Lifeboat Foundation

University of Pennsylvania engineers have developed a new chip that uses light waves, rather than electricity, to perform the complex math essential to training AI. The chip has the potential to radically accelerate the processing speed of computers while also reducing their energy consumption.

The silicon-photonic (SiPh) chip’s design is the first to bring together Benjamin Franklin Medal Laureate and H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor Nader Engheta’s pioneering research in manipulating materials at the nanoscale to perform mathematical computations using light—the fastest possible means of communication—with the SiPh platform, which uses silicon, the cheap, abundant element used to mass-produce computer chips.

The interaction of light waves with matter represents one possible avenue for developing computers that supersede the limitations of today’s chips, which are essentially based on the same principles as chips from the earliest days of the computing revolution in the 1960s.

Semiconductor devices are small components that manage the movement of electrons in contemporary electronic gadgets. They are essential for powering a wide range of high-tech products, including cell phones, laptops, and vehicle sensors, as well as cutting-edge medical devices. However, the presence of material impurities or variations in temperature can interfere with electron flow, causing instability.

But now, theoretical and experimental physicists from the Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat—Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter have developed a semiconductor device from aluminum-gallium-arsenide (AlGaAs). This device’s electron flow, usually susceptible to interference, is safeguarded by a topological quantum phenomenon. This groundbreaking research was recently detailed in the esteemed journal Nature Physics.

“Thanks to the topological skin effect, all of the currents between the different contacts on the quantum semiconductor are unaffected by impurities or other external perturbations. This makes topological devices increasingly appealing for the semiconductor industry. They eliminate the need for the extremely high levels of material purity that currently drive up the costs of electronics manufacturing,” explains Professor Jeroen van den Brink, director of the Institute for Theoretical Solid State Physics at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research in Dresden (IFW) and a principal investigator of ct.qmat.

A team of scientists from the University of Ottawa is offering insights into the mysteries of quantum entanglement. Their recent study, titled “Extending the known region of nonlocal boxes that collapse communication complexity” and published in Physical Review Letters (PRL), discloses that various theoretical quantum theory extensions are considered non-physical when tested against the principle of non-trivial communication complexity.

These quantum theory extensions can be symbolized by an array of nonlocal boxes, which are theoretical devices used to illustrate certain aspects of quantum entanglement and nonlocality.

The study was conducted by Anne Broadbent, a full professor and research chair at the University of Ottawa’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics, along with Pierre Botteron, a Ph.D. candidate from the University of Toulouse, France, who is also a visiting student researcher at the University of Ottawa, and Marc-Olivier Proulx, an MSc alumnus of the Department of Physics at the University of Ottawa.

Human telomerase threatens genome integrity by adding telomeres to broken chromosomes and is held in check by ATR kinase signaling.

A new Amazon AI model, according to the researchers who built it, is exhibiting language abilities that it wasn’t trained on.

In a not-yet-peer-reviewed academic paper, the team at Amazon AGI — which stands for “artificial general intelligence,” or human-level AI — say their large language model (LLM) is exhibiting “state-of-the-art naturalness” at conversational text. Per the examples shared in the paper, the model does seem sophisticated.

As the paper indicates, the model was able to come up with all sorts of sentences that, according to criteria crafted with the help of an “expert linguist,” showed it was making the types of language leaps that are natural in human language learners but have been difficult to obtain in AI.

A revolutionary nanomaterial with huge potential to tackle multiple global challenges could be developed further without acute risk to human health, research suggests. The study is published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Carefully controlled inhalation of a specific type of graphene—the world’s thinnest, super strong and super flexible material —has no short-term adverse effects on lung or cardiovascular function, the study shows. The first controlled exposure clinical trial in people was carried out using thin, ultra-pure graphene oxide—a water-compatible form of the material.

Researchers say further work is needed to find out whether higher doses of this graphene oxide material or other forms of graphene would have a different effect. The team is also keen to establish whether longer exposure to the material, which is thousands of times thinner than a human hair, would carry additional health risks.

A tiny robot with a clutch that mimics similar mechanisms found in microorganisms could be used to trigger the internal workings of a cell.

By Alex Wilkins

A groundbreaking titanium metamaterial with unparalleled strength and versatility could revolutionize manufacturing and high-speed aviation.

A lightweight, high-strength titanium material has been engineered that could lead to stronger medical devices and innovative vehicle and spacecraft designs. The research team used a common titanium alloy, Ti-6Al-4V, to construct the “metamaterial”, a term used to describe an artificial material that possesses unique properties not observed in nature — meta means “beyond” in Greek.

Many such intricate and surprisingly strong structures do exist in nature, like that of the Victoria water lily. Native to South America, this gigantic floating leaf is strong enough to support an adult owing to the unique lattice structure of it veins.

One of the ways cells in different kinds of tissue communicate is by exchanging RNA molecules. In experiments with roundworms of the species Caenorhabditis elegans, researchers at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil found that when this communication pathway is dysregulated, the organism’s lifespan is shortened.

An article on the study is published in the journal Gene. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the aging process and associated diseases.

“Previous research showed that some types of RNA can be transferred from one cell to another, mediating intertissue communication, of the kind that occurs with proteins and metabolites, for example. This is considered a mechanism for signaling between organs or neighboring cells. It’s part [of the physiopathology] of several diseases and of the organism’s normal functioning,” said Marcelo Mori, corresponding author of the article and a professor at the Institute of Biology (IB-UNICAMP).