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Physicists have performed the first quantum calculations to be carried out using individual atoms sitting on a surface.

The technique, described on 5 October in Science1, controls titanium atoms by beaming microwave signals from the tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM). It is unlikely to compete any time soon with the leading approaches to quantum computing, including those adopted by Google and IBM, as well as by many start-up companies. But the tactic could be used to study quantum properties in a variety of other chemical elements or even molecules, say the researchers who developed it.

At some level, everything in nature is quantum and can, in principle, perform quantum computations. The hard part is to isolate quantum states called qubits — the quantum equivalent of the memory bits in a classical computer — from environmental disturbances, and to control them finely enough for such calculations to be achieved.

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face_with_colon_three Year 2017

A paper recently published in the journal Nuclear Engineering and Technology demonstrated the feasibility of using graphene to control hydrogen isotopes, specifically tritium.

Study: Adsorption of Hydrogen Isotopes on Graphene. Image Credit: Rost9/Shutterstock.com

Background

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Year 2018 face_with_colon_three

Computers are shrinking rapidly. You can build a pretty capable little machine powered by a device like the Raspberry Pi, but that’s still huge compared with IBM’s latest machine. The company that started out selling massive mainframe computers has developed the world’s smallest computer (Opens in a new window). Each one is smaller than a grain of salt, but it packs more computing power than you’d expect.

The micro-computer is a complete system-on-a-chip (SoC) with a processor, memory, storage, and a communication module. The CPU contains several hundred thousand transistors, and IBM says it’s capable of performance on par with an x86 CPU from 1990. That’s not very fast compared with even the slowest modern computers, but it’s impressive for something you can’t see without a magnifying glass. It makes more sense when you look at the impressive developments in other SoC designs. The latest Qualcomm Snapdragon chips are about 1 square centimeter and have more processing power than supercomputers from the early 90s.

The chip is just a prototype right now, but IBM has big plans (Opens in a new window) for this (literally) microscopic computer. It’s touting this as a significant advancement for blockchain technology, but not the same blockchain that’s used to track Bitcoin transactions. A blockchain is merely a distributed ledger that can be used for various purposes. IBM and other companies have been looking for ways to use blockchains without the cryptocurrency attached.

Continue reading “IBM Creates World’s Smallest Computer for Blockchain Technology” | >

To build the supercomputer that powers OpenAI’s projects, Microsoft says it linked together thousands of Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) on its Azure cloud computing platform. In turn, this allowed OpenAI to train increasingly powerful models and “unlocked the AI capabilities” of tools like ChatGPT and Bing.

Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s vice president of AI and cloud, said the company spent several hundreds of millions of dollars on the project, according to a statement given to Bloomberg. And while that may seem like a drop in the bucket for Microsoft, which recently extended its multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI, it certainly demonstrates that it’s willing to throw even more money at the AI space.

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My idea is that all the waste from human waste has vital things in it we could even someday have everything recycled back into its original form like if waste medicines or other nutrients could be extracted we could essentially recycle human waste having a near unlimited supply of chemicals which would be great for space traveling where nothing is wasted.

Poop’s got an image problem

And there’s also the issue of acceptance. Research suggests there are both cultural and psychological barriers standing in the way of wider bodily waste recycling.

In Ghana, for example, fecophobia — a fear of solid human waste, particularly in its untreated human form — is commonplace, and many perceive growing food with it as unhygienic. Though one study suggested once people understand that feces-based fertilizer is treated and processed, the negative perception is significantly lower.

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Year 2022 This toilet looks promising essentially turning waste into ashes.

Billionaire Bill Gates has partnered with electronics company Samsung to create a prototype waterless toilet for household use that turns solid waste into ashes.

The toilet was developed as part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Reinvent the Toilet Challenge – an initiative that started in 2011 that sought proposals for toilets that safely and effectively manage human waste.

The Microsoft founder worked with the research and development arm of Samsung Electronics to design the waterless toilet, which uses heat-treatment and bioprocessing technologies to kill pathogens found in human waste.

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A study from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago demonstrated that Botulinum toxin (Botox) injected in the pylorus during endoscopy improves chronic nausea and vomiting in children who have a disorder of gut-brain interaction (DGBI). These debilitating symptoms not attributed to a defined illness have previously been called functional gastrointestinal disorders before the newer DGBI classification. The study’s findings point to a novel understanding of the condition’s pathology – pylorus that is failing to relax and allow food to effectively pass into the small intestine resulting in symptoms of nausea, vomiting, early satiety and bloating.

Results were published in the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition.

“Our results suggest that chronic nausea and vomiting might be caused by pyloric dysfunction, rather than abnormal peristalsis, which is the rhythmic contraction and relaxation of digestive tract muscles needed to move foods and liquids through the gastrointestinal system,” said lead author Peter Osgood, MD, gastroenterologist at Lurie Children’s and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “This is a paradigm shift in our understanding of mechanistic pathology. Importantly, it opens the door to a more targeted use of Botox specifically in children who are found to have pyloric dysfunction during endoscopy, and for whom the current medications are not effective.”

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