Lifeboat Foundation

Mathematicians came up with the first examples of intransitive dice more than 50 years ago, and eventually proved that as you consider dice with more and more sides, it’s possible to create intransitive cycles of any length. What mathematicians didn’t know until recently was how common intransitive dice are. Do you have to contrive such examples carefully, or can you pick dice randomly and have a good shot at finding an intransitive set?

Looking at three dice, if you know that A beats B and B beats C, that seems like evidence that A is the strongest; situations where C beats A should be rare. And indeed, if the numbers on the dice are allowed to add up to different totals, then mathematicians believe that this intuition holds true.

But a paper posted online late last year shows that in another natural setting, this intuition fails spectacularly. Suppose you require that your dice use only the numbers that appear on a regular die and have the same total as a regular die. Then, the paper showed, if A beats B and B beats C, A and C have essentially equal chances of prevailing against each other.

Physicists at Leipzig University have once again gained a deeper understanding of the mechanism behind superconductors. This brings the research group led by Professor Jürgen Haase one step closer to their goal of developing the foundations for a theory for superconductors that would allow current to flow without resistance and without energy loss. The researchers found that in superconducting copper-oxygen bonds, called cuprates, there must be a very specific charge distribution between the copper and the oxygen, even under pressure.

This confirmed their own findings from 2016, when Haase and his team developed an experimental method based on magnetic resonance that can measure changes that are relevant to superconductivity in the structure of materials. They were the first team in the world to identify a measurable material parameter that predicts the maximum possible transition temperature —a condition required to achieve superconductivity at room temperature. Now they have discovered that cuprates, which under pressure enhance superconductivity, follow the charge distribution predicted in 2016. The researchers have published their new findings in the journal PNAS.

“The fact that the transition temperature of cuprates can be enhanced under pressure has puzzled researchers for 30 years. But until now we didn’t know which mechanism was responsible for this,” Haase said. He and his colleagues at the Felix Bloch Institute for Solid State Physics have now come a great deal closer to understanding the actual mechanism in these materials.

Why the recent surge in jaw-dropping announcements? Why are neutral atoms seeming to leapfrog other qubit modalities? Keep reading to find out.

The table below highlights the companies working to make Quantum Computers using neutral atoms as qubits:

And as an added feature I am writing this post to be “entangled” with the posts of Brian Siegelwax, a respected colleague and quantum algorithm designer. My focus will be on the hardware and corporate details about the companies involved, while Brian’s focus will be on actual implementation of the platforms and what it is like to program on their devices. Unfortunately, most of the systems created by the companies noted in this post are not yet available (other than QuEra’s), so I will update this post along with the applicable hot links to Brian’s companion articles, as they become available.

A recent model suggests that passing interstellar objects should get pulled into our Sun’s orbit fairly often.

Summary: Combining neuroimaging and EEG data, researchers recorded the neural activity of people while listening to a piece of music. Using machine learning technology, the data was translated to reconstruct and identify the specific piece of music the test subjects were listening to.

Source: University of Essex.

A new technique for monitoring brain waves can identify the music someone is listening to.

Summary: A newly developed machine learning model can predict the words a person is about to speak based on their neural activity recorded by a minimally invasive neuroprosthetic device.

Source: HSE

Researchers from HSE University and the Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry have developed a machine learning model that can predict the word about to be uttered by a subject based on their neural activity recorded with a small set of minimally invasive electrodes.

Researchers say a new CRISPR gene editing therapy may help treat heart disease. The scientists also found evidence the therapy can help repair damaged tissue immediately after a heart attack.

Get your eyepatch out: Cyber attacks on the high seas are trending.

Boston Dynamics’ Atlas—the world’s most advanced humanoid robot—is learning some new tricks. The company has finally given Atlas some proper hands, and in Boston Dynamics’ latest YouTube video, Atlas is attempting to do some actual work. It also released another behind-the-scenes video showing some of the work that goes into Atlas. And when things don’t go right, we see some spectacular slams the robot takes in its efforts to advance humanoid robotics.

As a humanoid robot, Atlas has mostly been focused on locomotion, starting with walking in a lab, then walking on every kind of unstable terrain imaginable, then doing some sick parkour tricks. Locomotion is all about the legs, though, and the upper half seemed mostly like an afterthought, with the arms only used to swing around for balance. Atlas previously didn’t even have hands— the last time we saw it, there were only two incomplete-looking ball grippers at the end of its arms.

This newest iteration of the robot has actual grippers. They’re simple clamp-style hands with a wrist and a single moving finger, but that’s good enough for picking things up. The goal of this video is moving “inertially significant” objects—not just picking up light boxes, but objects that are so heavy they can throw Atlas off-balance. This includes things like a big plank, a bag full of tools, and a barbell with two 10-pound weights. Atlas is learning all about those “equal and opposite forces” in the world.