited o–nitrophenol. Then, they used a genetic structure fitting algorithm to extract new information about small changes in the molecular shape from the UED data that were imperceptible in previous studies. Specifically, the experiment resolved the key processes in the relaxation of o-nitrophenol: proton transfer and deplanarization (i.e., a rotation of part of the molecule out of the molecular plane). Ab-initio multiple spawning simulations confirmed the experimental findings. The results provide new insights into proton transfer-mediated relaxation and pave the way for studies of proton transfer in more complex systems.

US: Brain-to-speech breakthrough helps paralyzed people talk again

The key to this development is an AI-powered streaming method. By decoding brain signals directly from the motor cortex – the brain’s speech control center – the AI synthesizes audible speech almost instantly.

“Our streaming approach brings the same rapid speech decoding capacity of devices like Alexa and Siri to neuroprostheses,” said Gopala Anumanchipalli, co-principal investigator of the study.

Anumanchipalli added, “Using a similar type of algorithm, we found that we could decode neural data and, for the first time, enable near-synchronous voice streaming. The result is more naturalistic, fluent speech synthesis.”

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