Lifeboat Foundation

Novel materials could revolutionize computer technology. Research conducted by scientists at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI using the Swiss Light Source SLS has reached an important milestone along this path.

Microchips are made from silicon and work on the physical principle of a semiconductor. Nothing has changed here since the first transistor was invented in 1947 in the Bell Labs in America. Ever since, researchers have repeatedly foretold the end of the silicon era—but have always been wrong.

Silicon technology is very much alive, and continues to develop at a rapid pace. The IT giant IBM has just announced the first microprocessor whose transistor structures only measure two nanometers, equivalent to 20 adjacent atoms. So what’s next? Even tinier structures? Presumably so—for this decade, at least.

With the reveal of its 433 qubit quantum computer, IBM takes a large step forward in the race towards next-generation processing.

In initial tests, a simplified version of a popular superconducting qubit achieves high computation accuracies, making it attractive for future quantum computers.

Combustion engines, propellers, and hydraulic pumps are examples of fluidic devices—instruments that utilize fluids to perform certain functions, such as generating power or transporting water.

Because fluidic devices are so complex, they are typically developed by experienced engineers who manually design, prototype, and test each apparatus through an iterative process that is expensive, time-consuming, and labor-intensive. But with a new system, users only need to specify the locations and speeds at which fluid enters and exits the device. The computational pipeline then automatically generates an optimal design that achieves those objectives.

The system could make it faster and cheaper to design fluidic devices for all sorts of applications, such as microfluidic labs-on-a-chip that can diagnose disease from a few drops of blood or artificial hearts that could save the lives of transplant patients.

Until now, it was thought they came from massive star collapses.

Astrophysicists around the world may be shocked to learn that long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) do not solely come from the collapse of massive stars. A new study by astrophysicists at Northwestern University upends the long-standing belief, uncovering new evidence that at least some long GRBs can result from neutron star mergers, which were previously believed to produce only short GRBs, the university’s publication reported.

It all began in December 2021 when the team detected a 50-second-long GRB (any GRB longer than 2 seconds is considered ‘long’).

Continue reading “New information about long gamma-rays shatters astrophysicists’ theory” »

Google today announced two new performance settings in its Chrome browser: Memory Saver and Energy Saver.

Modern browsers eat up a lot of memory and while that’s not a problem if you have 32GB of RAM, Chrome using multiple gigabytes of your memory can quickly slow your machine down if you’re on a machine with lower specs. The Memory Saver mode promises to reduce Chrome’s memory usage by up to 30% by putting inactive tabs to sleep. The tabs will simply reload when you need them again. The Energy Saver mode, meanwhile, limits background activity and visual effects for sites with animations and videos when your laptop’s battery level drops below 20%.

The experiment could help to form a unified theory of quantum gravity.

Scientists have, for the first time ever, made light appear to move simultaneously forward and backward in time. The new method, achieved by an international group of scientists, could help create novel quantum computing techniques and give scientists a better understanding of quantum gravity, a report from LiveScience.

It was achieved thanks to a combination of two principles that form a part of the bizarre world of quantum mechanics.

Continue reading “In a world first, physicists move light back and forth in time simultaneously” »

This research could potentially lead to a better understanding of the galaxy and its many mysteries.

It’s a cosmic riddle: How can galaxies remain together when all the matter we observe isn’t enough to keep them intact? Scientists believe an invisible force must beat play, something so mysterious they named it “dark matter” because of its lack of visibility.

This mysterious presence accounts for nearly three times more than what we can observe — a startling 27% of all existence! The mysterious dark matter is a profound mystery to scientists, its existence making up nearly one-third of the universe’s energy and mass yet remaining elusive due to its ability to avoid detection.

Continue reading “Researchers plan to use quantum computers in search for dark matter” »

Neural Computing Interfaces will revolutionize the world. From aiding motor function recovery, to augmenting and transforming the future human users. In this video, we take a look at what good can come from this technology but also what dark horrors await this future.