Majorana’s theory proposed that a particle could be its own antiparticle. That means it’s theoretically possible to bring two of these particles together, and they will either annihilate each other in a massive release of energy (as is normal) or can coexist stably when pairing up together — priming them to store quantum information.
These subatomic particles do not exist in nature, so to nudge them into being, Microsoft scientists had to make a series of breakthroughs in materials science, fabrication methods and measurement techniques. They outlined these discoveries — the culmination of a 17-year-long project — in a new study published Feb. 19 in the journal Nature.
Chief among these discoveries was the creation of this specific topoconductor, which is used as the basis of the qubit. The scientists built their topoconductor from a material stack that combined a semiconductor made of indium arsenide (typically used in devices like night vision goggles) with an aluminum superconductor.
When discussing motors, most people think of those in vehicles or machines. However, biological motors have existed for millions of years in microorganisms. Many bacteria use tail-like structures called flagella, which rotate to propel them through fluids. This movement is driven by a protein complex known as the flagellar motor.
The flagellar motor has two key components: the rotor and the stators. The rotor, a large rotating structure anchored to the cell membrane, drives flagellum movement. The stators, smaller structures surrounding the rotor, contain ion pathways that transport protons or sodium ions, depending on the bacterial species.
A species is a group of living organisms that share a set of common characteristics and are able to breed and produce fertile offspring. The concept of a species is important in biology as it is used to classify and organize the diversity of life. There are different ways to define a species, but the most widely accepted one is the biological species concept, which defines a species as a group of organisms that can interbreed and produce viable offspring in nature. This definition is widely used in evolutionary biology and ecology to identify and classify living organisms.
Hey everyone! Robin Hanson will be speaking on Thursday about his galaxy brain ideas on better incentive models for longevity. Plus his unique takes on prediction markets and long-term thinking. [ https://lu.ma/wzuwk1lp](https://lu.ma/wzuwk1lp)
Join us for a groundbreaking discussion with economist Robin Hanson on the future of longevity economics and city governance!
AI-driven service robot maker Richtech Robotics has launched an accelerator program to provide U.S. universities with development frameworks and access to the Richtech robotic systems to aid robotics research.
The program would grant participating universities access to the Richtech autonomous mobile robots and robotic arm platforms powered by Nvidia technology. The technology includes machine vision and voice interaction modules.
The move places True Anomaly in closer proximity to the Space Systems Command in Los Angeles, which oversees billions in Space Force procurement, and taps into Southern California’s deep aerospace talent pool.
The majority of the Long Beach factory will be dedicated to the design, development and manufacturing of new products for the military market, including some being developed for classified U.S. Space Force programs, True Anomaly’s CEO Even Rogers said in an interview.
The company’s headquarters and existing manufacturing facility will remain in Centennial, Colorado, where True Anomaly makes its flagship product, the Jackal satellite, designed to perform in-orbit activities such as rendezvous and proximity operations, and imaging of objects in orbit. The company also developed an operating system software for space domain awareness called Mosaic.
The unearthing of the tomb of ancient Egyptian King Thutmose II is being described as one of the most important archaeological discoveries in recent years.
A quantum “miracle material” could support magnetic switching, a team of researchers at the University of Regensburg and University of Michigan has shown.
The study “Controlling Coulomb correlations and fine structure of quasi-one-dimensional excitons by magnetic order” was published in Nature.
This recently discovered capability could help enable applications in quantum computing, sensing and more. While earlier studies identified that quantum entities called excitons are sometimes effectively confined to a single line within the material chromium sulfide bromide, the new research provides a thorough theoretical and experimental demonstration explaining how this is connected to the magnetic order in the material.
“Our findings suggest that senescent cells maintain their large size through improved adhesion to the extracellular matrix via AP2A1 and integrin β1 movement along enlarged stress fibers,” Chantachotikul said.
The link between AP2A1 and senescent cells, the researchers said, means the protein has the potential to be used as a marker for cellular aging.
The team also believes that the findings may offer a new target for future treatments of age-related diseases.
In this episode I am looking forward to exploring more about alternate interpretations of Quantum Mechanics. In previous episodes exploring consciousness, I’ve encountered several people who believe that Quantum Mechanics is at the root of consciousness. My current thinking is that it replaces one mystery with another one without really providing an explanation for consciousness. We are still stuck with the options of consciousness being a pre-existing property of the universe or some aspect of it, vs. it being an emergent feature of a processing network. Either way, quantum mechanics is an often misunderstood brilliant theory at the root of physics. It tells us that basic particles don’t exist at a specific position and momentum—they are, however, represented very accurately as a smooth wavefunction that can be used to calculate the distribution of a set of measurements on identical particles. The process of observation seems to cause the wavefunction to randomly collapse to a localized spot. Nobody knows for certain what causes this collapse. This is known as the measurement problem. The many worlds theorem says the wavefunction doesn’t collapse. It claims that the wavefunction describes all the possible universes that exist and the process of measurement just tells us which universe we are living in.
My guest is a leading proponent of transactional quantum mechanics.
Dr. Ruth E. Kastner earned her M.S. in Physics and Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Maryland. Since that time, she has taught widely and conducted research in Foundations of Physics, particularly in interpretations of quantum theory. She was one of three winners of the 2021 Alumni Research Award at the University of Maryland, College Park (https://tinyurl.com/2t56yrp2). She is the author of 3 books: The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Theory: The Reality of Possibility (Cambridge University Press, 2012; 2nd edition just published, 2022), Understanding Our Unseen Reality: Solving Quantum Riddles (Imperial College Press, 2015); and Adventures In Quantumland: Exploring Our Unseen Reality (World Scientific, 2019). She has presented talks and interviews throughout the world and in video recordings on the interpretational challenges of quantum theory, and has a blog at transactionalinterpretation.org. She is also a dedicated yoga practitioner and received her 200-Hour Yoga Alliance Instructor Certification in February, 2020.
