Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 4567

A laser pulse that sidesteps the inherent symmetry of light waves could manipulate quantum information, potentially bringing us closer to room temperature quantum computing.

The study, led by researchers at the University of Regensburg and the University of Michigan, could also accelerate conventional computing.

Quantum computing has the potential to accelerate solutions to problems that need to explore many variables at the same time, including drug discovery, weather prediction and encryption for cybersecurity. Conventional computer bits encode either a 1 or 0, but quantum bits, or qubits, can encode both at the same time. This essentially enables quantum computers to work through multiple scenarios simultaneously, rather than exploring them one after the other. However, these mixed states don’t last long, so the must be faster than electronic circuits can muster.

Read more | >

A mechanism for preventing destructive instabilities in magnetically confined plasmas provides a new way for scientists to operate future nuclear-fusion reactors.

All magnetically confined plasmas naturally develop instabilities, regions where small perturbations grow rapidly [1]. Scientists have been looking for ways to prevent instabilities in a tokamak—a leading candidate for a fusion reactor—because the instabilities can cause substantial damage to the tokamak’s walls. Now Georg Harrer at the Vienna University of Technology and his colleagues have shown how these destructive instabilities can be avoided by adjusting the properties of the plasma and its confining magnetic field [2]. The researchers’ findings offer a fresh approach to running future fusion reactors.

A tokamak uses a powerful magnetic field to confine fusion fuel in the form of a plasma (a highly ionized gas) that is shaped like a ring donut. Instabilities that originate at the plasma edge (the “glaze” of the donut) are called edge-localized modes (ELMs) [3]. ELMs transport heat and particles along magnetic-field lines, moving them from the well-confined plasma core (the “filling” of the donut) to the divertor—a region of the tokamak’s walls. ELMs come in various sizes and frequencies (repetition rates). Their size, expressed as a percentage of the energy stored in the plasma core, strongly influences how much heat and how many particles will be deposited by each ELM in the divertor.

Read more | >

Genflow has announced that its adeno-associated virus (AAV) research and development programme in Estonia has received a non-dilutive grant award of €250,000 from the Applied Research Programme of Enterprise Estonia, an Estonian governmental institution designed to stimulate business growth in the country.

Longevity. Technology: Genflow’s research programme is focused on the development of an antiaging gene therapy platform designed to target nearly 100 million patients worldwide who suffer from Werner’s syndrome, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, an advanced form of NAFLD, as well as other major clinical disorders.

This R&D is a collaborative project between Genflow and IVEX lab OÜ, an Estonian company specialising in the research and development of biotech therapeutics.

Read more | >

Scientists have transplanted human brain cells into the brains of baby rats, where the cells grew and formed connections.

It’s part of an effort to better study human brain development and diseases affecting this most complex of organs, which makes us who we are but has long been shrouded in mystery.

“Many disorders such as autism and schizophrenia are likely uniquely human” but “the human brain certainly has not been very accessible,” said said Dr. Sergiu Pasca, senior author of a study describing the work, published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Read more | >