Will this enable people to make super strong concrete the future? đ
Scientists in Japan have found a rare mineral in concrete walls of a decommissioned power plant, which is as strong as concrete the Romans used.
Using ocean/sea waves for power. đ
This is the Eco Wave Power, an innovative and affordable technology that produces clean, renewable energy from ocean waves. (More info: https://youtu.be/BrDua3j1U3M)
Stem cells from fat. đ
A new type of stem cellâthat is, a cell with regenerative abilitiesâcould be closer on the horizon, a new study led by UNSW Sydney shows.
The stem cells (called induced multipotent stem cells, or iMS) can be made from easily accessible human cellsâin this case, fatâand reprogrammed to act as stem cells.
The results of the animal study, which created human stem cells and tested their effectiveness in mice, were published online in Science Advances todayâand while the results are encouraging, more research and tests are needed before any potential translation to human therapies.
Not all appears as it would seem in the Whirlpool galaxy. One of the best-studied spiral galaxies and a delight to amateur astronomers, Messier 51, as itâs officially named, is influenced by powerful, invisible forces.
Located 31 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici, the galaxyâs arms are strikingly visible as they reach out along the central spine structure, displaying swirling clouds of gas and dust that are massive star-making factories. But new observations by NASA âs Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, presented at this weekâs 237th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, shows a more complicated picture.
Radio telescopes previously detected neatly-drawn magnetic fields throughout the length of the galaxyâs massive arms. But under SOFIAâs infrared gaze for the first time those lines give way to a chaotic scene in the outer spiral arms. Using a far-infrared camera and imaging polarimeter instrument called the High-Resolution Airborne Wideband Camera, or HAWC+, researchers found that the magnetic fields in the outskirts of the galaxy no longer follow the spiral structure and are instead distorted.
To understand ourselves and our place in the universe, âwe should have humility but also self-respect,â the physicist writes in a new book.
In the spring of 1970, colleges across the country erupted with student protests in response to the Vietnam War and the National Guardâs shooting of student demonstrators at Kent State University. At the University of Chicago, where Frank Wilczek was an undergraduate, regularly scheduled classes were âimprovised and semivoluntaryâ amid the turmoil, as he recalls.
It was during this turbulent time that Wilczek found unexpected comfort, and a new understanding of the world, in mathematics. He had decided to sit in on a class by physics professor Peter Freund, who, with a zeal âbordering on rapture,â led students through mathematical theories of symmetry and ways in which these theories can predict behaviors in the physical world.
The incredible physics behind quantum computing.
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While todayâs computersâreferred to as classical computersâcontinue to become more and more powerful, there is a ceiling to their advancement due to the physical limits of the materials used to make them. Quantum computing allows physicists and researchers to exponentially increase computation power, harnessing potential parallel realities to do so.
Quantum computer chips are astoundingly small, about the size of a fingernail. Scientists have to not only build the computer itself but also the ultra-protected environment in which they operate. Total isolation is required to eliminate vibrations and other external influences on synchronized atoms; if the atoms become âdecoherentâ the quantum computer cannot function.
âYou need to create a very quiet, clean, cold environment for these chips to work in,â says quantum computing expert Vern Brownell. The coldest temperature possible in physics is-273.15 degrees C. The rooms required for quantum computing are-273.14 degrees C, which is 150 times colder than outer space. It is complex and mind-boggling work, but the potential for computation that harnesses the power of parallel universes is worth the chase.
Check Chris Bernhardtâs book âQuantum Computing for Everyone (MIT Press)â at http://amzn.to/3nSg5a8
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TRANSCRIPT:
MICHIO KAKU: Years ago, we physicists predicted the end of Mooreâs Law, which says a computer power doubles every 18 months. But we also, on the other hand, proposed a positive programâperhaps molecular computers, quantum computers can take over when silicon power is exhausted. In fact, already we see a slowing down of Mooreâs Law. Computer power simply cannot maintain its rapid exponential rise using standard silicon technology. The two basic problems are heat and leakage. Thatâs the reason why the age of silicon will eventually come to a close. No one knows when, but as I mentioned we already now can see the slowing down of Mooreâs Law, and in 10 years it could flatten out completely. So whatâs the problem? The problem is that a Pentium chip today has a layer almost down to 20 atoms across, 20 atoms across. When that layer gets down to about five atoms across, itâs all over. You have two effects, heat. The heat generated will be so intense that the chip will melt. You can literally fry an egg on top of the chip, and the chip itself begins to disintegrate. And second of all, leakage. You donât know where the electron is anymore. The quantum theory takes over. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says you donât know where that electron is anymore, meaning it could be outside the wire, outside the Pentium chip or inside the Pentium chip. So there is an ultimate limit set by the laws of thermodynamics and set by the laws of quantum mechanics, as to how much computing power you can do with silicon.
VERN BROWNELL: I refer to todayâs computers as classical computers. They compute largely in the same way they have for the past 60 or 70 years, since John Von Neumann and others invented the first electronic computers back in the â40s. And weâve had amazing progress over those years. Think of all the developments thereâve been on the hardware side and the software side over those 60 or 70 years and how much energy and development has been put into those areas. And weâve achieved marvelous things with that classical computing environment, but it has its limits too, and people sometimes ask, âWhy would we need any more powerful computers?â These applications, these problems that weâre trying to solve, are incredibly hard problems and arenât well-suited for the architecture of classical computing. So I see quantum computing as another set of tools, another set of resources for scientists, researchers, computer scientists, programmers, to develop and enhance some of these capabilities to really change the world in a much better way than weâre able to today with classical computers.
A spider-like moon rover heading to the lunar surface in 2021 is designed to explore the underground lava tubes in which astronauts might one day live.
Circa 2014 o.o
Scientists in Florida have developed process to create methane using aerobic digester.
The result was a bizarre, Lego-like human tissue that replicates the basic circuits behind how we decide to move. Without external prompting, when churned together like ice cream, the three ingredients physically linked up into a fully functional circuit. The 3D mini-brain, through the information highway formed by the artificial spinal cord, was able to make the lab-grown muscle twitch on demand.
In other words, if you think isolated mini-brainsâknown formally as brain organoidsâfloating in a jar is creepy, upgrade your nightmares. The next big thing in probing the brain is assembloidsâfree-floating brain circuitsâthat now combine brain tissue with an external output.
The end goal isnât to freak people out. Rather, itâs to recapitulate our nervous system, from input to output, inside the controlled environment of a Petri dish. An autonomous, living brain-spinal cord-muscle entity is an invaluable model for figuring out how our own brains direct the intricate muscle movements that allow us stay upright, walk, or type on a keyboard.
The device, which is like a smartphone in the eye, took home an award at the yearâs biggest tech conference, but itâs not quite ready for prime time.