Lifeboat Foundation

Studies of how a nitrogen-vacancy center’s spin interacts with a surrounding 2D layer of spins could lead to new platforms for quantum metrology and simulation.

Diamond defects, nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in particular, serve as a rich playground for studies of spin physics. Over the past two decades, techniques for manipulating and reading out the quantum states of NVs with optical and microwave radiation have been fine-tuned for applications of these defects as magnetometers and qubits. An important research direction involves understanding and controlling how interactions with the environment can affect the NV’s quantum properties. Now two independent teams, led by Nathalie de Leon at Princeton University [1] and by Norman Yao at the University of California, Berkeley [2], respectively, have addressed this question for a configuration relevant to multiple applications: an NV center interacting with a 2D ensemble of spins formed by unpaired surface electrons or by impurities engineered within the diamond.

Researchers have studied how irregularly shaped particles travel through microchannels. Their work could have relevance to the transport of red blood cells through capillaries.

Check out all the on-demand sessions from the Intelligent Security Summit here.

The metaverse is becoming one of the hottest topics not only in technology but in the social and economic spheres. Tech giants and startups alike are already working on creating services for this new digital reality.

The metaverse is slowly evolving into a mainstream virtual world where you can work, learn, shop, be entertained and interact with others in ways never before possible. Gartner recently listed the metaverse as one of the top strategic technology trends for 2023, and predicts that by 2026, 25% of the population will spend at least one hour a day there for work, shopping, education, social activities and/or entertainment. That means organizations that use the metaverse effectively will be able to engage with both human and machine customers and create new revenue streams and markets.

NASA may turn to its commercial partner SpaceX to transport three astronauts back to Earth after a Russian Soyuz spacecraft suffered a coolant leak in mid-December.

In a blog post published on Friday, NASA said that it “reached out to SpaceX about its capability to return additional crew members aboard Dragon if needed in an emergency.” At the moment, NASA is investigating whether or not the Soyuz spacecraft would still be capable of carrying astronauts on the trip back from the International Space Station, the space agency added.

In the past year, avian flu has ravaged colonies of seabirds in the UK. Gwen Potter, a National Trust countryside manager working on the Farne Islands off the coast of north-east England, was among those on the frontline.

China has sent a record number of warplanes near Taiwan in retaliation for what the CCP considers the US arming Taiwan. Covid has hit China really, really hard, and the bodies are piling up. The Biden administration is getting tougher on China. Or so the media tells us. Watch this episode of China Uncensored for that and more of this week’s China news headlines.

How I Found (And Lost) Love in Minecraft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H88umjMyi0

Continue reading “China’s Deadly Covid Wave Leaves Mountains of Body Bags” »

New research suggests that those with psychopathic personality traits are less susceptible to creating false memories of negative events. The findings indicate that individuals high in the psychopathic trait of fearless dominance were less likely to produce false memories when exposed to negative stimuli. Likewise, individuals high in the psychopathic trait of cold-heartedness tended to have fewer true memories of neutral and negative events. These findings may be relevant to law enforcement, mainly when gathering witness or suspect testimony from individuals high in psychopathic traits.

The new study has been published in the British Journal of Psychology.

A significant amount of memory research in the last few decades has focused on memory construction and retrieval. Of particular interest has been the formation of false memories. False memories can have consequences in the justice system, as eyewitness reports are often crucial to investigations and convictions. In addition, individuals with psychopathic personality traits often intersect with law enforcement, making research on how they process memories relevant to determining the reliability of remembered events.

H umans are at the center of most discussions about both the environment and technology. One goal of sustainability is to ensure that future generations of humans have opportunities to thrive on planet Earth. Debates about the ethics of technology often focus on how to protect human rights and promote human autonomy.

At the same time, some conversations about the environment and technology are now taking humans out of the equation. As Adam Kirsch points out in a new book, “The Revolt Against Humanity: Imagining a Future Without Us,” people in two very different schools of thought are coming to a similar conclusion: that the world might not have people much longer and might be better off as a result.

Kirsch takes readers on a guided tour of the discussions in these two camps. “Antihumanists” are obsessed with our having sown the seeds of our demise and bringing environmental apocalypse upon ourselves — possibly even deserving to go extinct. “Transhumanists” are obsessed with maintaining control and envision a future in which we use technology to become something greater than homo sapiens and even cheat death itself.

In a recent study posted to the bioRxiv server, researchers in Germany investigated the effectiveness of the antibiotic nitroxoline against the currently circulating mpox viruses, previously called monkeypox virus (MPXV). This antibiotic has been used in Europe for about fifty years and has been proven effective in fighting biofilm infections.

Study: Repurposing of the antibiotic nitroxoline for the treatment of mpox. Image Credit: Dotted Yeti / Shutterstock.