Lifeboat Foundation

Lighting a gas grill, getting an ultrasound, using an ultrasonic toothbrush ⎯ these actions involve the use of materials that can translate an electric voltage into a change in shape and vice versa.

Known as piezoelectricity, the ability to trade between mechanical stress and electric charge can be harnessed widely in capacitors, actuators, transducers, and sensors like accelerometers and gyroscopes for next-generation electronics. However, integrating these materials into miniaturized systems has been difficult due to the tendency of electromechanically active materials to ⎯ at the submicrometer scale, when the thickness is just a few millionths of an inch ⎯ get “clamped” down by the material they are attached to, which significantly dials down their performance.

Rice University researchers and collaborators at the University of California, Berkeley have found that a class of electromechanically active materials called antiferroelectrics may hold the key to overcoming performance limitations due to clamping in miniaturized electromechanical systems. A new study published in Nature Materials reports that a model antiferroelectric system, lead zirconate (PbZrO₃), produces an electromechanical response that can be up to five times greater than that of conventional piezoelectric materials even in films that are only 100 nanometers (or 4 millionths of an inch) thick.

Researchers at Cambridge have shown that the Third Thumb, a robotic prosthetic, can be quickly mastered by the public, enhancing manual dexterity. The study stresses the importance of inclusive design to ensure technologies benefit everyone, with significant findings on performance across different demographics.

Cambridge researchers demonstrated that people can rapidly learn to control a prosthetic extra thumb, known as a “third thumb,” and use it effectively to grasp and handle objects.

The team tested the robotic device on a diverse range of participants, which they say is essential for ensuring new technologies are inclusive and can work for everyone.

The core mission of this unique satellite is to support reductions in methane emissions around the world.

The satellite will measure atmospheric methane with unprecedented precision and will enable researchers to quantify methane emissions from key emissions regions across the globe.

Continue reading “MethaneSAT: MethaneSAT is New Zealand’s first official government-funded satellite mission” »

Will it actually transform the future of driving?

A simulation-generated image reveals how charge distributions and gas densities vary in the plasma that floats across our universe.

By Alex Wilkins

Transferring information from one location to another without transmitting any particles or energy seems to run counter to everything we’ve learned in the history of physics.

Yet there is some solid reasoning that this ‘counterfactual communication’ might not only be plausible, but depending on how it works could reveal fundamental aspects of reality that have so far been hidden from view.

Counterfactual physics isn’t a new thing in itself, describing a way of deducing activity by an absence of something. In one sense, it’s pretty straight forward. If your dog barks at strangers, and you hear silence when the front door opens, you’ve received information that says a familiar person has entered your house in spite of the absence of sound.

JULIEN CROCKETT: Let’s start with the tension at the heart of AI: we understand and talk about AI systems as if they are both mere tools and intelligent actors that might one day come alive. Alison, you’ve argued that the currently popular AI systems, LLMs, are neither intelligent nor dumb—that those are the wrong categories by which to understand them. Rather, we should think of them as cultural technologies, like the printing press or the internet. Why is a “cultural technology” a better framework for understanding LLMs?

Cesarean section or C-section is a surgical procedure that delivers a baby through an abdominal incision. It is commonly used when the physicians believe it is a safer route for the parent, baby, or both. Cesarean section has appeared throughout history including Ancient Greece, India, Egypt, and Rome. There are even passages on cesarean section in different religious texts. It is believed that the name was attributed to the way Juluis Caesar was born. However, in Ancient Rome a cesarean section was only performed if at the time of birth, the mother was fatally ill and could not deliver naturally. It has been recorded that Julius Caesar’s mother was present during his life, therefore, historians believe he was not delivered through a cesarean section. Medical historians now believe the term originated from a decree in which Julius Caesar ordered women fated by birth to have a cesarean section which in Latin is “Caesones”. To this day, it is still incompletely understood where the name originated.

Cesarean sections are now routinely performed, and the procedure is well established. Interestingly, long-term effects of cesarean sections are not well known. Previously physicians noted no difference in health outcomes between children born through vaginal birth or cesarean section. Recently, however, a research group at the University of Cambridge found that a single dose of the measles vaccine is 2.6 times more likely to not be effective in children born through cesarean section. Unfortunately, a lack of vaccine efficacy leads to weakened immunity due to an inadequate number of antibodies produced to fight infection. While the first vaccination produced little efficacy, researchers demonstrated that a second measles vaccine was comparable to vaginally born children. More specifically, the vaccine was effective and produced the necessary antibodies to fight infection.

The recent paper published in Nature Microbiology by Dr. Henrik Salje, concluded the long-term effects of cesarean section delivery. Researchers suggest an increased risk of measles outbreak among children that were born through cesarean section and had only one measles vaccination. Salje and others explain that lack of vaccine efficacy is linked to the infants’ gut microbiome. It is well established that children receive great exposure to healthy microbes through vaginal birth, which boosts their immune systems. By avoiding microbe exposure through cesarean section, the infant loses critical immune protection.

One of the trade-offs of today’s technological progress is the big energy costs necessary to process digital information. To make AI models using silicon-based processors, we need to train them with huge amounts of data. The more data, the better the model. This is perfectly illustrated by the current success of large language models, such as ChatGPT. The impressive abilities of such models are due to the fact that huge amounts of data were used for their training.

The more data we use to teach digital AI, the better it becomes, but also the more computational power is needed.

This is why to develop AI further; we need to consider alternatives to the current status quo in silicon-based technologies. Indeed, we have recently seen a lot of publications about Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI topic.