As computing systems push beyond silicon limits, researchers seek materials that can do more than simply store and process data. Molecular electronics once promised ultra compact devices, but real world molecular behaviour proved unpredictable. In parallel, neuromorphic computing has aimed to build hardware that can learn and adapt like the brain. Yet most existing platforms rely on rigid materials that only imitate learning through complex circuitry.
Researchers demonstrate this novel mechanism in degenerate InN thin films, advancing photonic technology.
The transient Pauli blocking effect is a promising way to achieve ultrafast optical switching in semiconductors. Recently, a research team from Japan successfully demonstrated broadband ultrafast optical switching in InN thin films by leveraging pump-probe transient transmittance measurements with multicolor probe lasers. They also developed a theoretical model to explain the underlying mechanism. These findings might pave the way for next-generation ultrafast optical modulators, shutters, and photonic devices in optical computing or optical communication.
But what if our biological makeup limits how creative we can be? Maybe the timing of the clock that governs our introspections forces our intuitive periods—or the times of uncertainty—to be too brief. Could we use our quantum technologies to extend the wavelike processing inside our brains? I am here inspired by Aldous Huxley, who suggested in his famous book, The Doors of Perception, that drugs could alter our consciousness, revealing true reality. But rather than using drugs, I envision quantum chips designed to suppress the “noise” that induces introspection, allowing a longer interference period for our intuitive thoughts to develop. This has the potential to be far more potent than what Huxley could ever have imagined.
For my idea to work, we would first have to understand where and how these superpositions are stored and manipulated in the brain. The British physicist Roger Penrose, PhD, has speculated that this occurs within microtubules, which are dynamic, hollow, rod-like components of the eukaryotic cytoskeleton that are responsible for things such as intercellular transport. Despite some circumstantial evidence, we do not have a strong reason to believe that microtubules are capable of quantum interference, but they are certainly worth further investigation. Once we understand how our brain uses quantum effects, we could then design a quantum chip that interfaces with the relevant biological components. Theoretically, the device would be able to upload superposition states to store them for longer periods and shield them from collapse, helping us to enhance our creative wavelike thinking.
One wonders what kind of power would be unleashed by doing this. I imagine the change would not be purely quantitative, so that we merely become faster calculators or quicker problem solvers, although even that would be amazing. Instead, I think the change could be qualitative, expanding our perception into a completely different realm, effectively creating a new species. We might theoretically become more powerful than modern humans, just as we currently are with respect to other apes. Quantum-enhanced humans would see further domains of reality that would otherwise remain hidden forever from us ordinary humans.
JNeurosci: Lu and Matsunami analyzed gene activity to find proteins that help odor-detecting receptors reach the cell surface. They identified three helper genes—Gfy, Clgn, and Syt1—that support receptor function as olfactory cells mature.
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Odor detection in mammals is primarily mediated by odorant receptors (ORs), the largest family of G-protein-coupled receptors, expressed in olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs; [Buck and Axel, 1991][1]). However, most ORs exhibit little or no cell surface expression in nonolfactory cell types ([Lu et al., 2003][2]; [Hague et al., 2004][3]). While the accessory protein RTP1 and RTP2 enhance the expression of certain ORs, we hypothesized that additional proteins coregulated with RTP1 and RTP2 during OSN maturation may further enhance OR cell surface expression ([Saito et al., 2004][4]; [Zhuang and Matsunami, 2007][5]). To test this, we developed a computational pipeline based on publicly available single-cell transcriptomic data to create an interactive tool for exploring gene expression during OSN maturation.
It could solve the corrosion and thermal challenges of lead-cooled reactors.
The development of this steel was conducted under the “Breakthrough” (Proryv) project, which focuses on the implementation of a closed nuclear fuel cycle using fast neutron reactors.
The new steel provides corrosion resistance and thermal stability at temperatures up to 600°C (1,112°F).
According to Sergei Logashov, Director of the Institute of Materials Science at CNIITMASH, the material was designed using computer modeling and data from heavy liquid metal coolant systems.
Researchers at the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology have uncovered new evidence that two major types of gene-controlling DNA sequences, promoters and enhancers, operate with a shared logic and often perform the same jobs. The finding, made possible through a high-throughput assay they developed called QUASARR-seq, could reshape how scientists design gene therapies, interpret disease-related mutations, and understand cancer genetics.
New research from the lab of Haiyuan Yu, Tisch University Professor of Computational Biology at Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) and faculty at the Weill Institute, reveals that drawing a distinction between the two classes gene controllers may be too black and white—they seem to respond to the same biological rules and act in concert.
In a study published in Nature Communications on Jan. 30 and led by Mauricio Paramo, a graduate student at the Weill Institute, the team developed a technology capable of measuring an element’s promoter and enhancer activity simultaneously, in close collaboration with the lab of John Lis, Barbara McClintock Professor of Molecular Biology & Genetics. This is significant because, until now, most technologies could measure only one function at a time, leaving open the question of whether—and how—the two activities interact inside the same DNA sequence.
Preserving quantum information is key to developing useful quantum computing systems. But interacting quantum systems are chaotic and follow laws of thermodynamics, eventually leading to information loss. Physicists have long known of a strange exception, called dynamical freezing, when quantum systems shaken at precisely tuned frequencies evade these laws. But how long can this phenomenon postpone thermodynamics?
Not forever, but for an astonishingly long time, Cornell physicists have determined, giving the first quantitative answer. Using a new mathematical framework, they demonstrate that the frozen state can be stabilized long enough to be a useful strategy for preserving information in quantum systems. This can be a promising route for maintaining coherence in quantum computers as the numbers of qubits scale up to the millions.
“It’s like asking, how do you evade the laws of physics from eventually taking over?” said Debanjan Chowdhury, associate professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences. “Imagine that you had a hot cup of coffee that even without a heater, stayed hot. Or a block of ice placed on a heater that never melts. Is that even possible? This has been one of the big open problems in the field of quantum many-body systems.”
Superconducting computing circuits were briefly heralded as the future of computing in the 1980s. Columnist Karmela Padavic-Callaghan visits a quantum chip foundry where one company is betting this technology’s second act will revolutionise quantum computers.