Lifeboat Foundation

“I, personally, have pareidolia with respect to insects, beetles in particular,” Maddison told Space.com. “I’ve worked on beetles for decades; I have collected many thousands of beetles around the world. Through the years I have built into my brain a pattern-recognition system for picking out beetles.”

In other words, Rosomer is probably wrong, even though he probably thinks he’s right.

“I do not think there are insects on Mars,” Maddison added. “The photographs that are in that press release you sent are entirely unconvincing, as they fall within the range expected in zillions of non-insect objects photographed in lowish resolution on a Marscape.”

University of Michigan scientists demonstrate success for possible EpiPen that uses nanoparticles to prevent paralysis after spinal cord injuries.

Scientists have observed a new state of electronic matter on the quantum scale, one that forms when electrons clump together in transit, and it could advance our understanding and application of quantum physics.

Movement is key to this new quantum state. When electric current is applied to semiconductors or metals, the electrons inside usually travel slowly and somewhat haphazardly in one direction.

Not so in a special type of medium known as a ballistic conductor, where the movement is faster and more uniform.

Quantum computing might initially sound like a far-fetched futuristic idea, but companies such as Amazon, Google, and IBM are putting their weight behind it and preparations have begun. With quantum computing potentially within our reach, what will happen to our current security models and modern-day encryption? See what security experts are doing to prepare for quantum threats.

The future is here. Or just about. After a number of discoveries, researchers have proven that quantum computing is possible and on its way. The wider world did not pause long on this discovery: Goldman Sachs, Amazon, Google, and IBM have just announced their own intentions to embark on their own quantum developments.

Now that it’s within our reach we have to start seriously considering what that means in the real world. Certainly, we all stand to gain from the massive benefits that quantum capabilities can bring, but so do cybercriminals.

QuTech has resolved a major issue on the road toward a working large-scale quantum computer. QuTech, a collaboration of TU Delft and TNO, and Intel have designed and fabricated an integrated circuit that can controlling qubits at extremely low temperatures. This paves the way for the crucial integration of qubits and their controlling electronics in the same chip. The scientists have presented their research during the ISSCC Conference in San Francisco.

Quantum computers

“This result brings us closer to a large-scale quantum computer which can solve problems that are intractable by even the most powerful supercomputers. Solutions to those problems can make a strong impact on everyday life, for instance in the fields of medicine and energy,” said team lead Fabio Sebastiano from QuTech and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science.

Competition between the U.S. and China in quantum computing revolves, in part, around the role such a system could play in breaking the encryption that makes things secure on the internet.

Truly useful quantum computing applications could be as much as a decade away, Aaronson says. Initially, these tools would be highly specialized.

“The way I put it is that we’re now entering the very, very early, vacuum-tube era of quantum computers,” he says.

Massive-scale particle physics produces correspondingly large amounts of data – and this is particularly true of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest particle accelerator, which is housed at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland. In 2026, the LHC will receive a massive upgrade through the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) Project. This will increase the LHC’s data output by five to seven times – billions of particle events every second – and researchers are scrambling to prepare big data computing for this deluge of particle physics data. Now, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are working to tackle high volumes of particle physics data with quantum computing.

When a particle accelerator runs, particle detectors offer data points for where particles crossed certain thresholds in the accelerator. Researchers then attempt to reconstruct precisely how the particles traveled through the accelerator, typically using some form of computer-aided pattern recognition.

This project, which is led by Heather Gray, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a particle physicist at Berkeley Lab, is called Quantum Pattern Recognition for High-Energy Physics (or HEP.QPR). In essence, HEP.QPR aims to use quantum computing to speed this pattern recognition process. HEP.QPR also includes Berkeley Lab scientists Wahid Bhimji, Paolo Calafiura and Wim Lavrijsen.

But apart from a few small-scale examples, the only stem cell-based medical treatment practised in clinics uses haematopoietic stem cells found in the blood and bone marrow – which only produce blood cells – for transplants in blood cancer patients. These cells are taken from a patient’s sibling or an unrelated donor, before being infused into a patient’s blood, or they’re taken from a patient’s own blood before being reinfused. The procedure has been used to treat blood malignancies for almost half a century, and recently multiple sclerosis too. So how likely is it that the predictions about stem cells’ longevity-enhancing powers will become a reality?

Startups are offering stem cells as the cure to everything from age-related illness to wrinkles. But the science is far from clear-cut.

A new proof-of-concept study has found a combination of two drugs, already approved by the FDA for other uses, may boost the release of stem cells from bone marrow and accelerate the healing of broken bones. Only demonstrated in animals at this stage, the researchers suggest clinical trials could progress rapidly considering the drugs have already been demonstrated as safe in humans.

“The body repairs itself all the time,” says corresponding author on the study Sara Rankin. “We know that when bones break they will heal, and this requires the activation of stem cells in the bone. However, when the damage is severe, there are limits to what the body can do of its own accord.”

A great deal of current research is focusing on mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) therapies. MSCs are a type of adult stem cell that can grow into a variety of different cell types including muscle, fat or bone. Many current MSC treatments in development involve extracting a small number from a patient, growing them in laboratory conditions, then injecting them back into the patient.