Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists found that a class of particles known as bosons can behave as an opposite class of particles called fermions, when forced into a line.

The research, conducted at Penn State University and funded in part by the Army Research Office, an element of U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory, found that when the internal interactions among bosons in a one-dimensional gas are very strong, their velocity distribution transforms into that of a gas of non-interacting fermions when they expand in one dimension. The research is published in the journal Science.

“The performance of atomic clocks, quantum computers and quantum systems rely upon the proper curation of the properties of the chosen system,” said Dr. Paul Baker, program manager, atomic and molecular physics at ARO. “This research effort demonstrates that the system statistics can be altered by properly constraining the dimensions of the system. In addition to furthering our understanding of foundational principles, this discovery could provide a method for dynamically switching a system from bosonic to fermionic to best meet the military need.”

Here’s another neat thing drones can do—beam power across the sky to recharge sensors in hard-to-reach places.

Remote sensors play a valuable role in collecting data—but recharging these devices while they are scattered over vast and isolated areas can be tedious. A new system is designed to make the charging process easier by using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to deliver power using radio waves during a flyby. A specialized antenna on the sensor harvests the signals and converts them into electricity. The design is described in a study published 23 March in IEEE Sensors Letters.

Continue reading “Drones Use Radio Waves to Recharge Sensors While in Flight” »

New numbers from the digital asset management giant Grayscale show investors are collectively throwing big money into Ethereum for the first time, on top of record investment numbers for Bitcoin.

According to Grayscale’s Q1 2020 report, institutions are taking a serious interest in ETH, enough to print a record quarterly inflow into the Grayscale Ethereum Trust.

Spencer Noon, the head of crypto investments at DTC Capital, says the numbers show Ethereum has reached a turning point with high-net worth investors.

In this video, we’ll be discussing 5G – more specifically, what it is and its ability to change our world! 5G is a core technology in establishing the digital infrastructure of the future and will be essential in how all of the over 50 billion mobile and connected devices by 2020 will communicate together!

[0:25–2:55] First we’ll take a quick look at the history of mobile networks, and how they have evolved over the years to present day.

Continue reading “What Is 5G (5G Explained)” »

More and more, people don’t care about expert views. That’s according to Tom Nichols, author of “The Death of Expertise,” who says Americans have become insufferable know-it-alls, locked in constant conflict and debate with others over topics they actually know almost nothing about. Nichols shares his humble opinion on how we got here.

The airspace above future battlefields is expected to be increasingly congested with large numbers of unmanned aerial systems, manned aircraft, munitions and missiles filling the skies. To de-conflict airspace activities of friendly forces and rapidly counter an enemy’s actions on the battlefield requires new technologies to effectively integrate effects from all domains.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here’s what we have so far (send us your events!):

Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today’s videos.

Continue reading “Video Friday: This Free-Flying Robot Head Is Like Alexa for Astronauts” »

Happy Bicycle Day!

🚲 ⚡️ 🚲

After consuming magic mushrooms in Basel, Switzerland, I ran into Albert Hofmann, the chemist who catalyzed the psychedelic era.

Continue reading “Tripping in LSD’s Birthplace: A Story for ‘Bicycle Day’” »

Part of the problem is too few novel antibiotic candidates, according to Pew.