Lifeboat Foundation

Circa 2021 Synthetic silicon dna storage.

In research, the demand for DNA strands often outpaces supply. To help supply keep up, researchers may set aside traditional molecular cloning techniques and embrace polymerase chain reaction select PCR)-based techniques. Alternatively, researchers may perform gene synthesis, or the de novo chemical synthesis of DNA. Besides accelerating the creation of genetic sequences, gene synthesis avoids the need for template strands and simplifies procedures such as codon optimization and the fabrication of mutant sequences.

Although gene synthesis can be performed in house, many laboratories prefer to focus on their core competencies and outsource their gene synthesis projects to service providers, especially if sequences of over 1,000 base pairs are desired. Outsourcing also allows laboratories to take advantage of service providers’ economies of scale and quick turnaround times. Finally, service providers offer ease of use. Clients can go online, upload the desired sequences, choose the vector, get the price, and place the order. The entire process takes only a few minutes, and the genes can be delivered a few days later.

Continue reading “Synthetic DNA Manufacturer has the ‘Write Stuff’” »

Basically all this says is that a basic quantum computer made of a simulation of an infinite quantum computer. So essentially infinite quantum computers could make the internet much more instant.

To parallelise our simulation on a small NISQ machine, we first identify partitions of the system where the effect of one partition upon the other can be summarised by a small amount of information. This is achieved by making Schmidt decompositions across the cut: \(\left|\psi \right\rangle =\mathopsum
olimits_alpha = 1^Dlambda ^alpha \left|phi _L^alpha \right\rangle \left|phi _R^alpha \right\rangle,\) where \(\left|phi _L^alpha \right\rangle\) are an orthonormal set of states to the left of the cut and \(\left|phi _R^alpha \right\rangle\) the same on the right. The λ^α are known as the Schmidt coefficients and D the Schmidt rank or bond order. Retaining λ^α only above some threshold value provides a way to compress representations of a quantum state; the MPS construction can be obtained by applying this procedure sequentially along a spin chain⁴.

If an observation is made on the right-hand-side of such a cut, the effect of the quantum state on the left upon the observation can be summarised by just D variables corresponding to the Schmidt coefficients. This same effect can be achieved by an effective state on a spin chain of length \(log\,_2D\) —see Fig. 1 —which can be parametrised on the quantum circuit by an SU (D²) unitary V_L. This encodes both the Schmidt coefficients λ_α and the orthonormal states \(\left|phi _L^alpha \right\rangle\). The latter does not contribute to observables on the right and so in principle, V_L can be parametrised by just D variational parameters. The precise numerical values must be determined by solving a quantum mechanical problem on the left of the system. Similarly, for observations made to the left of the cut, the effect of the right-hand side can be summarised by a unitary V_R.

This could lead to a truly random number generator making things much more secure.

Random numbers are crucial for computing, but our current algorithms aren’t truly random. Researchers at Brown University have now found a way to tap into the fluctuations of quasiparticles to generate millions of truly random numbers per second.

Random number generators are key parts of computer software, but technically they don’t quite live up to their name. Algorithms that generate these numbers are still deterministic, meaning that anyone with enough information about how it works could potentially find patterns and predict the numbers produced. These pseudo-random numbers suffice for low stakes uses like gaming, but for scientific simulations or cybersecurity, truly random numbers are important.

Continue reading “Quasiparticles used to generate millions of truly random numbers a second” »

Circa 2019

Light is the most energy-efficient way of moving information. Yet, light shows one big limitation: it is difficult to store. As a matter of fact, data centers rely primarily on magnetic hard drives. However, in these hard drives, information is transferred at an energy cost that is nowadays exploding. Researchers of the Institute of Photonic Integration of the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) have developed a ‘hybrid technology’ which shows the advantages of both light and magnetic hard drives.

Ultra-short (femtosecond) light pulses allows data to be directly written in a magnetic memory in a fast and highly energy-efficient way. Moreover, as soon as the information is written (and stored), it moves forward leaving space to empty memory domains to be filled in with new data. This research, published in Nature Communications, promises to revolutionize the process of data storage in future photonic integrated circuits.

Continue reading “Next generation photonic memory devices are ‘light-written,’ ultrafast and energy efficient” »

Circa 2015 This is basically amazing leading to speeds in a computer basically infinite.

Quantum gases of atoms and exciton-polaritons are nowadays a well established theoretical and experimental tool for fundamental studies of quantum many-body physics and suggest promising applications to quantum computing. Given their technological complexity, it is of paramount interest to devise other systems where such quantum many-body physics can be investigated at a lesser technological expense. Here we examine a relatively well-known system of laser light propagating through thermo-optical defocusing media: based on a hydrodynamical description of light as a quantum fluid of interacting photons, we investigate such systems as a valid, room temperature alternative to atomic or exciton-polariton condensates for studies of many-body physics.

Quantum computers are promising computing machines that perform computations leveraging the collective properties of quantum physics states. These computers could help to tackle many computational problems that are currently intractable with conventional computers.

Despite their promise, fabricating quantum computers on a large-scale is currently very challenging, as a full-scale quantum computer integrates millions of qubits. To ensure that they can be produced using industrial semiconductor manufacturing processes, quantum device engineers have been trying to create quantum computers based on silicon quantum dots.

Nonetheless, existing quantum computers have been primarily fabricated using electron-beam lithography and conventional lift-off processes. This greatly limits their production rates, as both these processes only yield a few properly functioning devices at a time.

Labeling data can be a chore. It’s the main source of sustenance for computer-vision models; without it, they’d have a lot of difficulty identifying objects, people, and other important image characteristics. Yet producing just an hour of tagged and labeled data can take a whopping 800 hours of human time. Our high-fidelity understanding of the world develops as machines can better perceive and interact with our surroundings. But they need more help.

Scientists from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), Microsoft, and Cornell University have attempted to solve this problem plaguing vision models by creating “STEGO,” an algorithm that can jointly discover and segment objects without any human labels at all, down to the pixel.

Continue reading “Scientists create algorithm to assign a label to every pixel in the world, without human supervision” »

Polaritons are quasiparticles that are formed when photons couple strongly with excitations of matter. These quasi-particles, which are half-light and half-matter, underpin the functioning of a wide range of emergent photonic quantum systems, including semiconductor-based nanophotonic devices and circuit quantum electrodynamic systems.

Researchers at Stony Brook University have recently introduced a novel polariton system in which the matter excitation is replaced by an atom in an optical lattice and the photon by an atomic matter wave. This system, introduced in a paper published in Nature Physics, results in matter-wave polaritons, and could open interesting possibilities for the study of polaritonic quantum matter.

“A few years ago, we became interested in the idea of using ultracold atoms to simulate the dynamical behavior of quantum emitters,” Dr. Dominik Schneble, head of the team of researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. “It turns out that it is possible to build an artificial atom that spontaneously emits matter waves, in much the same way as an atom spontaneously emits a photon (as described by the so-called Weisskopf-Wigner model).”

Thoughts, memories, sensations — why are we still in the dark about how they work?