Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists have made an important step toward developing computers advanced enough to simulate complex natural phenomena at the quantum level. While these types of simulations are too cumbersome or outright impossible for classical computers to handle, photonics-based quantum computing systems could provide a solution.

A team of researchers from the University of Rochester’s Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences developed a new chip-scale optical quantum simulation system that could help make such a system feasible. The team, led by Qiang Lin, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and optics, published their findings in Nature Photonics.

Lin’s team ran the simulations in a synthetic space that mimics the physical world by controlling the frequency, or color, of quantum entangled photons as time elapses. This approach differs from the traditional photonics-based computing methods in which the paths of photons are controlled, and also drastically reduces the physical footprint and resource requirements.

Join top executives in San Francisco on July 11–12, to hear how leaders are integrating and optimizing AI investments for success. Learn More

Causely, an artificial intelligence startup led by CEO and founder Ellen Rubin, announced today the limited early-access launch of its Causal AI platform for enterprise data. The company aims to revolutionize how businesses troubleshoot operational issues and manage application performance using Causal AI technology.

The company also announced today that it has raised $8.8 million in seed funding led by 645 Ventures, with participation from founding investor Amity Ventures, and including new investors GlassWing Ventures and Tau Ventures. The funding will enable Causely to build its Causal AI platform for IT and expand its offerings to a wider range of IT problems and scenarios. The financing also brings the company’s total funding to over $11 million since it was founded in 2022.

National Geographic, a magazine renowned for its photojournalism and wildlife photography, has laid off the last of its remaining staff writers and a number of other employees, according to multiple departing staff writers. The move signals a possible decline for the publication.

The 19 affected employees—which The Washington Post reports included staff writers and members of the audio team—were made aware of the reduction back in April, which was also when parent company Disney announced widespread layoffs.

While multiple laid-off staffers have publicly stated that all staff writers have been let go, there appears to be mixed messaging — an internal source familiar with the situation told PetaPixel that this layoff did not affect “all writers”, as has been reported, and that the magazine continues to employ staff “writers/editors”. However, this may simply refer to the elimination of dedicated writing roles — The Post reports that “article assignments will henceforth be contracted out to freelancers or pieced together by editors.”

Year 2021 😗😁

Nano Diamond Battery wants to bring its ‘nuclear-powered batteries’ to the market within five years.

Year 2015 😗😁

Physicists in France have figured out how to optimise an advanced type of electric rocket thruster that uses a stream of plasma travelling at 72,420 km/h (45,000 mph) to propel spacecraft forward, allowing them to run on 100 million times less fuel than conventional chemical rockets.

Known as a Hall thruster, these engines have been operating in space since 1971, and are now routinely flown on communication satellites and space probes to adjust their orbits when needed. These things are awesome, and scientists want to use them to get humans to Mars, except there’s one — rather large — problem: the current lifespan of a Hall thruster is around 10,000 operation hours, and that’s way too short for most space exploration missions, which require upwards of 50,000 hours.

Continue reading “This Plasma Engine Could Get Humans to Mars on 100 Million Times Less Fuel” »

As sci-fi fans will attest, scenes of the distant future aren’t too difficult to imagine. We’ve got fleets of intergalactic ships exploring the inscrutable vastness of space. We’ve got legions of hardy settlers terraforming strange, new worlds. There’s a great galactic chain of humanity forged through will, knowledge, and intellect stretching across the Milky Way and beyond. At least, that’s one version. Some would describe a brutal, militaristic future for humanity, or one of disembodied consciousnesses and networks of planet-spanning artificial intelligence. But in each version, there’s one crucial element that humanity can’t do without: energy.

Energy is such a fundamental, critical component to civilization — off-world or not — that Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964 labeled spacefaring civilizations based on how much energy they consumed; the higher the ranking, the more advanced, as Space.com explains. We’re talking far, far beyond crude fuel like oil and coal. Earth isn’t even a Type I civilization because we haven’t harnessed all the energy available on our own planet. By contrast, a Type II civilization would be able to build an energy-harnessing structure like a Dyson sphere around its own sun, as described in Popular Mechanics. After all, all those intergalactic ships, stations, settlements, etc., need power from somewhere, same as they need materials.

Continue reading “How Theoretical Zero-Point Energy Draws Limitless Fuel From The Vacuum Of Space” »

The world of land speed records is full of crazy homemade creations, like this steam-powered bike that runs on spent cooking oil.

The brain comprises billions of interconnected neurons that transmit and process information and allow it to act as a highly sophisticated information processing system. To make it as efficient as possible, the brain develops multiple modules tasked with different functions, like perception and body control. Within a single area, neurons form multiple clusters and function as modules—an important trait that has remained essentially unchanged throughout evolution.

Still, many unanswered questions remain regarding how the specific structure of the brain’s network, such as the modular structure, works together with the physical and chemical properties of neurons to process information.

Reservoir computing is a computational model inspired by the brain’s powers, where the reservoir comprises a large number of interconnected nodes that transform input signals into a more complex representation.

Researchers at North Carolina State University have discovered a new distinct form of silicon called Q-silicon which, among other interesting properties, is ferromagnetic at room temperature. The findings could lead to advances in quantum computing, including the creation of a spin qubit quantum computer that is based on controlling the spin of an electron.

“The discovery of Q-silicon having robust room temperature ferromagnetism will open a new frontier in atomic-scale, spin-based devices and functional integration with nanoelectronics,” said Jay Narayan, the John C. Fan Family Distinguished Chair in Materials Science and corresponding author of a paper describing the work published in Materials Research Letters.

Ferromagnetism in materials outside of transition metals and rare earths has excited scientists worldwide for a long time. This is because spin-polarized electrons can be used to process and store information with atomic resolution. However, materials with even numbers of electrons, such as carbon and silicon, without unpaired spins were not considered seriously in terms of bulk ferromagnetism. The dangling bonds in bulk carbon and silicon materials usually reconstruct and eliminate sources of unpaired electrons.