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Category: quantum physics – Page 952

The future of computing may lie in living cells

Technology, meet your future beyond AI & Quantum.

While scientists study the possibilities of storing data in DNA, the web magazine Engadget reports that another group of researchers are looking into the possibility of utilizing living cells for next-generation computing.

The latest studies have developed a method of integrating both analog and digital computing into gene-based circuits. This allowed researchers to convert analog chemical reactions into binary output, or the ones and zeros that regular computers understand.

Apart from the obvious applications on general computing, gene-based circuitry can also be helpful to the medical field where it can be programmed to treat various diseases. In fact, clinical trials have been scheduled to use gene circuitry to treat gut diseases within the year. Alfred Bayle.

Viewpoint: Black Holes Have Soft Quantum Hair

A black hole may carry “soft hair,” low-energy quantum excitations that release information when the black hole evaporates.

Four decades ago, Stephen Hawking proposed that black holes could destroy information—a conclusion that is incompatible with standard laws of quantum physics. This idea started a controversy known as the “black hole information problem” that even now has not been resolved. A new study by Hawking himself and Malcom Perry, both at the University of Cambridge, and by Andrew Strominger at Harvard University shows that some of the assumptions that led to the information problem might be wrong [1]. Their results do not completely solve the problem, but point to a promising research direction that might lead to its long-awaited solution.

According to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, stationary black holes are completely determined by just three observable parameters: their mass, charge, and angular momentum. Almost none of the information about what fell into the black hole is visible from the outside. Physicist John Wheeler described this idea by saying that “black holes have no hair.”

Applications of Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis in Nanomedicine

Since 2001, I have worked, experimented, and researched in parallel tech and bio/medical technology space. I did this because I could see that at some point that these two fields would eventually overlap and eventually merge in many areas. Today, we’re already see the duplicated use of technology in both the medical/ life sciences and the same technology used to advance the technology in general such as Quantum tech, nanotech, etc. Here is another example of this trend.

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Introduction

Nanoparticles are increasingly being used in a wide range of sectors. This article evaluates particular mechanisms through which nanoparticles are uniquely developed and formulated. It also discusses the important role of nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) in the field of nanomedicine.

Tiny lasers on silicon means big things for electronics

Silicon forms the basis of everything from solar cells to the integrated circuits at the heart of our modern electronic gadgets. However the laser, one of the most ubiquitous of all electronic devices today, has long been one component unable to be successfully replicated in this material. Now researchers have found a way to create microscopically-small lasers directly from silicon, unlocking the possibilities of direct integration of photonics on silicon and taking a significant step towards light-based computers.

Whilst there has been a range of microminiature lasers incorporated directly into silicon over the years, including melding germanium-tin lasers with a silicon substrate and using gallium-arsenide (GaAs) to grow laser nanowires, these methods have involved compromise. With the new method, though, an international team of researchers has integrated sub-wavelength cavities, the basic components of their minuscule lasers, directly onto the silicon itself.

To help achieve this, a team of collaborating scientists from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the University of California, Santa Barbara, Sandia National Laboratories and Harvard University, first had to find a way to refine silicon crystal lattices so that their inherent defects were reduced significantly enough to match the smooth properties found in GaAs substrate lasers. They did this by etching nano-patterns directly onto the silicon to confine the defects and ensure the necessary quantum confinement of electrons within quantum dots grown on this template.

Quantum weirdness survives space travel

In a feat that demonstrates the feasibility of using satellites to transmit uncrackable quantum messages, scientists have measured the quantum properties of photons sent to space and back again.

Physicists beamed the blips of light up to a satellite that reflected them back to Earth. Upon the photons’ return, the team, led by Paolo Villoresi of the University of Padua in Italy, observed a property known as quantum interference. That confirmed that the particles’ quantum traits remained intact over the 5,000-kilometer space voyage. The team reports the advance in a paper to be published in Physical Review Letters.

The technique could one day lead to quantum cryptography by satellite, allowing users to send snoop-proof encryption keys for encoding secret information. “It’s important for the sake of secure communication and advancement of physics,” says Villoresi. But that’s not the only reason he took on the challenge. “I can more honestly say that it’s cool.”

Complex analogue and digital computations in engineered bacterial cells

Definitely aligns with my NextGen transformational roadmap leading to Singularity. 5th Revolution is with Quantum technology, BMI, early Biocomputing. 6th Revolution is Singularity with Biocomputing evolved and all things living are enhanced via both technology and Biocomputing and several cases of hybrids through synthetic genes and technology. So, no shocker here.

A team of researchers at MIT has developed a technique to integrate both analogue and digital computation in living cells, allowing them to form gene circuits capable of carrying out complex processing operations.

Living cells are capable of performing complex computations on the environmental signals they encounter.

These computations can be continuous, or analogue, in nature — the way eyes adjust to gradual changes in the light levels. They can also be digital, involving simple on or off processes, such as a cell’s initiation of its own death.

The quantum era has begun, this CEO says

It certainly is.

Quantum computing’s full potential may still be years away, but there are plenty of benefits to be realized right now.

So argues Vern Brownell, president and CEO of D-Wave Systems, whose namesake quantum system is already in its second generation.

Launched 17 years ago by a team with roots at Canada’s University of British Columbia, D-Wave introduced what it called “the world’s first commercially available quantum computer” back in 2010. Since then the company has doubled the number of qubits, or quantum bits, in its machines roughly every year. Today, its D-Wave 2X system boasts more than 1,000.

Physicists discover an infinite number of quantum speed limits

(Phys.org)—In order to determine how fast quantum technologies can ultimately operate, physicists have established the concept of “quantum speed limits.” Quantum speed limits impose limitations on how fast a quantum system can transition from one state to another, so that such a transition requires a minimum amount of time (typically on the order of nanoseconds). This means, for example, that a future quantum computer will not be able to perform computations faster than a certain time determined by these limits.

Although physicists have been investigating different quantum speed limits for different types of quantum systems, it has not been clear what the best way to do this is, or how many different quantum speed limits there are.

Now in a new paper published in Physical Review X, Diego Paiva Pires et al., from the UK and Brazil, have used techniques from information geometry to show that there are an infinite number of quantum speed limits. They also develop a way to determine which of these speed limits are the strictest, or in other words, which speed limits offer the tightest lower bounds. As the researchers explain, the search for the ultimate quantum speed limits is closely related to the very nature of time itself.

Viewpoint: Taming Ultracold Molecules

Riding the coattails of cold atomic physics, researchers have demonstrated the ability to steer cold molecules into desired quantum states.

Ultracold atoms have become a favorite tool in physics because they can be precisely placed in a quantum state using optical and magnetic fields. This quantum control has been crucial for understanding fundamental quantum-mechanical behavior and for creating metrological devices such as the atomic clocks that keep time for GPS systems. Current efforts are devoted to using these controllable systems to simulate, for example, superconductivity, but this and other future applications will likely require that the particles within the system interact with each other. Ultracold atoms do not interact very strongly, so an obvious alternative is to turn to molecules. As opposed to atoms, molecules can have an electric dipole, which lets them naturally interact strongly with each other through dipole forces. But molecules are not a straight substitute for atoms. They are much more complicated and thus significantly harder to cool and control than atoms.