Toggle light / dark theme

Scientists manipulate quantum fluids of light, bringing us closer to next-generation unconventional computing

In a quantum leap toward the future of unconventional computing technologies, a team of physicists made an advancement in spatial manipulation and energy control of room-temperature quantum fluids of light, aka polariton condensates, marking a pivotal milestone for the development of high-speed, all-optical polariton logic devices that have long held the key to next-generation unconventional computing, according to a recently published paper in Physical Review Letters.

Polaritons, hybrid particles formed by the coupling of light and matter, are usually described as a quantum fluid of light that one can control through its matter component. Now, researchers have taken a monumental step forward by introducing a novel approach for active spatial control of liquid light condensates at room temperature.

What sets this development apart is the ability to manipulate polariton condensates without relying on the commonly utilized excitation profiles of polaritons. The scientists accomplished this feat by introducing an additional layer of copolymer within the cavity—a weakly coupled layer that remains nonresonant to the cavity mode. This seemingly simple yet incredibly ingenious move has opened the door to a wealth of possibilities.

Massive anomaly within Earth’s mantle may be remnant of collision that formed moon

An interdisciplinary international research team has recently discovered that a massive anomaly deep within the Earth’s interior may be a remnant of the collision about 4.5 billion years ago that formed the moon.

This research offers important new insights not only into Earth’s internal structure but also its long-term evolution and the formation of the inner solar system.

The study, which relied on computational fluid dynamics methods pioneered by Prof. Deng Hongping of the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was published as a featured cover in Nature on Nov. 2.

Brain implant lets man with locked-in syndrome share thoughts

“To our knowledge, ours is the first study to achieve communication by someone who has no remaining voluntary movement.” — Jonas Zimmermann, a Wyss Center neuroscientist. Watch it here: https://www.freethink.com/health/locked-in-syndrome Freethink.


A man with total locked-in syndrome has used a brain-computer interface to spell out sentences with his mind.

Atlassian Customers Should Patch Latest Critical Vuln Immediately

Atlassian has discovered yet another critical vulnerability in its Confluence Data Center and Server collaboration and project management platform, and it’s urging customers to patch the problem immediately. The latest advisory by Atlassian describes CVE-2023–22518 as an improper authorization vulnerability that affects all versions of the on-premises versions of Confluence.

It is the second critical vulnerability reported by Atlassian in a month, tied to its widely used Confluence Data Center and Server platform and among numerous security issues from the company during the past year. The previous bulletin (CVE-2023–22515) revealed a vulnerability that could allow an attacker to create unauthorized Confluence administrator accounts, thereby gaining access to instances. That vulnerability had a severity level of 10 and was discovered initially by some customers who reported they may have been breached by it.

To date, Atlassian is not aware of any active exploits of the newest vulnerability, which has a severity level of 9.1., though the company issued a statement encouraging customers to apply the patch. “We have discovered that Confluence Data Center and Server customers are vulnerable to significant data loss if exploited by an unauthenticated attacker,” Atlassian CISO Bala Sathiamurthy warned in a statement. “Customers must take immediate action to protect their instances.”

The Largest-Ever Simulation of The Universe Could Finally Reveal How We Got Here

How did we get here? Not just we humans, scrabbling about on a pale blue dot, hurtling around a star, hurtling around a supermassive black hole, hurtling through the local cluster. But how did the dot get here, and the star, and the black hole, and the cluster?

How did the incomprehensibly immense everything of it all get to where it is now, from an unimaginable nothing, billions of years ago?

That’s it, really, the question of questions. And, with the largest project of its kind to date, astronomers are attempting to find answers – by conducting computer simulations of the entire Universe.

US startup beats IBM to reach 1,000 qubit milestone

IBM’s announcement of a 1,000+ qubit computer is expected in the next few weeks but the startup might be a few leaps ahead.

Boulder, Colorado-based Atom Computing has beaten tech giant IBM in developing a quantum computer with more than 1,000 qubits. This next-generation quantum computing platform will be available for interested users next year, a company press release said.

Developments in quantum computing have become a race of sorts as businesses from different parts of the world are looking to take the lead in this next frontier of technology. Giants such as Microsoft, Google, and IBM have been working on developing their versions of the complex computer in a domain that is equally accessible to startups.

How nanobots and nanomedicine will improve our health

Nanotechnology sounds like a futuristic development, but we already have it in the form of CPU manufacturing. More advanced nanotech could be used to create independent mobile entities like nanobots. One of the main challenges is selecting the right chemicals, elements, and structures that actually perform a desired task. Currently, we create more chemically oriented than computationally oriented nanobots, but we still have to deal with the quantum effects at tiny scale.

One of the most important applications of nanotechnology is to create nanomedicine, where the technology interacts with biology to help resolve problems. Of course, the nanobots have to be compatible with the body (e.g. no poisonous elements if they were broken down, etc).

We dive into an interesting study on creating nanobarrels to deliver a particular payload within the bloodstream (currently in animals, but eventually in humans). This study is able to deliver RNA to cancer cells that shuts them down, without affecting the rest of the body. This type of application is why the market for nanotechnology keeps growing and will have a substantial impact on medicine in the future.

#nanotech #nanobots #medicine.

DNA origami nanobots – The University of Sydney Nano Institute.
https://www.sydney.edu.au/nano/our-research/research-program…obots.html.

ASU scientists have successfully programmed nanorobots to shrink tumors by cutting off their blood supply.

First-ever wireless device developed to make magnetism appear in non-magnetic materials

Researchers at the UAB and ICMAB have succeeded in bringing wireless technology to the fundamental level of magnetic devices. The emergence and control of magnetic properties in cobalt nitride layers (initially non-magnetic) by voltage, without connecting the sample to electrical wiring, represents a paradigm shift that can facilitate the creation of magnetic nanorobots for biomedicine and computing systems where basic information management processes do not require wiring.

The study was recently published in the latest issue of Nature Communications.

Electronic devices rely on manipulating the electrical and magnetic properties of components, whether for computing or storing information, among other processes. Controlling magnetism using voltage instead of has become a very important control method to improve in many devices, since currents heat up circuits. In recent years, much research has been carried out to implement protocols for applying voltages to carry out this control, but always through directly on the materials.

1,000+ Qubit Quantum Computer Announced

California-based startup Atom Computing has announced a 1,225-qubit quantum computer, the first to break the 1,000+ barrier, which it plans to release in 2024.

Quantum bits, or qubits, are the basic units of information in quantum computing – equivalent to bits in classical computing. Unlike bits, however, qubits can exist in multiple states simultaneously, allowing them to perform calculations that would take millions of years for an ordinary computer.

Breaking the Quantum Limit: From Einstein-Bohr Debates to Achieving “Unattainable” Efficiency

Researchers at the University of Stuttgart have demonstrated that a key ingredient for many quantum computation and communication schemes can be performed with an efficiency that exceeds the commonly assumed upper theoretical limit — thereby opening up new perspectives for a wide range of photonic quantum technologies.

Quantum science not only has revolutionized our understanding of nature, but is also inspiring groundbreaking new computing, communication, and sensor devices. Exploiting quantum effects in such ‘quantum technologies’ typically requires a combination of deep insight into the underlying quantum-physical principles, systematic methodological advances, and clever engineering. And it is precisely this combination that researchers in the group of Prof. Stefanie Barz at the University of Stuttgart and the Center for Integrated Quantum Science and Technology (IQST) have delivered in recent study, in which they have improved the efficiency of an essential building block of many quantum devices beyond a seemingly inherent limit.

Historical foundations: from philosophy to technology.