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Jun 22, 2019

Could consciousness all come down to the way things vibrate?

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Gamma waves are associated with large-scale coordinated activities like perception, meditation or focused consciousness; beta with maximum brain activity or arousal; and theta with relaxation or daydreaming. These three wave types work together to produce, or at least facilitate, various types of human consciousness, according to Fries. But the exact relationship between electrical brain waves and consciousness is still very much up for debate.

Fries calls his concept “communication through coherence.” For him, it’s all about neuronal synchronization. Synchronization, in terms of shared electrical oscillation rates, allows for smooth communication between neurons and groups of neurons. Without this kind of synchronized coherence, inputs arrive at random phases of the neuron excitability cycle and are ineffective, or at least much less effective, in communication.

Jun 22, 2019

Tiny motion is measured by quantum squeezing and amplification

Posted by in category: quantum physics

Trapped ions could be used for gravitational sensing and quantum computation.

Jun 22, 2019

Blue Origin Moon mission: Blue Moon BE-7 rocket engine aces first test

Posted by in category: space travel

BLUE ORIGIN, the space company founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, is one small step closer to achieving its ambition of reaching the Moon, after acing its first rocket test.

Jun 22, 2019

What makes a great qubit? Diamonds and ions could hold the answer

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

At the core of quantum computing is the qubit. The best ones have a few defining traits, and scientists are looking to everything from lasers to Russian diamonds to help refine the best qubits for the next generation of quantum computing.

Jun 22, 2019

‘Living drug’ offers hope to terminal blood cancer patients

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Doctors say some lymphoma patients are being completely cured in a way “never been seen before”.

Jun 22, 2019

A new coating material that could help reduce thermal noise on gravity wave detector mirrors

Posted by in categories: physics, space

A team of researchers from the University of Glasgow, the University of Strathclyde and Hobart and William Smith Colleges has developed a new coating for mirrors used on gravity detectors that is 25 times less noisy than mirror surfaces used on LIGO. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the group describes how they made it and how well it performed during testing.

The mirrors used in gravity wave detectors are positioned at the ends of its arms. Coherent light rays are reflected from both mirrors and interfere with each other. Gravitational waves are measured by noting how much the mirrors shift, resulting in slight changes in length of the arms to which they are attached, to an accuracy of 10–16 cm. As impressive as that is, researchers want to improve the sensitivity of the detectors used at LIGO/Virgo, even after the recent upgrade.

To that end, members of the European Union have begun developing plans for the construction of what the Einstein Telescope, a gravitational wave with sensitivity 100 times higher than LIGO/Virgo. But for that to happen, improvements in the design of the current are required. One of those improvements is reducing the amount of thermal fluctuations in the mirror coatings. In this new effort, the researchers claim to have done just that.

Jun 22, 2019

Einstein’s relativity document gifted to Nobel museum

Posted by in category: business

The Nobel Museum in Stockholm has been gifted Albert Einstein’s first paper published after he received the Nobel Prize in 1922 and discussing his then still controversial relativity theory.

Swedish businessman Per Taube bought the handwritten two-page document at an auction for 1.2 million krona (110,000 euros) in December last year.

He has now made good on his promise to gift the manuscript to the Nobel Museum, which will put it on display in a glass frame this autumn.

Jun 22, 2019

An AI “Vaccine” Can Block Adversarial Attacks

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cybercrime/malcode, information science, robotics/AI

For as smart as artificial intelligence systems seem to get, they’re still easily confused by hackers who launch so-called adversarial attacks — cyberattacks that trick algorithms into misinterpreting their training data, sometimes to disastrous ends.

In order to bolster AI’s defenses from these dangerous hacks, scientists at the Australian research agency CSIRO say in a press release they’ve created a sort of AI “vaccine” that trains algorithms on weak adversaries so they’re better prepared for the real thing — not entirely unlike how vaccines expose our immune systems to inert viruses so they can fight off infections in the future.

Jun 22, 2019

Rock-Eating Shipworm Discovered in Philippines

Posted by in category: food

An international research team led by Northeastern University marine biologists has discovered a new genus and species of shipworm burrowing into the bedrock of the Abatan River on the Philippine Island of Bohol.

Jun 22, 2019

What big ideas will shape U.S. science over the next decade? Here are some contenders

Posted by in category: science

National Science Foundation asks public to weigh in on contest.