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In work that could someday turn cell phones into sensors capable of detecting viruses and other minuscule objects, MIT researchers have built a powerful nanoscale flashlight on a chip.

Their approach to designing the tiny light beam on a chip could also be used to create a variety of other nano flashlights with different beam characteristics for different applications. Think of a wide spotlight versus a beam of light focused on a single point.

For many decades, scientists have used light to identify a material by observing how that light interacts with the material. They do so by essentially shining a beam of light on the material, then analyzing that light after it passes through the material. Because all materials interact with light differently, an analysis of the light that passes through the material provides a kind of “fingerprint” for that material. Imagine doing this for several colors — i.e., several wavelengths of light — and capturing the interaction of light with the material for each color. That would lead to a fingerprint that is even more detailed.

These findings may have implications for brain disease, disorders.

Scientists at the Krembil Brain Institute, part of University Health Network (UHN), in collaboration with colleagues at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), have used precious and rare access to live human cortical tissue to identify functionally important features that make human neurons unique.

This experimental work is among the first of its kind on live human neurons and one of the largest studies of the diversity of human cortical pyramidal cells to date.

The human brain has always been under study for inspiration of computing systems. Although there’s a very long way to go until we can achieve a computing system that matches the efficiency of the human brain for cognitive tasks, several brain-inspired computing paradigms are being researched. Convolutional neural networks are a widely used machine learning approach for AI-related applications due to their significant performance relative to rules-based or symbolic approaches. Nonetheless, for many tasks machine learning requires vast amounts of data and training to converge to an acceptable level of performance.

A Ph.D. student from Khalifa University, Eman Hasan, is investigating another AI computation methodology called ‘hyperdimensional computing, which can possibly take AI systems a step closer toward human-like cognition. The work is supervised by Dr. Baker Mohammad, Associate Professor and Director of the System on Chip Center (SOCC), and Dr. Yasmin Halawani, Postdoctoral Fellow.

Hasan’s work, which was published recently in the journal IEEE Access, analyzes different models of hyperdimensional computing and highlights the advantages of this computing paradigm. Hyperdimensional computing, or HDC, is a relatively new paradigm for computing using large vectors (like 10000 bits each) and is inspired by patterns of neural activity in the human brain. The means by which can allow AI-based computing systems to retain memory can reduce their computing and power demands.

Past physics theories introduced several fundamental constants, including Newton’s constant G, which quantifies the strength of the gravitational interaction between two massive objects. Combined, these fundamental constants allow physicists to describe the universe in ways that are straightforward and easier to understand.

In the past, some researchers wondered whether the value of fundamental constants changed over cosmic time. Moreover, some alternative theories of gravity (i.e., adaptations or substitutes of Einstein’s theory of general relativity), predict that the constant G varies in time.

Researchers at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences of the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research in India recently proposed a method that can be used to place constraints on the variation of G over cosmic time. This method, outlined in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, is based on observations of merging binary neutron stars.

Scientists are certain that dark matter exists. Yet, after more than 50 years of searching, they still have no direct evidence for the mysterious substance.

University of Delaware’s Swati Singh is among a small group of researchers across the dark matter community that have begun to wonder if they are looking for the right type of dark matter.

Continue reading “Researchers propose repurposing tabletop sensors to search for dark matter” »

Researchers at CRANN (The Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices), and the School of Physics at Trinity College Dublin, today announced that a magnetic material developed at the Centre demonstrates the fastest magnetic switching ever recorded.

The team used femtosecond laser systems in the Photonics Research Laboratory at CRANN to switch and then re-switch the magnetic orientation of their material in trillionths of a second, six times faster than the previous record, and a hundred times faster than the clock speed of a personal computer.

This discovery demonstrates the potential of the material for a new generation of energy efficient ultra-fast computers and data storage systems.

In a feat worthy of a laboratory conceived by J.K. Rowling, MIT researchers and colleagues have turned a “magic” material composed of atomically thin layers of carbon into three useful electronic devices. Normally, such devices, all key to the quantum electronics industry, are created using a variety of materials that require multiple fabrication steps. The MIT approach automatically solves a variety of problems associated with those more complicated processes.

As a result, the work could usher in a new generation of quantum electronic devices for applications including quantum computing. Further, the devices can be superconducting, or conduct electricity without resistance. They do so, however, through an unconventional mechanism that, with further study, could give new insights into the physics of superconductivity. The researchers report their results in the May 3, 2021 issue of Nature Nanotechnology.

“In this work we have demonstrated that magic angle graphene is the most versatile of all superconducting materials, allowing us to realize in a single system a multitude of quantum electronic devices. Using this advanced platform, we have been able to explore for the first time novel superconducting physics that only appears in two dimensions,” says Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics at MIT and leader of the work. Jarillo-Herrero is also affiliated with MIT’s Materials Research Laboratory.

PLP architecture has revealed its design for ‘park nova,’ a new landmark residential tower on a garden site along orchard boulevard in singapore’s most coveted neighborhood. the project’s biophilic design expresses inspiration from its lush green environment in orchard, singapore. park nova…

PLP architecture designs its ‘park nova’ tower with a biophilic design inspired by the natural character of orchard, singapore.

The capsule just returned from space with four astronauts.

The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft Resilience may have just returned to Earth, but it already has a new mission: to carry the first private astronaut flight for SpaceX.

After completing a 167-day stay at the International Space Station (ISS), Resilience splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday morning (May 2). Safely strapped inside were four astronauts: NASA’s Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, as well as Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).