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Category: futurism

Superconducting detector captures hot spots with submicron resolution

A research team from Osaka Metropolitan University proposed using a current-biased kinetic inductance detector with submicron 400 megapixels to image hot spots induced by a localized external stimulus over a 15 × 15 mm2 area. The team utilized a delay-line technique to trace the propagation of internal signals for a pair of signals arising from each hot spot.

Further, they used the timestamps of signal arrivals at the electrodes to determine the position of each hot spot (x, y). Because the signal velocity inside the detector is ultrafast at about 20% the speed of light, a readout circuit with a temporal resolution faster than 250 ps is necessary to resolve the position of a hot spot with a precision of 1.5 μm, which is the size of a meander pitch.

The research is published in the journal AIP Advances.

How your brain keeps time: Consistent probability calculations help you react rapidly

Humans respond to environments that change at many different speeds. A video game player, for example, reacts to on-screen events unfolding within hundreds of milliseconds or over several seconds. A boxer anticipates an opponent’s moves—even when their timing differs from that of previous opponents. In each case, the brain predicts when events occur, prepares for what comes next and flexibly adapts to the demands of the situation.

A study by neuroscientists from the Ernst Strüngmann Institute of the Max Planck Society, Goethe University Frankfurt, the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, and New York University, explains how the human brain predicts the timing of future events.

The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that the brain continuously estimates how likely something is to happen within the next three seconds—and uses this estimate to prepare fast and accurate reactions.

What Happens When Light Gains Extra Dimensions

Shaped quantum light is turning ordinary photons into powerful tools for the future of technology.

A global group of scientists, including researchers from the UAB, has published a new review in Nature Photonics exploring a rapidly developing area of research called quantum structured light. This field is changing how information can be sent, measured, and processed by combining quantum physics with carefully designed patterns of light in space and time. By doing so, researchers can create photons capable of carrying far more information than traditional light.

From qubits to higher dimensional quantum states.

Sweet Deception: How Mycobacteria Exploit Immune Receptors to Survive

A new study reveals that Mycobacterium tuberculosis can dodge the host’s immune defenses by targeting an innate pattern recognition receptor on macrophages.

This interaction helps promote the mycobacteria’s ability to survive within the host cells.

Read more.

A sugar on mycobacteria binds to the immune receptor dectin-1 on host macrophages, helping the bacteria survive and driving susceptibility to infection.

Direct evidence for poison use on microlithic arrowheads in Southern Africa at 60,000 years ago

Hunter-gatherers in southern Africa laced their stone arrow tips with poison roughly 60,000 years ago, a new Science Advances study finds.

The discovery pushes back the timeline for poison weapon use from the mid-Holocene to the Late Pleistocene.

Earliest proof of plant poisons on arrows reveals complex Pleistocene hunting in southern Africa.

Loss of Lipin1 Contributes to Multiple Pathological Processes in the Development of Heart Failure

Loss of lipin1 disrupts heart muscle membrane integrity, driving inflammation, fibrosis, and contributing to heart failure.

BackgroundLipin1 has dual functions acting as phosphatidic acid phosphatase required for lipid synthesis and as a transcriptional coactivator. Our previous research demonstrated that lipin1 is critical for maintaining sarcolemmal integrity in skeletal muscle. Given the importance of sarcolemmal stability for cardiac muscle viability and function, we investigated the role of lipin1 in the heart using a novel cardiac‐specific lipin1 deficient (Myh6‐lipin 1−/−) mouse model.

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