Lifeboat Foundation

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Over the last half-decade, quantum computing has attracted tremendous media attention. Why?

After all, we have computers already, which have been around since the 1940s. Is the interest because of the use cases? Better AI? Faster and more accurate pricing for financial services firms and hedge funds? Better medicines once quantum computers get a thousand times bigger?

New research published in the Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology on December 7 has identified three genes and their expressed proteins that may be involved in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis.

By comparing information on the genes and proteins expressed in the brains of thousands of individuals with and without multiple sclerosis, investigators discovered different expression levels of the SHMT1, FAM120B, and ICA1L genes (and their proteins) in brain tissues of patients versus controls.

Studying the functions of these genes may uncover new information on the mechanisms involved in the development and progression of multiple sclerosis. “Our findings shed new light on the pathogenesis of MS and prioritized promising targets for future therapy research,” the authors wrote.

New approaches to the biology of senescence can make lives longer and healthier.

A new study shows that AI makes doctors better at screening cancer even when the AI sorts over half of scans automatically, dramatically reducing radiologists’ workloads.

Lasers find applications across several fields ranging from telecommunications and remote sensing to medicine. There are many ways in which one can generate laser emission, or lasing, from a device or material. Consequently, there are many types of lasers with different principles of operation.

One emerging and promising method to achieve lasing with high energy efficiency is by leveraging what are known as “bound states in the continuum” (BICs). In simple terms, these states describe waves that remain highly localized in space but coexist with a continuous spectrum of waves that are not localized (traveling waves). When dealing with light, an electromagnetic wave, BICs can be realized by carefully designing the geometry of a confining periodic structure.

Although scientists have already reported a few types of BIC-based lasers, most of them can only emit a beam in a perfectly or almost perfectly vertical direction away from the surface of the device. This limitation hinders the use of such BIC lasers in applications where angling the emitted beam is necessary.

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.

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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.