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If you’re always running out of room for photos, videos, and music on your laptop, then science might have the answer. Using a laser to write data to magnetic storage, researchers have been able to increase the potential data storage capacity of hard drives by as much as 10 times — a process konwn as heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR).

Our computers write, read, and store information by controlling and detecting whether tiny regions of the disk are magnetised or not. This magnetic state corresponds to either a “1” or a “0” in the binary code — known as a bit — and our files are stored across thousands (or millions) of these bits at once. So if we want more space, we need to find a way to shrink those magnetic regions — which are made up of magnetic grains. And that’s where this new development comes in.

As Gizmodo reports, the new technique relies on shrinking the size of the magnetic grains used to store data, while minimising the interference with surrounding grains, and the researchers have now done that more effectively than ever before by using a precise laser alongside a magnetic field.

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“We are from the future. Everything is going to be alright. The future is a beautiful place. But you will need some training in order to get there…” More: http://WeAreFromTheFuture.com

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Science:
“Quantum mechanics explains efficiency of photosynthesis”
“Energy transfer in light-harvesting macromolecules is assisted by specific vibrational motions of the chromophores,” said Alexandra Olaya-Castro (UCL Physics & Astronomy), supervisor and co-author of the research. “We found that the properties of some of the chromophore vibrations that assist energy transfer during photosynthesis can never be described with classical laws, and moreover, this non-classical behaviour enhances the efficiency of the energy transfer.”

“The negative values in these probability distributions are a manifestation of a truly quantum feature, that is, the coherent exchange of a single quantum of energy,” explained Edward O’Reilly (UCL Physics & Astronomy), first author of the study. “When this happens electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom are jointly and transiently in a superposition of quantum states, a feature that can never be predicted with classical physics.”

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articl

Text from video:
“Greetings… We are from the future. Everything is going to be alright. The future is a beautiful place … But you will need some training in order to inhabit it.

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Headphones that stimulate the release of dopamine in your brain and reportedly make you feel high as hell have been invented by Florida-based tech company, Nervana, and are set to go on sale as early as next month.

The headphones will pump music into your ears as normal, but at the same time, an integrated device will deliver a low-power electrical signal through your ear canal to stimulate the Vagus nerve — a nerve that runs from the brainstem to the abdomen and plays a role in the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centres.

“I felt the electricity go into my arm, and everything was tingling there, but the best moment for me was afterwards when I finished and stood up,” journalist Amanda Gutterman writes for Futurism.

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“Vulcan Inc. today announced a new exhibition of nearly 60 objects related to science fiction and the history of space exploration – Imagined Futures: Science Fiction, Art, and Artifacts from the Paul G. Allen Family Collection – that will be on view at its 3,000-square-foot flexible concept space, Pivot Art + Culture beginning April 7, 2016. The exhibition, curated by Ben Heywood, runs through July 10, 2016.”

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