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Dec 20, 2021

Why I Ditched My North Face for This NASA-Inspired Jacket

Posted by in category: space

SHOP NOW Before I moved to Chicago a few years ago, I thought I’d learned how to handle winter. When I got here, I turned out to be dead wrong. Even weari.


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Dec 20, 2021

This Robot Tunnels Through Solid Rock

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

The robot, called Swifty, recently made quick work of a 20-foot demonstration bore hole through one of the toughest rock types on the planet.

Dec 20, 2021

Scientists create mind-blowing tool to ‘see’ millions of brain cell connections in mice

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, neuroscience

To solve the mysteries of how learning and memory occur, Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists have created a system to track millions of connections among brain cells in mice—all at the same time—when the animals’ whiskers are tweaked, an indicator for learning.

Researchers say the new tool gives an unprecedented view of brain cell activity in a synapse—a tiny space between two , where molecules and chemicals are passed back and forth.

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Dec 20, 2021

DARPA invests in AI that can translate instruction manuals into augmented reality

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, robotics/AI

The proposed system would essentially convert existing instructional manuals into a format that could be used by augmented reality systems.

Dec 20, 2021

Unlike NASA’s X-37 Spacecraft, China Says Its Spaceplanes Will Use Commercial Airports For Inter-Planetary Missions

Posted by in category: space travel

China is making significant strides in the field of space technology, which has been traditionally dominated by the United States and Russia. It seeks to match and outpace the American hegemony in space that has become evident with the communist country launching its own space station and carrying out “unprecedented” tests. MUST-READ: Taiwan ‘Exposes Chinese […].

Dec 20, 2021

Decoded: Why USAF‘ F-22 Raptors, F-35s Could Be ’More Vulnerable‘ To Chinese Su-35 Fighters Than Russian Sukhoi Jets?

Posted by in category: military

China operates Russian Sukhoi SU-35 fighter jet. Armed with PL-15 missiles, Su-35 can pose a big challenge to F-35 or F-22 stealth aircraft.

Dec 20, 2021

An extinct millipede the length of a car once roamed northern England

Posted by in category: transportation

A group of geologists stumbled on the fossil of the giant creature, known as Arthropleura, during a “social trip” to England’s Northumberland region in 2018. It’s the largest such fossil ever found.

Dec 20, 2021

Your Holiday Gifts Could Be Shipped by Robot Semi, Courtesy of UPS and Waymo

Posted by in categories: economics, robotics/AI, transportation

Between a supply chain full of holes, labor shortages across various sectors of the economy, and rising inflation, it’s shaping up to be a somewhat chaotic holiday season. Technology can’t fix all of these problems—or even most of them—but it can help get holiday shipments from point A to point B faster, cheaper, and without as many humans involved. Waymo’s partnership with UPS could mean some of your holiday gifts will be spending time in an autonomous truck on their way to you.

Waymo (which started out as the Google Self-Driving Car Project in 2009 and is still held by Alphabet, but raised $2.5 billion in its first outside funding round in March of 2020) first announced a partnership with UPS in January 2020, in which Waymo Driver was used to help move packages between UPS stores in Phoenix and the UPS hub in Tempe. Waymo’s Chrysler Pacifica minivans drove autonomously, but trained operators were on board to monitor the vehicles.

Last week the two companies announced an expansion of their existing partnership, saying they’ll start autonomous trial runs using Class 8 trucks equipped with the fifth-generation Waymo Driver. They’ll do deliveries for UPS’s North American Air Freight unit between facilities in Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston. Waymo’s initial route for its driverless cargo shipments also ran between Houston and Fort Worth, which the company said is one of the most highly utilized freight corridors in the country. The route is around 260 miles long, much of that a straight shot on Interstate 45.

Dec 20, 2021

Mini course on “What is Computation? From Turing Machines to Blackholes and Neurons” — guest post

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, quantum physics, robotics/AI

[Cross posted on Chi-Ning’s blog, the course is open also to non-Harvard people. Chi-Ning is my amazing grad student, who has worked on several aspects related to the course, including quantum computation and neurally-plausible computation. He assembled a great collection of guest speakers and so this course looks like it will be very exciting. Boaz]

In the following January, Harvard GSAS kindly supports me to offer a mini-course on “What is Computation? From Turing Machines to Blackholes and Neurons”. In this blog post, I’m going to share the motivation for teaching this mini-course and give an overview on what you will learn if you are interested in participating!

Computation is not an exotic word for people living in the 21st century. In high school, kids have to learn and do all sorts of computations in arithmetics (and some even start to write computer programs!). For scientists, computational methods become more and more common and sometimes even completely change the paradigm of a field. There are computers of different forms hiding in our daily life ranging from your smartphones to the toy of your pets. Also, from time to time we see excitement on the news about the development of quantum computing and artificial intelligence. Computation has become central in human civilization, however, do we really understand what computation is?

Dec 20, 2021

Frozen tardigrade becomes first ‘quantum entangled’ animal in history, researchers claim

Posted by in categories: materials, quantum physics

Some experts are skeptical that the frozen moss piglet really entered a quantum state.


A new pre-print study claims to have quantum entangled a tardigrade with two superconductor qubits, though experts are skeptical.