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Aug 13, 2022

Quantum computer made of 6 super-sized atoms could imitate the brain

Posted by in categories: information science, particle physics, quantum physics, robotics/AI

Simulations of a quantum computer made of six rubidium atoms suggest it could run a simple brain-inspired algorithm that can learn to remember and make simple decisions.

Aug 13, 2022

Local renewable energy employment can fully replace US coal jobs nationwide

Posted by in categories: employment, energy, sustainability

Across the United States, local wind and solar jobs can fully replace the coal-plant jobs that will be lost as the nation’s power-generation system moves away from fossil fuels in the coming decades, according to a new University of Michigan study.

As of 2019, -fired directly employed nearly 80,000 workers at more than 250 plants in 43 U.S. states. The new U-M study quantifies—for the first time—the technical feasibility and costs of replacing those coal jobs with local wind and solar employment across the country.

The study, published online Aug. 10 in iScience, concludes that local wind and solar jobs can fill the electricity generation and employment gap, even if it’s required that all the new jobs are located within 50 miles of each retiring coal plant.

Aug 13, 2022

Ransomware gangs move to ‘callback’ social engineering attacks

Posted by in category: cybercrime/malcode

At least three groups split from the Conti ransomware operation have adopted BazarCall phishing tactics as the primary method to gain initial access to a victim’s network.

This allows the threat actors to deploy highly-targeted attacks that are more difficult to detect and stop because of the social engineering component.

Aug 13, 2022

Microsoft blocks UEFI bootloaders enabling Windows Secure Boot bypass

Posted by in categories: computing, security

Some signed third-party bootloaders for the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) could allow attackers to execute unauthorized code in an early stage of the boot process, before the operating system loads.

Vendor-specific bootloaders used by Windows were found to be vulnerable while the status of almost a dozen others is currently unknown.

Threat actors could exploit the security issue to establish persistence on a target system that cannot be removed by reinstalling the operating system (OS).

Aug 13, 2022

Double universality of the transition in the supercritical state

Posted by in category: futurism

The supercritical matter has a universal transition with a fixed inversion point.

Aug 13, 2022

An ultrafast and highly performing nonlinear splitter based on lithium niobate

Posted by in categories: computing, electronics

Optics, technologies that leverage the behavior and properties of light, are the basis of many existing technological tools, most notably fiber communication systems that enable long-and short-distance high-speed communication between devices. Optical signals have a high information capacity and can be transmitted across longer distances.

Researchers at California Institute of Technology have recently developed a new device that could help to overcome some of the limitations of existing . This device, introduced in a paper published in Nature Photonics, is a lithium niobate-based device that can switch ultrashort light pulses at an extremely low optical pulse energy of tens of femtojoules.

“Unlike electronics, optics still lacks efficiency in required components for computing and signal processing, which has been a major barrier for unlocking the potentials of optics for ultrafast and efficient computing schemes,” Alireza Marandi, lead researcher for the study, told Phys.org. “In the past few decades, substantial efforts have been dedicated to developing all– that could address this challenge, but most of the energy-efficient designs suffered from slow switching times, mainly because they either used high-Q resonators or carrier-based nonlinearities.”

Aug 13, 2022

Bug eyes and bat sonar: Bioengineers turn to animal kingdom for creation of bionic super 3D cameras

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, cyborgs, robotics/AI, transhumanism

A pair of UCLA bioengineers and a former postdoctoral scholar have developed a new class of bionic 3D camera systems that can mimic flies’ multiview vision and bats’ natural sonar sensing, resulting in multidimensional imaging with extraordinary depth range that can also scan through blind spots.

Powered by computational image processing, the camera can decipher the size and shape of objects hidden around corners or behind other items. The technology could be incorporated into autonomous vehicles or medical imaging tools with sensing capabilities far beyond what is considered state of the art today. This research has been published in Nature Communications.

Continue reading “Bug eyes and bat sonar: Bioengineers turn to animal kingdom for creation of bionic super 3D cameras” »

Aug 13, 2022

A simple way of sculpting matter into complex shapes

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

A new method for shaping matter into complex shapes, with the use of ‘twisted’ light, has been demonstrated in research at the University of Strathclyde.

When are cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero (−273 degrees C), they stop behaving like particles and start to behave like waves.

Atoms in this condition, which are known as Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs), are useful for purposes such as realization of atom lasers, slow light, quantum simulations for understanding the complex behavior of materials like superconductors and superfluids, and the precision measurement technique of atom interferometry.

Aug 13, 2022

Liquid Metal Experiment Mimics Accretion Disks

Posted by in category: cosmology

Using a magnetically stirred liquid metal, researchers have reproduced a key feature of astrophysical accretion disks: a turbulence-based transfer of angular momentum.

Astrophysical disks are ubiquitous objects in the cosmic landscape: we observe them around matter-gobbling black holes and planet-forming stellar systems. The gas and dust in these disks slowly drift inward and eventually reach the central star or black hole. The energy released in this accretion process makes some of these disks very luminous. However, the physical mechanism responsible for this accretion remains elusive despite 40 years of active research. Now Marlone Vernet from Sorbonne University in France and his colleagues model astrophysical disks with an experimental system based on a rotating disk of liquid metal [1]. The novelty in this experiment is that the disk is set into rotation thanks to electrical currents and magnetic fields in a way that mimics gravity. The experiment provides strong evidence of angular momentum transport, which is thought to be a key feature in astrophysical accretion.

Aug 13, 2022

Hydrophobic Ice More Common than Thought

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, finance, mobile phones, robotics/AI, security

Researchers have observed the formation of 2D ice on gold surfaces that were thought to be too hydrophilic and too rough to support this type of ice.


Mobile devices use facial recognition technology to help users quickly and securely unlock their phones, make a financial transaction or access medical records. But facial recognition technologies that employ a specific user-detection method are highly vulnerable to deepfake-based attacks that could lead to significant security concerns for users and applications, according to new research involving the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology.