A new study calculates how long Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere will persist, with a most likely timeframe of 1.08 billion years until the planet is rendered uninhabitable for most life.
Researchers at the quantum computing firm D-Wave Systems have shown that their quantum processor can simulate the behaviour of an “untwisting” quantum magnet much faster than a classical machine. Led by D-Wave’s director of performance research Andrew King, the team used the new low-noise quantum processor to show that the quantum speed-up increases for harder simulations. The result shows that even near-term quantum simulators could have a significant advantage over classical methods for practical problems such as designing new materials.
The D-Wave simulators are specialized quantum computers known as quantum annealers. To perform a simulation, the quantum bits, or qubits, in the annealer are initialized in a classical ground state and allowed to interact and evolve under conditions programmed to mimic a particular system. The final state of the qubits is then measured to reveal the desired information.
King explains that the quantum magnet they simulated experiences both quantum fluctuations (which lead to entanglement and tunnelling) and thermal fluctuations. These competing effects create exotic topological phase transitions in materials, which were the subject of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics.
In this episode of Lifespan News:
Binary Clock Predicts Biological Age Longevity company funding roundup Lifespan.io just turned 7 CAR T-cell therapy generates lasting remissions in patients with multiple myeloma CBD Reduces Plaque and Improves Cognition in Model of Familial Alzheimer’s.
In my last post, I talked about the idea of warp drive and whether it might one day be possible. Today I’ll talk about another faster-than-light trick: wormholes.
Wormholes are an old idea in general relativity. It’s based on work by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen, who tried to figure out how elementary particles might behave in curved spacetime. Their idea treated particle-antiparticle pairs as two ends of a spacetime tube.
This Einstein-Rosen Bridge would look like a black hole on one end, and an anti-black hole, or white hole, on the other end.
Facial Tracking in VR
Posted in virtual reality
Facial tracker for your virtual avatar. 🙂
Wow! I just tried out the facial tracker from HTC Vive in Neos VR and I have to say it is next level! Can’t wait to see this become the standard in virtual real… See More.
The menagerie of bacterial and fungal species living among us is ever growing — and this is no exception in low-gravity environments, such as the International Space Station (ISS).
Researchers from the United States and India working with NASA have now discovered four strains of bacteria living in different places in the ISS – three of which were, until now, completely unknown to science.
Three of the four strains were isolated back in 2015 and 2016 – one was found on an overhead panel of the ISS research stations, the second was found in the Cupola, the third was found on the surface of the dining table; the fourth was found in an old HEPA filter returned to Earth in 2011.
BeeWize has invented a new kind of beehive that can help prevent colony collapse — which is threatening pollination across the world.
GUANGZHOU, China — Baidu has raised money for its artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor business at a valuation of $2 billion, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.
It comes as the Chinese search giant looks to diversify its revenue streams.
The funding round was led by CPE, a Chinese asset management and private equity firm, the person said. Venture capital companies IDG and Legend Capital were also involved. A fund under Chinese investment company Oriza Holdings also participated in the round.
Summary: When the ventral tegmental area was stimulated, monkeys were better able to identify details associated with subconscious visual stimuli they were exposed to.
Source: KU Leuven.
Researchers uncovered for the first time what happens in animals’ brains when they learn from subconscious, visual stimuli. In time, this knowledge can lead to new treatments for a number of conditions.