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In new experiments using bird embryos, U.S. scientists have successfully converted cells of the lower-body region into facial tissue that makes cartilage.

The researchers of the California Institute of Technology discovered a “gene circuit”, composed of just three genes, that can alter the fate of cells destined for the lower bodies of birds, turning them instead into cells that produce cartilage and bones in the head.

Reporting in the latest issue of the journal Science, published on June 24, the researchers say the results could eventually lead to therapies for conditions where facial bone or cartilage is lost. For example, cartilage destroyed in the nose due to cancer is particularly hard to replace.

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This video is worthless. I hear a person who is out of touch with the QC work and isn’t even aware all of the work going on. Frankly, QC is being worked on by big tech (Amazon, Google, Microsoft, D-Wave, IBM), governmental labs and incubators, limited set of start ups who are also (in many cases tied to big tech), and university research labs. Therefore, I don’t really find this soapbox video that informative as well as not in touch with where QC is today. It appears to me that this guy has sour grapes over not being engaged.

At least if you’re going to get on a soapbox and try to talk about QC like you’re somehow an expert or informed; at least make sure you know what has been shown, reported, and in development currently that has been publically announced so that you don’t look like you’re an un-informed consultant doing a superficial presentation and didn’t even bother doing the due diligence 1st. Otherwise, you just discredited your VC/ firm to the public and to those working on QC.

watch time: 28 minutes

One of the key insights that legendary physicist and Nobel Prize laureate Richard Feynman had was that quantum mechanics (the branch of physics that deals with subatomic particles, uncertainty principle, and many other concepts beyond classic physics) is just way too complicated to simulate using traditional computers.

Nature, of course, can handle these complex calculations — computers however can’t do those same calculations (or would take a prohibitively long time and amount of resources to do so). But this isn’t just about being able to do more with computers in a faster (or smaller) way: It’s about solving problems that we couldn’t solve with traditional computers; it’s about a difference of kind not just degree.

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Nice.

Quantum computing makes small, but significant progress.

A high-energy physics experiment has been completed using a simple quantum device that, if scaled up, could potentially greatly outperform a conventional computer.

Physicists from the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information at the Austrian Academy of Sciences have used the quantum computer to simulate the spontaneous creation of particle-antiparticle pairs.

Continue reading “Experimental quantum computer manages first high-energy physics simulation” | >

Guessing the pressurization suits (like those in space) will have to be worn. Some of my friends who were test pilots for experimental type aircraft use to tell me how they had to push the jets to their limits and at times wear pressurization suits due to pressurization in the cockpit. So, this should be interesting.

Defense, aerospace, news, exhibitions, C4ISR, aircraft, procurement, pentagon, contracts, companies, categories, events, interviews.

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WALLOPS ISLAND — With space station resupply launches expected to resume in August and a runway under construction for testing drone flights, Virginia is looking at another opportunity to lure a major federal research program to the state’s expanding spaceport complex on this Eastern Shore barrier island.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is expected to begin looking for a place to base a new “science and technology testing ground” for unmanned vehicle systems — operating in the air and underwater — and boosters say the regional spaceport would be an ideal fit.

“What better place to do it than here?” said Peter Bale, chairman of the Wallops Island Regional Alliance, as members of the House Appropriations Committee visited last week.

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Unlike Inception this is not a relative time form of learning though I suppose the time needed for experiments to yield their results can be dropped.

I can’t recall the last time I picked up an actual text book. As the article points out instead of reading a text book you drop into a VR and live out the history. (What was that movie where the teacher walks in and throws the text book out the window and follow ups show his class reenacting historical scenes?)

The way we learn today is just wrong.

Learning needs to be less like memorization, and more like…Angry Birds.

Continue reading “This Is the Tech That Will Make Learning as Addictive as Video Games” | >

(credit: WEF)

The World Economic Forum’s annual list of this year’s breakthrough technologies, published today, includes “socially aware” openAI, grid-scale energy storage, perovskite solar cells, and other technologies with the potential to “transform industries, improve lives, and safeguard the planet.” The WEF’s specific interest is to “close gaps in investment and regulation.”

“Horizon scanning for emerging technologies is crucial to staying abreast of developments that can radically transform our world, enabling timely expert analysis in preparation for these disruptors. The global community needs to come together and agree on common principles if our society is to reap the benefits and hedge the risks of these technologies,” said Bernard Meyerson, PhD, Chief Innovation Officer of IBM and Chair of the WEF’s Meta-Council on Emerging Technologies.

The list also provides an opportunity to debate human, societal, economic or environmental risks and concerns that the technologies may pose — prior to widespread adoption.

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