Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have adapted their atom-based radio receiver to detect and display live color television and video games.

Atom-based communications systems are of practical interest because they could be physically smaller and more tolerant of noisy environments than conventional electronics. Adding video capability could enhance radio systems in, for example, remote locations or emergency situations.

NIST’s receiver uses atoms prepared in high-energy “Rydberg” states, which are unusually sensitive to electromagnetic fields, including radio signals. These sensors also enable signal power measurements linked to the international system of units (SI). The latest work, described in AVS Quantum Science, is the first to demonstrate video reception.

There were two Teslabot videos. The first has a discussion with James Douma. James describes his perspective of the advances in neural nets. He described how GPT-3 created a foundational capability by cracking language. He believes the Teslabot will leverage neural nets to crack robotic methods for bipedal movement and mastering identifying and picking up objects.

In honor of the actor and activist Nichelle Nichols, this month’s puzzle imagines a Star Trek adventure in which her character, Lieutenant Uhura, faces a life-and-death conundrum.

Damage to the ends of your chromosomes can create “zombie cells” that are still alive but can’t function, according to our recently published study in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology.

When cells prepare to divide, their DNA is tightly wound around proteins to form chromosomes that provide structure and support for genetic material. At the ends of these chromosomes are repetitive stretches of DNA called telomeres that form a protective cap to prevent damage to the genetic material.

However, telomeres shorten each time a cell divides. This means that as cells divide more and more as you age, your telomeres become increasingly shorter and more likely to lose their ability to protect your DNA.

First photographers were creating portraits of people that don’t exist, now Aurel Manea has created a series of “landscape photos” using a new artificially intelligent (AI) software program called Stable Diffusion.

Manea tells PetaPixel that he has been blown away by what the London and Los Altos-based startup Stability AI has created.

“I can’t, as a landscape photographer myself, emphasize enough what these new technologies will mean for photography,” explains Manea.

Faster computers, tap-proof communication, better car sensors—quantum technologies have the potential to revolutionize our lives just as the invention of computers or the internet once did. Experts worldwide are trying to implement findings from basic research into quantum technologies. To this end, they often require individual particles, such as photons—the elementary particles of light—with tailored properties.

However, obtaining individual particles is complicated and requires intricate methods. In a study recently published in the journal Science, researchers now present a new method that simultaneously generates two individual particles in form of a pair.

Scientists experimenting with next-generation plastics at Finland’s University of Turku have developed a form of the material with some impressive capabilities, most notably an ability to quickly break down after use. The eco-friendly “supramolecular” plastic is therefore highly recyclable and, with careful tuning of its water content, can be turned into an adhesive or even instantly self-heal when damaged.

The reason conventional plastics persist in the environment for so long is the incredibly strong chemical connections between the monomers within them. These particles link up to form polymers through what are known as covalent bonds, but scientists hope to fashion more environmentally forms of the material based on non-covalent bonds instead.

These weaker connections are better suited to degradation and recycling of the material, but do come at a cost in terms of mechanical performance. We have looked at some interesting examples of these “supramolecular” materials in the form of hybrid polymers for drug delivery, self-assembling plastics and adhesives that work at extreme temperatures.

These autonomous robotic pickers can harvest precisely and gently without tiring or needing a break.

To all who see them, the new images of space taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are awe-inspiring.

Physicist Eric J. Lerner gets to the point:

Why are JWST images causing panic among cosmologists? And the predictions of which theory do they contradict? The papers don’t really speak. The truth that is not reported in these documents is that the hypothesis that the JWST images blatantly and repeatedly contradict the Big Bang Hypothesis is that the universe began 14 billion years ago in an incredibly hot, dense state and has since the pore is expanding. Since this hypothesis has been defended for decades as an indisputable truth by the vast majority of cosmological theorists, the new data cause these theorists to panic. “Now I’m lying awake at 3 a.m.,” says Alison Kirkpatrick, an astronomer at the University of Kansas at Lawrence, “and wondering if I did everything wrong.”