If you gaze at the vast galaxies filled with countless stars, it’s easy to assume they are star factories, churning out brilliant balls of gas. However, it’s the less evolved dwarf galaxies dwarf galaxies have bigger regions of star factories, with higher rates of star formation.
Recent findings by researchers from the University of Michigan shed light on this phenomenon: Dwarf galaxies experience a delay of about 10 million years before they expel the gas congesting their space. This delay allows star-forming regions in these galaxies to retain their gas and dust longer, fostering the formation and development of more stars.
Over the past few years, engineers have been trying to devise alternative hardware designs that would allow a single device to both perform computations and store data. These emerging electronics, known as computing-in-memory devices, could have numerous advantages, including faster speeds and enhanced data analysis capabilities.
To store data safely and retain a low power consumption, these devices should be based on ferroelectric materials with advantageous properties and that can be scaled down in terms of thickness. Two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors that exhibit a property known as sliding ferroelectricity have been found to be promising candidates for realizing computing-in-memory, yet attaining the necessary switchable electric polarization in these materials can prove difficult.
Researchers at National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan Semiconductor Research Institute, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University and National Cheng Kung University recently devised an effective strategy to achieve a switchable electric polarization in molybdenum disulfide (MoS2). Using this method, outlined in a Nature Electronics paper, they ultimately developed new promising ferroelectric transistors for computing-in-memory applications.
TL;DR: a warp trip will show up on a gravitational detector because the space ship’s mass instantly disappears and later re-appears somewhere else.
There is some interesting foundational research [ALC] into faster than light [FTL] travel, but by everything these theories tell us, the ingredients for such modes of transportation aren’t available in the universe. FTL should be possible because the universe expands [EXP] at speeds greater than that of light, as [EXP] eloquently states: “galaxies that are farther than the Hubble radius, approximately 4.5 gigaparsecs or 14.7 billion light-years, away from us have a recession speed that is faster than the speed of light”
Since it is unclear whether the material needed for an FTL drive will ever be available, funding research in that direction could be a waste of resources, unless synergies emerge. In the spirit of respecting taxpayer’s money, I think FTL research should try to exploit – and generate – synergies with other fields of research.
This is not a work of art. It’s an image of microscopic blood flow in a rat’s brain, taken with one of many new tools that are yielding higher levels of detail in brain imaging.
Here are seven more glorious images from neuroscience research →
Regulatory efforts to protect data are making strides globally. Patient data is protected by law in the United States and elsewhere. In Europe the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guards personal data and recently led to a US $1.3 billion fine for Meta. You can even think of Apple’s App Store policies against data sharing as a kind of data-protection regulation.
“These are good constraints. These are constraints society wants,” says Michael Gao, founder and CEO of Fabric Cryptography, one of the startups developing FHE-accelerating chips. But privacy and confidentiality come at a cost: They can make it more difficult to track disease and do medical research, they potentially let some bad guys bank, and they can prevent the use of data needed to improve AI.
“Fully homomorphic encryption is an automated solution to get around legal and regulatory issues while still protecting privacy,” says Kurt Rohloff, CEO of Duality Technologies, in Hoboken, N.J., one of the companies developing FHE accelerator chips. His company’s FHE software is already helping financial firms check for fraud and preserving patient privacy in health care research.
Even though the guts of General Relativity are obtusely mathematical, and for decades was relegated to math departments rather than proper physics, you get to experience the technological gift of relativity every time you navigate to your favorite restaurant. GPS, the global positioning system, consists of a network of orbiting satellites constantly beaming out precise timing data. Your phone compares those signals to figure out where you are on the Earth. But there is a difference in spacetime between the surface of the Earth and the orbit of the satellites. Without taking general relativity into account, your navigation would simply be incorrect, and you’d be late for dinner.
As revolutions go, general relativity is a big one. And as unifications go, it’s a warning. To make this union happen Einstein had to radically, permanently alter not just our conceptions of gravity as a force acting through space and time, but our conceptions of space and time itself. It took no less than a complete overhaul of our entire philosophical understanding of the relation between space and time to bridge the gap.
And as Einstein would find in the ensuing decades, all the way to the time of his death, that bringing other forces like electromagnetism into the same unified fold would be all but impossible. Electromagnetism, and the other forces, cannot be conceptualized in the same way. Instead we have to use quantum probabilities to make predictions, and when we apply the same technique to gravity we just get infinities.
We report the experimental realization and room-temperature operation of a low-power (20 pW) moiré synaptic transistor based on an asymmetric bilayer graphene/hexagonal boron nitride moiré heterostructure.
High-frequency terahertz waves have great potential for a number of applications including next-generation medical imaging and communication. Researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, have shown, in a study published in the journal Advanced Science, that the transmission of terahertz light through an aerogel made of cellulose and a conducting polymer can be tuned. This is an important step to unlock more applications for terahertz waves.
The terahertz range covers wavelengths that lie between microwaves and infrared light on the electromagnetic spectrum. It has a very high frequency. Thanks to this, many researchers believe that the terahertz range has great potential for use in space exploration, security technology and communication systems, among other things.
In medical imaging, it can also be an interesting substitute for X-ray examinations as the waves can pass through most non-conductive materials without damaging any tissue.
Quantum technology is now at a point where practical work can begin on creating the quantum internet. However, numerous challenges must be overcome before this vision becomes a reality. A global-scale quantum internet requires the development of the quantum repeater, a device that stores and manipulates qubits while interacting with or emitting entangled photons. This review examines different approaches to quantum repeaters and networks, covering their conceptual frameworks, architectures, and current progress in experimental implementation.
