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Aug 11, 2016

Toward practical quantum computers

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

Built-in optics could enable chips that use trapped ions as quantum bits…


Researchers from MIT and MIT Lincoln Laboratory report an important step toward practical quantum computers, with a paper describing a prototype chip that can trap ions in an electric field and, with built-in optics, direct laser light toward each of them.

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Aug 11, 2016

Ready for a Human Hybrid? Human-Animal Chimeras May Now Be Possible

Posted by in category: futurism

There are calls to lift NIH’s restrictions on the controversial chimera studies. But are we ready for this most controversial study yet?

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Aug 11, 2016

Do thoughts come from your brain or a universal consciousness?

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Neuroscientist Andrew B. Newberg provides the answer.

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Aug 10, 2016

How to turn green light blue

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

The upconversion of photons allows for a more efficient use of light: Two photons are converted into a single photon having higher energy. Researchers at KIT now showed for the first time that the inner interfaces between surface-mounted metal-organic frameworks (SURMOFs) are suited perfectly for this purpose — they turned green light blue. The result, which is now being published in Advanced Materials (“Photon Upconversion at Crystalline Organic–Organic Heterojunctions”), opens up new opportunities for optoelectronic applications such as solar cells or LEDs.

Photon upconversion: energy transfer between the molecules is based on electron exchange

Photon upconversion: energy transfer between the molecules is based on electron exchange (Dexter electron transfer). (Image: Michael Oldenburg)

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Aug 10, 2016

Social Entrepreneurs Need To Be Futurists, Too

Posted by in category: futurism

What if we tried to prevent future problems, instead of just solving the ones in front of us?

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Aug 10, 2016

With new water generators, Carrollton startup can unlock the ocean above your head

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

In the blackland prairie of Texas, an ocean is thousands of miles away. But Benjamin Blumenthal, co-founder and chief executive officer of SunToWater Technologies, says we’re all standing under the sixth ocean — the one that’s above our heads.

The Carrollton startup makes an appliance that unlocks that water supply. The company’s water generators — each about the size of a central air conditioning unit — use air, salt and solar power to produce gallons of drinkable water. They could bring water to rural communities without a municipal water supply, regions stricken by drought or developing countries with water contamination.

But the company will target a higher-end market first: Homeowners with large lawns to water and swimming pools to fill. Blumenthal said SunToWater is focusing on customers in California and Texas, two states that have coped with an unpredictable, and often limited, water supply and the water restrictions and high utility bills that come with it.

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Aug 10, 2016

Black holes are portals to another UNIVERSE – but you DON’T want to travel through

Posted by in category: cosmology

Not for me.


BLACK holes are portals to different parts of the universe – but if anything was to travel through it would be DOOMED.

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Aug 10, 2016

Making the cloud safe for intel

Posted by in category: futurism

The intelligence community’s tech think tank wants a new model for keeping data safe in the cloud.

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Aug 10, 2016

Chemical Switch Engineered into a Light-Driven Proton Pump

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, chemistry, physics

Synthetic biology is an emerging and rapidly evolving engineering discipline. Within the NCCR Molecular Systems Engineering, Scientists from Bernese have developed a version of the light-driven proton pump proteorhodopsin, which is chemically switchable and it is also an essential tool to efficiently power synthetic cells and molecular factories.

Synthetic biology is a highly complex field with numerous knowledge branches that incorporate physics, biology, and chemistry into engineering. It aims to design synthetic cells and molecular factories with innovative functions or properties that can be applied in medical and biological research or healthcare, industry research.

These artificial systems are available in the nanometer scale and are developed by assembling and combining current, synthetic or engineered building blocks (e.g., proteins). Molecular systems are applicable for a wide range of applications, for instance these systems can be used for waste disposal, medical treatment or diagnosis, energy supply and chemical compound synthesis.

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Aug 10, 2016

Neuron unites 2 theoretical models on motion detection

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Computation of motion by T4 cells in the fly brain more complex than previously believed

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.

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