Lifeboat Foundation

A team of researchers headed by Professor Sun Zhong at Peking University recently unveiled an analog hardware approach for real-time compressed sensing recovery. Their findings have been documented in a paper recently published in Science Advances.

In this work, a design based on a resistive memory (also known as memristor) array for performing instantaneous matrix-matrix-vector multiplication (MMVM) is first introduced. Based on this module, then an analog matrix computing circuit that solves compressed sensing (CS) recovery in one step (within a few microseconds) is disclosed.

Researchers have developed a new spectroscopy method to study ultrafast processes in strongly correlated materials, achieving sub-femtosecond resolution.

An international team of researchers from the European XFEL together with colleagues from the Max Born Institute in Berlin, the Universities of Berlin and Hamburg, The University of Tokyo, the Japanese National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), the Dutch Radboud University, Imperial College London, and Hamburg Center for Ultrafast Imaging, have presented new ideas for ultrafast multi-dimensional spectroscopy of strongly correlated solids. This work will be published today (January 24) in Nature Photonics.

Exploring Strongly Correlated Solids

Intermediate-Mass Black Holes (IMBHs) represent a cosmic puzzle, with their existence and formation mechanisms shrouded in mystery.

A recent study led by Gran Sasso Science Institute researcher Manuel Arca Sedda and published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society journal (MNRAS), sheds light on the mechanisms that lead to the formation of mysterious Intermediate-Mass Black Holes (IMBHs). These are objects with masses between a few hundred and tens of thousands of solar masses, which could represent the link between their smaller relatives, stellar black holes, and the supermassive giants that populate the centers of galaxies.

Continue reading “Cracking the Code: How Intermediate-Mass Black Holes Form” »

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a loophole impacting Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) that could be potentially exploited by threat actors with a Google account to take control of a Kubernetes cluster.

The critical shortcoming has been codenamed Sys: All by cloud security firm Orca. As many as 250,000 active GKE clusters in the wild are estimated to be susceptible to the attack vector.

In a report shared with The Hacker News, security researcher Ofir Yakobi said it “stems from a likely widespread misconception that the system: authenticated group in Google Kubernetes Engine includes only verified and deterministic identities, whereas in fact, it includes any Google authenticated account (even outside the organization).”

As Pedro Pacheco of Gartner, another consultancy, points out, Chinese firms are also managed differently. They are less risk averse and move faster than foreign firms, quickly updating tech and introducing new models to keep customers interested. Treating new cars like consumer-tech products, such as smartphones, extends to ditching duds quickly. Li Auto now ceases production of new models in a matter of months if they do not sell well.

EV startups such as Li Auto, NIO and Xpeng were all founded by tech billionaires who, like Tesla’s Elon Musk, regard their firms as tech companies that happen to make cars. In fact, lots of Chinese tech firms are getting involved in the car industry. Whereas Apple has mulled such a venture long and indecisively, Xiaomi, a big Chinese smartphone-maker, unveiled its first vehicle in December (a fancy and expensive saloon). It plans to make cheaper models in future with the immodest goal of becoming one of the world’s top five carmakers in 15–20 years. Huawei, a telecoms firm, and Baidu, a search engine, have also teamed up with car firms to make vehicles.

Kenya has announced that the precious coltan mineral, which is used in the manufacture of cell phones, laptops and other communication gadgets has been found in the country.

Mining and Blue Economy Cabinet Secretary (CS) Salim Mvurya said on Wednesday that adequate deposits of coltan have been found in six counties.

The rare metallic mineral, mostly found in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is mainly used for the production of electronic goods of mass consumption, such as mobile phones, laptops and videogame consoles, and its discovery in Kenya is set to raise the country’s profile as a mineral exporter.

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Study in Npj Digital Medicine evaluates COMPOSER, a deep learning model for early sepsis prediction, showing its effectiveness in improving patient care and reducing in-hospital mortality rates.

Tunneling is one of most fundamental processes in quantum mechanics, where the wave packet could traverse a classically insurmountable energy barrier with a certain probability.

On the atomic scale, tunneling effects play an important role in molecular biology, such as accelerating enzyme catalysis, prompting spontaneous mutations in DNA and triggering olfactory signaling cascades.

Photoelectron tunneling is a key process in light-induced chemical reactions, charge and energy transfer and radiation emission. The size of optoelectronic chips and other devices has been close to the sub-nanometer atomic scale, and the quantum tunneling effects between different channels would be significantly enhanced.

The discovery of superconductivity more than a century ago has significantly changed our world.

The story began in 1911 when the Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes observed that the electrical resistance of mercury abruptly dropped to zero when it was cooled to a temperature of about 4 Kelvin (approximately 269°C)—a bit colder than the boiling point of liquid helium.

Continue reading “Making a superconductor liquid–solid out of the vacuum with hundred-exatesla-strong magnetic fields” »