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Nov 13, 2023

New Techniques From MIT and NVIDIA Revolutionize Sparse Tensor Acceleration for AI

Posted by in categories: education, robotics/AI

Complimentary approaches — “HighLight” and “Tailors and Swiftiles” — could boost the performance of demanding machine-learning tasks.

Researchers from MIT

MIT is an acronym for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is a prestigious private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts that was founded in 1861. It is organized into five Schools: architecture and planning; engineering; humanities, arts, and social sciences; management; and science. MIT’s impact includes many scientific breakthroughs and technological advances. Their stated goal is to make a better world through education, research, and innovation.

Nov 13, 2023

Transient Treasures: Scientists Unearth Gold’s Remarkable Origin Story

Posted by in category: space

New research offers a theory on how gold, platinum, and other precious metals found their way to shallow pockets within Earth’s mantle.

Scientists at Yale and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) say they’ve hit the jackpot with some valuable new information about the story of gold.

It’s a story that begins with violent collisions of large objects in space, continues in a half-melted region of Earth’s mantle, and ends with precious metals finding an unlikely resting spot much closer to the planet’s surface than scientists would have predicted.

Nov 13, 2023

The Ammonia Trail: Unlocking Cosmic Mysteries of Distant Worlds With Webb

Posted by in category: space

The detection of ammonia isotopologues in a brown dwarf by the James Webb Space Telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) is an orbiting infrared observatory that will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope. It covers longer wavelengths of light, with greatly improved sensitivity, allowing it to see inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are forming today as well as looking further back in time to observe the first galaxies that formed in the early universe.

Nov 13, 2023

The New Building Blocks of Quantum Tech: Quantum Dots and Twisted Light

Posted by in categories: quantum physics, space

Generation of nearly deterministic OAM-based entangled states offers a bridge between photonic technologies for quantum advancements.

Quantum technology’s future rests on the exploitation of fascinating quantum mechanics concepts — such as high-dimensional quantum states. Think of these as states basic ingredients of quantum information science and quantum tech. To manipulate these states, scientists have turned to light, specifically a property called orbital angular momentum (OAM), which deals with how light twists and turns in space. Here’s a catch: making super bright single photons with OAM in a deterministic fashion has been a tough nut to crack.

Quantum Dots: Bridging Technologies

Nov 13, 2023

Brain’s Recycling System: Researchers Unlock the Secret to Neuron Renewal

Posted by in categories: biological, neuroscience, sustainability

Researchers at Auburn University have achieved a groundbreaking discovery, illuminating the process by which brain cells efficiently replace older proteins. This process is essential for maintaining effective neural communication and optimal cognitive function.

The findings were published on November 6 in the prestigious journal, Frontiers in Cell Development and Biology. The study, entitled “Recently Recycled Synaptic Vesicles Use Multi-Cytoskeletal Transport and Differential Presynaptic Capture Probability to Establish a Retrograde Net Flux During ISVE in Central Neurons,” explains the transportation and recycling of older proteins in brain cells.

Nov 13, 2023

Webb’s Window Into Cosmic Birth: Ice Pebble Drift Sparks Planetary Life

Posted by in category: alien life

How are planets born? Scientists have long proposed that ice-covered pebbles are the seeds of planet formation. These icy solids are thought to drift toward the newborn star from the cold, outer reaches of the disk surrounding it. The theory predicts that, as these pebbles enter the warmer region closer to the star, they would release significant amounts of cold water vapor, delivering both water and solids to nascent planets.

Now, the James Webb Space Telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) is an orbiting infrared observatory that will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope. It covers longer wavelengths of light, with greatly improved sensitivity, allowing it to see inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are forming today as well as looking further back in time to observe the first galaxies that formed in the early universe.

Nov 13, 2023

The Illusion of Understanding: MIT Unmasks the Myth of AI’s Formal Specifications

Posted by in categories: mathematics, robotics/AI

Some researchers see formal specifications as a way for autonomous systems to “explain themselves” to humans. But a new study finds that we aren’t understanding.

As autonomous systems and artificial intelligence become increasingly common in daily life, new methods are emerging to help humans check that these systems are behaving as expected. One method, called formal specifications, uses mathematical formulas that can be translated into natural-language expressions. Some researchers claim that this method can be used to spell out decisions an AI will make in a way that is interpretable to humans.

Research Findings on Interpretability.

Nov 13, 2023

Mind-Body Link Exposed: Unraveling the Physical Costs of Mental Disorders

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, neuroscience

Psychiatric patients almost twice as likely to have multiple physical ailments – new study.

A new study, conducted by Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in collaboration with the University of Cambridge’s Biomedical Research Centre, has revealed significant findings about the physical health of psychiatric patients. This extensive analysis incorporated data from 19 different studies, involving 194,123 psychiatric patients globally, and compared them to 7,660,590 individuals in control groups.

Findings on Multimorbidity.

Nov 13, 2023

Unlocking the secrets of spin with high-harmonic probes

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

Deep within every piece of magnetic material, electrons dance to the invisible tune of quantum mechanics. Their spins, akin to tiny atomic tops, dictate the magnetic behavior of the material they inhabit. This microscopic ballet is the cornerstone of magnetic phenomena, and it’s these spins that a team of JILA researchers—headed by JILA Fellows and University of Colorado Boulder professors Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn—has learned to control with remarkable precision, potentially redefining the future of electronics and data storage.

In a Science Advances publication, the JILA team—along with collaborators from universities in Sweden, Greece, and Germany—probed the spin dynamics within a special material known as a Heusler compound: a mixture of metals that behaves like a single magnetic material.

For this study, the researchers utilized a compound of cobalt, manganese, and gallium, which behaved as a conductor for electrons whose spins were aligned upwards and as an insulator for electrons whose spins were aligned downwards.

Nov 13, 2023

What exposure to radiation does to glass on the moon over billions of years

Posted by in categories: materials, space

A team of materials scientists at Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, working with colleagues from the China Academy of Space Technology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, all in China, has found that billions of years of exposure to radiation has made glass on the moon harder.

In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes how they tested samples of lunar regolith brought to Earth by China’s Chang’e-5 lunar lander and then treated the samples to rejuvenate them for comparison purposes.

Humans have been making glass for approximately 4,000 years; nature, on the other hand, has been doing it for billions of years. In this new effort, the research team studied glass that has been made naturally on the moon by meteoroids striking, and melting —some of it billions of years old.