Lifeboat Foundation

There is now a new addition to the magnetic family: thanks to experiments at the Swiss Light Source SLS, researchers have proved the existence of altermagnetism. The experimental discovery of this new branch of magnetism is reported in Nature and signifies new fundamental physics, with major implications for spintronics.

Magnetism is a lot more than just things that stick to the fridge. This understanding came with the discovery of antiferromagnets nearly a century ago. Since then, the family of magnetic materials has been divided into two fundamental phases: the ferromagnetic branch known for several millennia and the antiferromagnetic branch.

The experimental proof of a third branch of magnetism, termed altermagnetism, was made at the Swiss Light Source SLS, by an international collaboration led by the Czech Academy of Sciences together with Paul Scherrer Institute PSI.

Quantum computing engineers at UNSW Sydney have shown they can encode quantum information—the special data in a quantum computer—in four unique ways within a single atom, inside a silicon chip.

The feat could alleviate some of the challenges in operating tens of millions of quantum computing units in just a few square millimeters of a silicon quantum computer chip.

In a paper published in Nature Communications, the engineers describe how they used the 16 quantum ‘states’ of an antimony atom to encode quantum information.

CERN has announced that they are to release a cut-down version of their popular Hadron Collider for use in the home.

The Large Hadron Collider was built over twenty years ago, is housed in a 27-kilometre tunnel on the Switzerland – France border, and is used to smash particles together to see what happens.

The facility has proven tremendously successful, having smashed over thirty particles together since it was built.

New research posits that life originated somewhere in the cosmos — and that it traveled through space on tiny particles of cosmic dust.

RFID tags are commonly used to verify the authenticity of products, but they have some drawbacks. They are relatively large, expensive, and vulnerable to counterfeiting. A team of MIT engineers has developed a new type of ID tag that overcomes these limitations by using terahertz waves, which are smaller and faster than radio waves.

The new tag is a cryptographic chip several times smaller and cheaper than RFID tags. It also offers improved security, using the unique pattern of metal particles in the glue that attaches the tag to the item as a fingerprint. This way, the authentication system will detect tampering if someone tries to peel off the tag and stick it to a fake item.

Scientists have blazed a new trail for studying how atoms respond to radiation, by tracking the energetic movement of excited electrons.

Does life appear independently on different planets in the galaxy? Or does it spread from world to world? Or does it do both?

New research shows how life could spread via a basic, simple pathway: cosmic dust.

One thing scientists have learned in the past few decades is that life on Earth might have had an early start.

The invisible substance called dark matter remains one of the biggest mysteries in cosmology. Perhaps, a new study suggests, this strange substance arises from a ‘dark mirror universe’ that’s been linked to ours since the dawn of time.

Sept 22 2016.

Kurzweilai – How the properties of quarks and gluons can be used (in principle) to perform computation at the femtometer (10^−15 meter) scale.

An atom is about 10^−10 m in size.

Continue reading “Femtotech: computing at the femtometer scale using quarks and gluons from Hugo de Garis” »