Tag: science

Pyramid Power: Technology Resembling World’s Most Famous Ancient Structure Leads to Game Changer in Optical Communication

A potentially revolutionary new technology that could greatly advance optical communications, surveillance, and photonic device isolation has something in common with the most captivating construction design of the ancient world: the pyramid.

Researchers at UCLA have produced a revolutionary new design for diffractive deep neural networks, or D2NNs, that they say significantly enhances unidirectional image magnification and demagnification. Dubbed Pyramid D2NNs, the new design architecture lives up to its name by introducing a pyramid-structured network that offers high-fidelity image formation while reducing refractive features, all by aligning its layers in the same direction of image magnification and demagnification.

What Are Diffractive Deep Neural Networks?

D2NNs are constructed from individual transmissive layers that are optimized through deep learning, allowing them to perform computation almost entirely through the use of optics.

In their recent research, the UCLA team, led by Professor Aydogan Ozcan, worked with a pyramid-shaped diffractive optical network, a design that allowed the team to achieve unidirectional imaging with fewer diffractive degrees of freedom.

The result is a design that helps to ensure high-fidelity image formation, but only in one direction. By contrast, significant image inhibition occurs in the opposite direction, conditions that are key for use with applications where imaging in one direction (i.e., unidirectional imaging) is required. Such fields include defense and security technologies, telecommunications applications, and systems used for privacy protection.

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US, UK accelerate quantum computing programs after China breakthrough

Scientists and lawmakers in the United States, United Kingdom and European Union are ramping up efforts to advance quantum computing in the West after scientists in China observed what appears to be the world’s first room-temperature time crystals.

A team of physicists hailing primarily from Tsinghua University in China, with contributions from scientists in Denmark and Austria, published peer-reviewed research on July 2 detailing the creation and observation of room-temperature time crystals.

In the month since the paper was published, quantum research labs in the West have announced numerous initiatives to extend existing efforts in the field of quantum computing and to create new research partnerships.

Room-temperature time crystals

Time crystals are a unique state of matter originally proposed by physicist Frank Wilczek in 2012. They work similarly to other crystals, such as snowflakes or diamonds, which are created when specific molecules form lattice-like bonds that repeat through space.

In time crystals, however, the molecules bond in time. Instead of locking into a crystalline structure that repeats, a time crystal’s molecules flicker back and forth between different configurations like a GIF on a loop. 

Back in 2021, an international team of scientists working with Google’s quantum computing lab simulated time crystals using a quantum computer. This breakthrough demonstrated the potential for quantum computers to explore exotic states of matter and set the stage for the convergence of quantum tech and time crystals.

Now, in July 2024, the Tsinghua team appears to have created time crystals at room temperature. This, theoretically, allows time crystal technology to be employed in non-laboratory equipment and could serve as a massive accelerator for the development of useful quantum computers.

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Former NASA Scientist Doing Experiment to Prove We Live in a Simulation

Could we be trapped inside a simulated reality, rather than the physical universe we usually assume?

It’s a tantalizing theory, long theorized by philosophers and popularized by the 1999 blockbuster “The Matrix.” What if there was a way to find out once and for all if we’re living inside a computer?

A former NASA physicist named Thomas Campbell has taken it upon himself to do just that. He devised several experiments, as detailed in a 2017 paper published in the journal The International Journal of Quantum Foundations, designed to detect if something is rendering the world around us like a video game.

Now, scientists at the California State Polytechnic University (CalPoly) have gotten started on the first experiment, putting Campbell’s far-fetched hypothesis to the test.

And Campbell has set up an entire non-profit called Center for the Unification of Science and Consciousness (CUSAC) to fund these endeavors. The experiments are “expected to provide strong scientific evidence that we live in a computer-simulated virtual reality,” according to a press release by the group.

Needless to say, it’s an eyebrow-raising project. As always, extraordinary claims will require extraordinary evidence — but regardless, it’s a fun idea.

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Lesser-Known Cannabis Component CBG Linked To Improved Memory And Reduced Anxiety, First-Ever Human Trial Finds

A lesser-known cannabinoid known as CBG has surprised scientists after a first-ever human clinical trial found that it appears to improve memory, while also “significantly” reducing anxiety and stress.

The non-intoxicating cannabinoid might not be as well-known as THC and CBD, for example, but as it’s grown in popularity, researchers at Washington State University (WSU) and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) set out to investigate its therapeutic potential amid anecdotal, survey-based reports about its therapeutic potential.

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports this month, found that cannabigerol, or CBG, caused a “significant overall reductions in anxiety as well as reductions in stress” among study participants compared to the placebo. “CBG also enhanced verbal memory relative to placebo,” with “no evidence of subjective drug effects or impairment.”

That finding about CBG’s effects on memory took the research team by surprise. Lead author and WSU associate professor of psychology Carrie Cuttler said in a press release that they “triple-checked to ensure accuracy, and the enhancement was statistically significant.”

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Complex Life on Earth May Be 1.5 Billion Years Older Than We Thought

There’s still some scientific debate over when exactly complex life forms appeared on Earth, and the latest research suggests previous estimates need to be revised – by about 1.5 billion years, in fact.

That’s based on a new analysis of marine sedimentary rocks in the Franceville Basin off the west coast of Africa that were deposited some 2.1 billion years ago.

The general consensus is that animals first showed up around 635 million years ago. Now, an international team of researchers has discovered that the rock samples indicate increased phosphorus and oxygen in the seawater, which has previously been linked to accelerations in evolution.

“We already know that increases in marine phosphorus and seawater oxygen concentrations are linked to an episode of biological evolution around 635 million years ago,” says Earth scientist Ernest Chi Fru from Cardiff University in the UK.

“Our study adds another, much earlier episode into the record, 2.1 billion years ago.”

An unusually substantial number of fossils large enough to be seen without a microscope have been discovered in the Franceville Basin, and it’s not clear what we’re to make of them. Earlier studies have also suggested these macrofossils point to the first complex life on the planet.

Here, the researchers link the nutrient enrichment of the water to the collision of two ancient continents, which then created a shallow inland sea and the conditions for cyanobacterial photosynthesis, a chemical process that would’ve led to an underwater environment more conducive to biological complexity.

This would have created a natural laboratory for organism diversity and evolutionary leaps in size and structure, the researchers contend. However, because the body of water was isolated, these more sophisticated forms of life wouldn’t have spread elsewhere or survived to the next jump forward.

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Life on Venus? New Discovery Deepens Controversy Over Possible Signs of Life in Planet’s Atmosphere

Recent observations of Venus have yielded new evidence of a compound in its atmosphere that could indicate the presence of life, according to findings that potentially lend weight to controversial past discoveries.

Phosphine, a toxic gas that astrobiologists have proposed could be associated with the presence of life on rocky planets, was initially detected in Venus’s atmosphere in a surprise discovery four years ago. Now, new observations potentially strengthen those past findings, hinting at the presence of biosignatures that, if confirmed, could mean life forms are able to thrive in the planet’s harsh environment.

A Controversial Discovery on Venus

The initial detection of phosphine in Venus’s oxidized atmosphere was reported in September 2020, when a team of scientists led by Jane Greaves of Cardiff University said they had found evidence of the toxic molecule. The discovery initially led to debate over the possibility that life could exist on Venus, since phosphine is normally associated with organisms that thrive in low-oxygen environments.

The team’s announcement received considerable media attention, and also led to controversy that culminated in rebukes from some in the scientific community. Arguably, the sharpest criticism was leveled by the organizing committee of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Commission F3 on Astrobiology, who even questioned the ethics of Greaves and her team over the manner in which the discovery was revealed.

“It is an ethical duty for any scientist to communicate with the media and the public with great scientific rigour and to be careful not to overstate any interpretation which will be irretrievably picked up by the press,” the commission wrote in an official statement released at the time.

The commission added it “would like to remind the relevant researchers that we need to understand how the press and the media behave before communicating with them.”

Initial follow-up attempts to detect the compound again were unsuccessful. However, last year, Greaves and her team succeeded in detecting phosphine in deeper portions of the planet’s atmosphere during observations made with the James Clark Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) at Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii. Additional detections with NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) also suggested the presence of phosphine, which may originate either within or from below the clouds on Venus.

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Chimpanzees Are Capable of Speech, According to New Analysis of Decades-Old Footage

In 1962, many American moviegoers were treated to an unusual display during screenings of the popular Universal Newsreels that aired before feature presentations. That year, a segment entitled “Now Hear This! Italians Unveil Talking Chimp” was shown, introducing audiences to Renata, a chimpanzee who had reportedly been trained to say “mama” by her handler.

“As explained by her foster mother, this is one of the most extraordinary chimps in the world,” announcer Ed Herlihy’s famous voice could be heard saying in the decades-old footage. “You don’t have to know Italian to understand Renata’s accent when she gets her cue.”

Then, as Renata’s handler taps her on the chin, the chimpanzee is shown saying the word “mama” several times.

The footage, likely viewed as little more than a novelty at the time, represented something potentially extraordinary: evidence of a non-human primate displaying the ability to speak, albeit crudely. Despite Renata’s unique talent, the footage was largely forgotten, and prevailing wisdom continued to insist that humans were the only primates with the required neural circuitry capable of speech.

However, Renata was not the only known example of a chimpanzee who displayed a limited ability to learn and speak human words. Decades later, in a video uploaded to YouTube on August 17, 2007, a chimpanzee named Johnny was also shown saying “mama,” seemingly in response to requests from his owner, after which he was awarded a treat.

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Misrepresentation of Critical Satellite Data by IPCC

The 6th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR6) concluded “It is very likely that well-mixed GHGs [greenhouse gases] were the main driver of tropospheric warming since 1979” (IPCC, 2021; p.5). This statement implies that all known climate forcings have properly been evaluated using the available data, and GHGs have been found to exert a disproportionally large radiative effect on the Global Surface Air Temperature (GSAT) over the past 45 years. However, a close examination of Chapter 7 of the Working Group I (WG1) Contribution to the IPCC AR6 (Forster et al. 2021), which discusses the Earth’s energy budget, climate feedbacks and climate sensitivity, reveals that the observed decrease of Earth’s albedo and the corresponding increase of absorbed shortwave radiation by the Planet for the past 20 years have not been taken into account as contributors to the recent warming. Section 7.2.2 of Chapter 7 entitled “Changes in Earth’s Energy Budget” acknowledges that there have been multidecadal periods of significant decreasing and increasing trends in surface solar radiation (SSR) called “global dimming” (i.e. from 1950s to 1980s) and “global brightening” (after 1980s), respectively. The report states: “There is high confidence that these [SSR] trends are widespread, and not localized phenomena or measurement artefacts.” Indeed, the existence of such dimming and brightening multidecadal periods has been acknowledged by science for more than 10 years (Stanhill et al. 2014; Yuan et al. 2021), but the IPCC AR6 provides no global estimate of the observed positive trend in SSR since 1980s and its impact on GSAT. Instead, the Report simply states “The origin of these trends is not fully understood”.

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Hunt for Element 120 Underway as Team Confirms First Creation of Element 116 Using Titanium Beam

In a physics first, scientists at Berkeley Lab have succeeded at creating element 116 using a titanium beam, a development that could set the pace for the creation of heavier elements, including the long-theorized element 120.

The achievement brings scientists closer than ever to creating the heaviest atom ever created by physicists, believed to represent an “island of stability” amid superheavy elements.

With the discovery of 16 of the 118 elements currently known already under its belt, Berkeley Lab’s breakthrough marks a significant step toward bringing such hypothetical elements into existence.

The Hunt for Element 120

Formally known as unbinilium or Ubn, its temporary systematic IUPAC name and symbol, the theorized element 120 (also known by the nickname eka-radium), if officially discovered, would claim its place on the 8th row of the periodic table. For now, the theorized superheavy element is believed to represent an alkaline earth metal or s-block element.

Superheavy elements generally have short lifespans since they have large and very unstable nuclei capable of ripping themselves apart within just seconds of their creation. The instability arises from their size, which results in protons with positive charges within the nuclei repelling each other.

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Energy Scientists Invent Device That Draws Electricity Out of Thin Air

A team of scientists from the University of Singapore has announced the creation of a prototype energy-harvesting device that draws usable electricity seemingly out of thin air.

Designed to leverage nanoscale spin rectifier technology to capture what the device’s inventors term “waste RF” signals that exist in the air due to Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 5G, and traditional radio signals, the novel energy harvesting system can convert those signals into enough usable direct current (DC) electrical energy.

Similar RF energy harvesting technologies have been developed in recent years, including one invented by researchers from the University of South Florida. However, the team behind this latest iteration says their device is able to capture energy from weaker overall signals (typically less than -20 dBm) than even the most sensitive RF energy harvesting technology.

“Harvesting ambient RF electromagnetic signals is crucial for advancing energy-efficient electronic devices and sensors,” explained project leader Professor Yang Hyunsoo from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the NUS College of Design and Engineering. “However, existing Energy Harvesting Modules face challenges operating at low ambient power due to limitations in existing rectifier technology.”

To overcome the limitations of similar devices, including the inefficiencies of converting such weak signals into useful electricity, the team developed their own ultra-compact, nanoscale spin rectifier technology to capture and convert the waste RF. Unlike previous attempts, this minuscule rectifier showed impressive results at converting RF signals below -20 dBm.

According to Professor Yang, his team’s efforts to improve energy harvesting at these low levels were drastically different from previous efforts. That’s mainly because of the implementation of nanoscale spin rectifiers.

“Recent efforts focused only on improving antenna efficiency and impedance-matching networks at the expense of bigger on-chip footprints,” the professor explained. “Nanoscale spin-rectifiers, on the other hand, offer a compact technology for sensitive and efficient RF-to-DC conversion.”

After trying several configurations designed to convert energy from different low yet usable EM wavelengths, the team settled on something that operated at a level of efficiency previously unseen. This result, the team explains, was due to their approach as much as the technology itself. The result was a device that successfully captured low levels of RF and converted them to enough electricity to power an electrical sensor and an LED.

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