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Apr 22, 2022

Experimental characterisation of nonlocal photon superfluids

Posted by in categories: computing, particle physics, quantum physics

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.

Apr 22, 2022

Fabricating qubits using advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum 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 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.

Apr 22, 2022

Scientists create algorithm to assign a label to every pixel in the world, without human supervision

Posted by in categories: information science, robotics/AI, transportation

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 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” »

Apr 22, 2022

Study introduces loss-free matter-wave polaritons in an optical lattice system

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

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 ,” 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).”

Apr 21, 2022

Why is the human brain so difficult to understand? We asked 4 neuroscientists

Posted by in category: neuroscience

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

Apr 21, 2022

This mass-produced solar car costs just $25,900

Posted by in category: transportation

The Aptera solar car is expected to hit roads in 2021, but even if it’s not the next big thing in transportation, its design elements could be.

Apr 21, 2022

The art of Aphantasia: How ‘mind blind’ artists create without being able to visualise

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, existential risks, neuroscience

Josh SeehermanI don’t think he’s wrong.

Walter Lynsdale” agreeing with a Twitter user who said the “Woke mind virus is the biggest threat to civilization,”

Continue reading “The art of Aphantasia: How ‘mind blind’ artists create without being able to visualise” »

Apr 21, 2022

Celebrating Hubble’s 32nd Birthday: A Magnificent View of an Unusual Collection of Five Galaxies

Posted by in categories: evolution, space

This menagerie includes three spiral-shaped galaxies, an elliptical galaxy, and a lenticular (lens-like) galaxy. Somehow, these different galaxies crossed paths in their evolution to create an exceptionally crowded and eclectic galaxy sampler.

Caught in a leisurely gravitational dance, the whole group is so crowded that it could fit within a region of space that is less than twice the diameter of our Milky Way.

Continue reading “Celebrating Hubble’s 32nd Birthday: A Magnificent View of an Unusual Collection of Five Galaxies” »

Apr 21, 2022

Bacteria living inside tumors help cancer spread through the blood

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Traditionally, research showed tumor tissue to be free of microbes. In recent years, however, technology has advanced, allowing scientists to detect tiny numbers of bacteria that have taken up residence inside tumor tissue. For example, Shang Cai and his team detected 135,000 microorganisms in a gram of mouse breast tumor tissue, almost ten times more than in healthy tissue. (By comparison, a gram of feces has roughly 300 billion microbes.) Furthermore, nearly all the bacteria were living inside the mouse cells.

The biological significance of the intratumor microbiota remains largely unknown. However, scientists have found that the gut microbiota contributes to tumor progression. Cai wanted to know if these tumor-infesting intracellular bacteria are also involved in cancer progression.

Apr 21, 2022

Report recommends future NASA missions

Posted by in categories: futurism, space

The latest Planetary Science Decadal Survey has been published. The future mission recommendations include a Uranus orbiter in the mid-2040s (the first visit to the planet since 1986) and the Enceladus Orbilander (landing in the early 2050s).