Lifeboat Foundation

Animals have a living pulse. Do microbes have something like that as well? If so, it could be a universal biosignature for detecting extraterrestrial life and be useful for many other applications. For more see:

When can we call something alive? This question is more difficult than you may think and has far-reaching practical implications.

Most modern computers – from primitive room-filling behemoths like the ENIAC to the smartphone in your pocket – are built according to a set of principles laid out by the mathematician John von Neumann in 1945. This von Neumann architecture, as it is known, incorporates many familiar elements, including a central processing unit, a memory for storing data and instructions, and input and output devices. Despite its ubiquity, though, von Neumann’s model is not the only way of building a computer, and for some applications, it is not the most desirable, either.

One emerging alternative is known as neuromorphic computing. As the name implies, neuromorphic computers are inspired by the architecture of the human brain and use highly connected artificial neurons and artificial synapses to simulate the brain’s structure and functions. For researchers like Le Zhao of China’s Qilu University of Technology, this neuromorphic model offers a fantastic opportunity to develop a new paradigm for computing – as long as we can develop artificial neurons and synapses that have the right properties.

In a recent paper published in Materials Futures, Zhao and colleagues describe how to use a memristor – essentially a switch that “remembers” which electric state it was in, even after its power is turned off – to emulate the function of a synapse in the brain. Here, he explains the team’s goals and plans.

The field of quantum physics is rife with paths leading to tantalizing new areas of study, but one rabbit hole offers a unique vantage point into a world where particles behave differently—through the proverbial looking glass.

Dubbed the “Alice ring” after Lewis Carroll’s world-renowned stories on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the appearance of this object verifies a decades-old theory on how monopoles decay. Specifically, that they decay into a ring-like vortex, where any other monopoles passing through the center are flipped into their opposite magnetic charges.

Published in Nature Communications on August 29, these findings mark the latest discovery in a string of work that has spanned the collaborative careers of Aalto University Professor Mikko Möttönen and Amherst College Professor David Hall.

Quantum technologies—and quantum computers in particular—have the potential to shape the development of technology in the future. Scientists believe that quantum computers will help them solve problems that even the fastest supercomputers are unable to handle yet. Large international IT companies and countries like the United States and China have been making significant investments in the development of this technology. But because quantum computers are based on different laws of physics than conventional computers, laptops, and smartphones, they are more susceptible to malfunction.

An interdisciplinary research team led by Professor Jens Eisert, a physicist at Freie Universität Berlin, has now found ways of testing the quality of quantum computers. Their study on the subject was recently published in the scientific journal Nature Communications. These scientific quality control tests incorporate methods from physics, computer science, and mathematics.

Quantum physicist at Freie Universität Berlin and author of the study, Professor Jens Eisert, explains the science behind the research. “Quantum computers work on the basis of quantum mechanical laws of physics, in which individual atoms or ions are used as computational units—or to put it another way—controlled, minuscule physical systems. What is extraordinary about these computers of the future is that at this level, nature functions extremely and radically differently from our everyday experience of the world and how we know and perceive it.”

Inspired by a speculative article by H G Wells and adapted from a poem in humor magazine “Punch.”

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Researchers from Cornell University have identified a new state of matter in candidate topological superconductors, a discovery that may have far-reaching implications for both condensed matter physics and the fields of quantum computing.

Performing computation using quantum-mechanical phenomena such as superposition and entanglement.

When what we predict and what we measure don’t add up, that’s a sign there’s something new to learn. Could it be a new fundamental force?

A new hypothesis suggests that the universe may be twice as old as we had believed. Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope provide new information on the rate of the universe’s expansion.

This is good news! The article says this could lead to treatment of other cancers.

A particularly aggressive form of childhood cancer that forms in muscle tissue might have a new treatment option on the horizon.

Scientists have successfully induced rhabdomyosarcoma cells to transform into normal, healthy muscle cells. It’s a breakthrough that could see the development of new therapies for the cruel disease, and it could lead to similar breakthroughs for other types of human cancers.

Continue reading “Aggressive Cancer Cells Transformed Into Healthy Cells in Breakthrough” »