Quantum computers may one day rapidly find solutions to problems no regular computer might ever hope to solve, but there are vanishingly few quantum programmers when compared with the number of conventional programmers in the world. A new beginner’s guide aims to walk would-be quantum programmers.
Researchers have discovered never-before-seen types of crystal hidden in tiny grains of perfectly preserved meteorite dust. The dust was left behind by a massive space rock that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, nine years ago.
On 15 Feb 2013, an asteroid measuring 59 feet (18 meters) across and weighing 12,125 tons (11,000 metric tons) entered Earth’s atmosphere at around 41,600 mph (66,950 km/h).
Fortunately, the meteor exploded around 14.5 miles (23.3 kilometers) above the city of Chelyabinsk in southern Russia, showering the surrounding area in tiny meteorites and avoiding a colossal single collision with the surface.
The standard approach toward building quantum computers, called the gate model, involves arranging qubits in circuits and making them interact with each other in a fixed sequence. In contrast, Burnaby, Canada-based D-Wave has long focused on what are called annealing quantum computers.
A startup from Finland called Polar Night Energy has developed an energy storage system based on sand. The idea is to store excess energy generated from clean electricity sources such as Wind, Solar, etc., to be reused days or even months later.
If it works, it will help solve the primary pain point of intermittent clean energy sources by making their final energy output more predictable and, therefore, more reliable.
But how does it work, and why sand? Polar Night Energy’s solution is straightforward and elegant. They use clean electricity to heat a large mass of sand well insulated from the outside. It could be in a silo or even buried underground.
Blue Planet Energy has successfully deployed this first-of-its-kind project to support the residents of Shungnak, a remote community above the Arctic Circle in Alaska. The microgrid was designed to address the numerous challenges of operating in extreme conditions and break the community’s dependence on its expensive and polluting diesel generator power plant.
The resilient microgrid consists of a 225 kW solar array that can offset much of Shungnak’s energy needs. The system is integrated with 12 cabinets of 32 kWh Blue Ion LX battery systems, each storing excess energy for later use. In addition to reducing the village’s carbon footprint, the system also greatly decreases the high fuel and maintenance costs associated with running diesel generators in remote Alaska.
The microgrid system is uniquely designed to enable a ‘diesels off’ operation. Featuring Ageto’s ARC microgrid controller solution, the system can automatically coordinate between solar and energy storage to ensure the lowest cost power and communicates with the AVEC power plant on the best times to turn diesel generation off. When the sun shines less during the winter months, the batteries can still be recharged from the generators if necessary.
Google’s new certificate program provides alternatives to college degrees that are cheaper to obtain, but potentially worth the same in the job market.
The cosmic images will be unprecedented.
A giant golden eye flying around the sun about a million miles from Earth will give humans an unprecedented view of the universe.
The James Webb Space Telescope, a powerful $10 billion observatory run by NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency, has chilled down to its optimal temperature. Engineers have finished calibrating its scientific instruments. Now the telescope with a 21-foot-diameter mirror is open for business.
Get ready for stunning astronomical photos and data, scientists say.
Circa 2020
A little while ago, we covered the idea of using photovoltaic materials to drive enzymatic reactions in order to produce specific chemicals. The concept is being considered mostly because doing the same reaction in a cell is often horribly inefficient, because everything else in the cell is trying to regulate the enzymes, trying to use the products, trying to convert the byproducts into something toxic, or up to something even more annoying. But in many cases, these reactions rely on chemicals that are only made by cells, leaving some researchers to suspect it still might be easier to use living things in the end.
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