My new article for the International Business Times:
The US presidential candidate completes his three-month campaign aboard a coffin-shaped bus.
A research group at Osaka University has succeeded in observing at the intended timing two-phonon quantum interference by using two cold calcium ions in ion traps, which spatially confine charged particles. A phonon is a unit of vibrational energy that arises from oscillating particles within crystals. Two-particle quantum interference experiments using two photons or atoms have been previously reported, but this group’s achievement is the world’s first observation using two phonons.
This group demonstrated that the phonon, a quantum mechanical description of an elementary vibrational motion in matter, and the photon, an elementary particle of light, share common properties. This group’s research results will contribute to quantum information processing research, including quantum simulation using phonons and quantum interface research.
Ion traps are an important technique in physically achieving quantum information processing including quantum computation, and research on ion traps is being carried out all over the world, with Dr. David J. Wineland of the United States, a leading expert in the field, winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2012.
“LISA Pathfinder (the acronym stands for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) is intended to demonstrate the technology needed to detect waves of gravity, rather than light, X-rays or gamma rays.”
Isolated from the Comfrey plant, Allantoin is a popular ingredient in many skincare regimens. According to new research it may increase longevity by mimicking the benefits of calorie restriction.
Calorie restriction is a subject of debate within the longevity community, and on animal models success is variable. However, it remains one of the most proven ways of extending lifespan in many species, and molecules that mimic the effect at the molecular level have also been associated with protective effects — up-regulating repair and stress response mechanisms. One such molecule is resveratrol, which is responsible for the relatively recent red wine hype.
Last Friday at the Neural Information and Processing Systems conference in Montreal, Canada, a team of artificial intelligence luminaries announced OpenAI, a non-profit company set to change the world of machine learning.
Backed by Tesla and Space X’s Elon Musk and Y Combinator’s Sam Altman, OpenAI has a hefty budget and even heftier goals. With a billion dollars in initial funding, OpenAI eschews the need for financial gains, allowing it to place itself on sky-high moral grounds.
By not having to answer to industry or academia, OpenAI hopes to focus not just on developing digital intelligence, but also guide research along an ethical route that, according to their inaugural blog post, “benefits humanity as a whole.”
How an innocent plea for collegial comments turned into a global news flap about a possible Super-Earth on our solar system’s outer fringes.
The odds that our solar system harbors a super-Earth on its outer fringes are longer than the chances of winning a state lottery (or at least 200 million to one), says a University of Hawaii planetary scientist. In fact, the recent news flap over the potential detection of a rocky planet in a very long solar orbit was greatly exaggerated, the lead author of the scientific paper which resulted in the controversy now says.
“We never claim a super-Earth; we state it can’t necessarily be ruled out on the basis of our data alone, but the much more likely explanation is a much more nearby icy-body,” Wouter Vlemmings, a radio and submillimeter astronomer at Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology, told me.
Continue reading “Super-Earth In Outer Solar System Is Incredibly Unlikely” »
https://youtube.com/watch?v=FLzdsp2FHoo
The feeling you got when you first saw your newborn’s face. That glorious moment when the entire family was laughing over dinner. The epiphany you had when you reached the peak of your favorite mountain. If only you could travel back and experience those instances again.
A group of engineers is hoping to do just that with a virtual reality (VR) system that lets you take 3D videos with your phone and an accompanying virtual reality headset that lets you experience those memories again, whenever you want.
Continue reading “Virtual Reality Tech Lets You ‘Teleport’ Back in Time” »
We’re coming down the homestretch for 2015, and now is the time when most folks like to reflect on all of the things they’re thankful for. In the campus innovation space, that basically means MIT. Being one of the most technologically progressive universities in the world, MIT has the longstanding reputation of churning out life-changing innovations as if it were a cake walk.
This past year has been no different. Here are our picks of 5 inventions coming out of MIT that are sure to impact the world, making us very thankful to have the Cambridge-based university in our corner.
If everyone’s bodies were true to textbook anatomy, doctors’ jobs would be a breeze. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. So all patients going in for heart surgery will have slightly different nuances to their cardiac makeup. As you can imagine, these procedures present some high stakes, so it’s not great for surgeons to be surprised in the OR.
