The remains of 182 people in unmarked Indigenous graves were found on the eve of Canada Day.
How does the human brain keep track of the order of events in a sequence?
New research suggests that ‘time cells’ – neurons in the hippocampus thought to represent temporal information – could be the glue that sticks our memories together in the right sequence so that we can properly recall the correct order in which things happened.
Evidence for these kinds of sequence-tracking time cells was previously found in rats, where specific neuron assemblies are thought to support the recollection of events and the planning of action sequences – but less is known about how episodic memory is encoded in the human brain.
Researchers at ETH Zurich have succeeded in observing a crystal that consists only of electrons. Such Wigner crystals were already predicted almost ninety years ago but could only now be observed directly in a semiconductor material.
Crystals have fascinated people through the ages. Who hasn’t admired the complex patterns of a snowflake at some point, or the perfectly symmetrical surfaces of a rock crystal? The magic doesn’t stop even if one knows that all this results from a simple interplay of attraction and repulsion between atoms and electrons. A team of researchers led by Ataç Imamoğlu, professor at the Institute for Quantum Electronics at ETH Zurich, have now produced a very special crystal. Unlike normal crystals, it consists exclusively of electrons. In doing so, they have confirmed a theoretical prediction that was made almost ninety years ago and which has since been regarded as a kind of holy grail of condensed matter physics. Their results were recently published in the scientific journal Nature.
A decades-old prediction
“What got us excited about this problem is its simplicity,” says Imamoğlu. Already in 1934 Eugene Wigner, one of the founders of the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics, showed that electrons in a material could theoretically arrange themselves in regular, crystal-like patterns because of their mutual electrical repulsion. The reasoning behind this is quite simple: if the energy of the electrical repulsion between the electrons is larger than their motional energy, they will arrange themselves in such a way that their total energy is as small as possible.
Warp drive patent.
The present invention relates to the use of technical drive systems, which operate by the modification of gravitational fields. These drive systems do not depend on the emission of matter to create thrust but create a change in the curvature of space-time, in accordance with general relativity. This allows travel by warping space-time to produce an independent warp drive system. Differential electron flow through a body in rotation is directed so as to simultaneously pass through a said body in its direction of rotation and contrary to its direction of rotation so as to release a directed flow of gravitons.
Dipole shield could shield #Mars
The Martian atmosphere is a decimated shred of what it once was, thanks to the fact that a disappearing magnetic field allowed solar winds to pummel the red planet’s skies over millions of years. So naturally, one solution to making Mars more habitable may be to resurrect its magnetosphere — and it’s a crazy idea NASA scientists are actually looking into.
At Wednesday’s Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop at the NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., NASA’s Planetary Science Division Director Jim Green spoke about how this magnetic shield would work.
“It may be feasible that we can get up to these higher field strengths that are necessary to provide that shielding,” Green said. “We need to be able then to also modify that direction of the magnetic field so that it always pushes the solar wind away.”
3D-printed devices made from a biodegradable paper-like material could power the Internet of Things in a more sustainable way.
Protocol for performing two-qubit entangling gates trades laser power for speed with little loss of fidelity.
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Hyundai’s fleet of hydrogen-powered truck prototypes reached a significant milestone in Europe in June 2021. With a successful testing phase comes a tremendous amount of data, and the information gathered during 11 months of real-world evaluation across the pond will ultimately help the firm design a truck sized for American roads.
Real-world users have collectively put 1 million kilometers (about 621400 miles) on the 46 trucks that Hyundai built for testing purposes, meaning each rig has covered an average of around 13500 miles. They’re in the hands of 25 different companies operating in Switzerland, including some in the logistics, distribution, and supermarket sectors. So far, users have been pleased: They praised the Xcient truck’s long driving range and short refueling times, attributes that a comparable electric model wouldn’t be able to offer. Specific figures weren’t released.
Hyundai will continue manufacturing the Xcient for early adopters in Switzerland. It plans to build 140 units of the truck for the Swiss market in 2021, and it hopes that number will grow to 1600 by 2025. Starting the project in Switzerland was a decision that carried relatively few risks. It’s a country that’s roughly a tenth the size of California, and its road network is relatively well developed. Next, the South Korean company will branch out into other European countries. It hasn’t decided where yet, but it singled out Germany and Holland as likely candidates.
Rigetti Computing, a California-based developer of quantum integrated circuits, has announced it is launching the world’s first multi-chip quantum processor.
The processor incorporates a proprietary modular architecture that accelerates the path to commercialization and solves key scaling challenges toward fault-tolerant quantum computers.
“We’ve developed a fundamentally new approach to scaling quantum computers,” says Chad Rigetti, founder and CEO of Rigetti Computing. “Our proprietary innovations in chip design and manufacturing have unlocked what we believe is the fastest path to building the systems needed to run practical applications and error correction.”