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May 9, 2021

What’s the Valneva COVID-19 vaccine, the French shot that’s supposed to be ‘variant proof’?

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, futurism

It sounds too good to be true, a vaccine that can protect against future virus variants. But governments around the world are keen to learn more.

May 9, 2021

New technique can print life-like organ models in minutes

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics, government

I still don’t get how there seems to be No organized effort anywhere to achieve the ability to 3D print a perfect genetic match of all organs by 2025 — 2030. You would think some government somewhere would want to work round the clock on this.


NIBIB-funded engineers at the University of Buffalo have fine-tuned the use of stereolithography for 3D printing of organ models that contain live cells. The new technique is capable of printing the models 10–50 times faster than the industry standard-;in minutes instead of hours-; a major step in the quest to create 3D-printed replacement organs.

Conventional 3D printing involves the meticulous addition of material to the 3D model with a small needle that produces fine detail but is extremely slow —taking six or seven hours to print a model of a human part, such as a hand, for instance. The lengthy process causes cellular stress and injury inhibiting the ability to seed the tissues with live, functioning cells.

Continue reading “New technique can print life-like organ models in minutes” »

May 8, 2021

A Small Dutch City Is Using Electric Cars to Feed the Grid

Posted by in categories: energy, sustainability, transportation

We have everything we need here Especially in Texas no one ever needs to freeze again if they come out of the Fossil Fuel stone age.


The idea is that when electric vehicles are not in use, the energy stored in their batteries is going to waste. If you make it possible for that energy to feed back into the grid, then it can help balance out dips in supply as renewables go offline, rather than relying on fossil-fuel plants to pick up the slack.

The technology that can make that happen is still in its infancy, though. When an electric vehicle is charged, the alternating current from the grid is converted to direct current that can be stored in its batteries. But most charging stations and cars don’t have the hardware to allow this process to run in reverse, meaning the power can’t be fed back into the grid.

Continue reading “A Small Dutch City Is Using Electric Cars to Feed the Grid” »

May 8, 2021

Blue Robotics Develops ROVs, Underwater Thrusters & Scanning Sonars

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, space travel

Blue Robotics, a leading developer of marine robotics systems and components, has partnered with Unmanned Systems Technology (“UST”) to demonstrate their expertise in this field. The ‘Silver’ profile highlights how their underwater ROVs (remotely operated vehicles), thrusters and accessories enable a wide range of missions for commercial, research and exploration applications.

The BlueROV2 is a high-performance, highly configurable ROV designed for underwater inspections, research and ocean exploring. With open-source hardware and software, the platform features an unprecedented level of flexibility and expandability, allowing users to easily make improvements and upgrades to take on a huge variety of missions down to depths of 100m (330 feet).

The ROV incorporates six Blue Robotics T200 thrusters in a vectored configuration, delivering excellent thrust-to-weight ratio and providing the ability to move precisely in any direction. The system can be expanded to eight thrusters via a Heavy Configuration Retrofit Kit, and features adjustable gain levels for precision control at extremely low speeds as well as high power to overcome currents and carry heavy loads. The BlueROV2 is provided with a Fathom ROV tether, with available length options from 25m (82 ft) up to 300 m (984 ft).

May 8, 2021

MIT: On Course to Create a Fusion Power Plant

Posted by in categories: engineering, nuclear energy

How an MIT engineering course became an incubator for fusion design innovations.

“There is no lone genius who solves all the problems.”

Dennis Whyte, director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), is reflecting on a guiding belief behind his nuclear science and engineering class 22.63 (Principles of Fusion Engineering). He has recently watched his students, working in teams, make their final presentations on how to use fusion technology to create carbon-free fuel for shipping vessels. Since taking on the course over a decade ago, Whyte has moved away from standard lectures, prodding the class to work collectively on finding solutions to “real-world” issues. Over the past years the course, and its collaborative approach to design, has been instrumental in guiding the real future of fusion at the PSFC.

May 8, 2021

John Martinis awarded the seventh Bell Prize

Posted by in categories: computing, engineering, particle physics, quantum physics

John Martinis has done groundbreaking research on coherent superconducting devices since his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1985. These superconducting devices can be modeled as lumped-element electric circuits using Josephson junctions, capacitors and inductors as components. The fact that a superconducting phase across a Josephson junction can display coherent quantum behavior – even though it is a property of the wave function of an immense number of electrons – can be viewed as a fundamental discovery [1], kickstarting, in retrospect, the field of superconducting quantum computing.

John Martinis invented and developed the superconducting phase qubit, based on a current-biased Josephson junction, for the purpose of scalable multi-qubit quantum computing [2]. In 2002, he first demonstrated coherent Rabi oscillations and quantum measurement for such superconducting phase qubit [3]. He has had a longstanding interest in understanding the origin of noise in superconducting electric circuits as these sources of noise naturally limit qubit coherence. In particular, his understanding of noise sources such as dielectric loss, flux noise and the presence and dynamics of quasi-particles [4], by means of simple physical models, have been instrumental in the field. The effect and mitigation of quasi-particles and how they are affected by radiation and cosmic rays continues to be of high interest for the future of superconducting quantum devices [5, 6].

An important step showing his leadership and commitment to building a quantum computer came with his 2014 move, as a Professor at UCSB, to Google, where he gathered a large team of physicists and engineers to tackle the challenge of making a multi-qubit programmable processor. This team has excelled in its relentless focus on optimizing device performance by implementing successful engineering choices for qubit design, couplers and scalable I/O.

May 8, 2021

Creative father’s home-made toys continue to amaze in China

Posted by in category: futurism

Click on photo to start video.

Tetris, Flappy Bird… This cool dad turns video games into real-life toys.

May 8, 2021

China’s tech hub Shenzhen to invest US$108 billion in R&D over 5 years

Posted by in categories: economics, quantum physics, robotics/AI

Local media reports quoted Wang as saying that artificial intelligence, 6G, quantum technology, driverless vehicles, intelligent networks and other “frontier areas” would be the focus of Shenzhen’s investment plans, while the value of its digital economy would account for more than 31 per cent of GDP by 2025.


Money will be used to support innovation in core technologies, city’s Communist Party chief Wang Weizhong says.

May 8, 2021

K-MAX TITAN, the world’s first commercial heavy-lift unmanned helicopter

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

The aircraft can lift up to 2722 kg with unmatched performance in hot and high conditions.


Kaman Air Vehicles performed the maiden flight with the world’s first heavy-lift unmanned helicopter for the commercial market, the K-MAX TITAN, last month.

Kaman’s K-MAX helicopter has been flying unmanned cargo missions for US forces in Afghanistan for roughly a decade now. Now, the company is introducing a commercial version to the market.

Continue reading “K-MAX TITAN, the world’s first commercial heavy-lift unmanned helicopter” »

May 8, 2021

Chinese Physicists Measure Speed of Quantum Entanglement

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

A team of Chinese physicists are making some serious progress in the field of quantum mechanics. Recently, this team has measured the speed of quantum entanglement – more affectionately known as “spooky action at a distance”, as Einstein called it.

To summarize quantum entanglement, two or more particles are entangled, which means they share the same wave form. The more technical definition is: “Quantum entanglement occurs when particles such as photons, electrons, molecules as large as buckyballs, and even small diamonds interact physically and then become separated; the type of interaction is such that each resulting member of a pair is properly described by the same quantum mechanical description (state), which is indefinite in terms of important factors such as position, momentum, spin, polarization, etc.”

When most people describe this interesting process, they’ll describe the information transfer as ‘instantaneous’ or ‘near-instantaneous’. Several research teams have attempted to measure the actual speed seen in the transfer of information in entangled systems, but have failed in one way or another, usually resulting from flawed methodology dealing in quantum nonlocality.