Impact Lab – Page 302 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

NASA

NASA is using AI to optimize new Hypersonic Engine

April 26, 2022

Researchers from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have developed a novel hypersonic computational fluid dynamics code dubbed VULCAN-CFD and are using AI to optimize the tech.

The highly capable model named after the Roman god of fire can accurately simulate the behavior of combustion in turbulent airflows in engines operating at subsonic, supersonic, and hypersonic speeds.

A hypersonic missile travels at Mach 5 or higher, which is five times faster than the speed of sound (3836 mph), or about 1 mile per second. Such missiles are extremely destructive in nature as most of the currently available air defense systems, and anti-ballistic systems can not bring them down.

The major challenge that researchers face while developing hypersonic missiles is to make them travel at hypersonic speed without compromising the missile’s maneuvering capabilities. Developers need to analyze the air flows around the aircraft or weapon and its behavior as it passes through the engines and reacts with fuel, which is quite a tedious task. That is where NASA’s new tool comes into play.

Bitcoin

FIVE REASONS BITCOIN WILL REPLACE CREDIT CARDS

April 25, 2022

Using a credit card to pay for purchases has negative implications for businesses and consumers. Bitcoin provides a better, alternative payment method.

By EMMANUEL AWOSIKA

Contrary to some predictions, Bitcoin is quickly becoming an accepted means of conducting transactions. Major companies like online retailer Overstock.com and mobile provider AT&T already allow customers to pay in bitcoin. And the list of businesses accepting bitcoin keeps growing every day.

On a basic level, this trend proves that bitcoin isn’t a useless virtual currency as critics love to claim, but it also represents something more fundamental: Bitcoin’s potential to replace legacy payment processing systems like Visa and MasterCard.

Perhaps this may sound far-fetched, but there are plenty of advantages that Bitcoin offers both consumers and merchants. And if you know anything about the creative destruction inherent in capitalist societies, Bitcoin replacing credit cards is only a matter of time.

Let’s look at the anatomy of credit cards and Bitcoin payments before highlighting the differences between both of them.

Medical Breakthrough

This robot could help surgeons treat stroke remotely

April 25, 2022

By Jennifer Chu.

MIT engineers have developed a telerobotic system to help surgeons quickly and remotely treat patients experiencing a stroke or aneurysm.

With a modified joystick, surgeons in one hospital may control a robotic arm at another location to safely operate on a patient during a critical window of time that could save the patient’s life and preserve their brain function.

The robotic system, whose movement is controlled through magnets, is designed to remotely assist in endovascular intervention — a procedure performed in emergency situations to treat strokes caused by a blood clot.

Such interventions normally require a surgeon to manually guide a thin wire to the clot, where it can physically clear the blockage or deliver drugs to break it up.

One limitation of such procedures is accessibility: Neurovascular surgeons are often based at major medical institutions that are difficult to reach for patients in remote areas, particularly during the “golden hour” — the critical period after a stroke’s onset, during which treatment should be administered to minimize any damage to the brain.

AI, Science & Technology News

AI Speeds Precision Medicine for Parkinson’s Disease

April 25, 2022

Robotics combined with AI machine learning spots Parkinson’s disease signatures.

By Vanessa Lancaster

KEY POINTS

Over 10 million people worldwide live with Parkinson’s disease, including nearly a million Americans.
A new study uses AI deep learning that finds cellular disease signatures to help accelerate the discovery of novel therapeutics for Parkinson’s.
This unique AI deep learning platform solution is not limited to Parkinson’s disease. It can be repurposed for other disease signatures.

Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and robotics are accelerating precision medicine for neurodegenerative diseases and brain disorders.

A new study published in Nature Communications reveals a high-throughput screening platform using AI deep learning that finds cellular disease signatures to help accelerate the discovery of novel therapeutics for Parkinson’s disease (PD).

AI

AI THAT BUILDS AI: SELF-CREATION TECHNOLOGY IS TAKING A NEW SHAPE

April 24, 2022

Deep neural networks, a type of Artificial Intelligence began outperforming standard algorithms 10 years ago.

by Madhurjya Chowdhury

The majority of artificial intelligence (AI) is a game of numbers. Deep neural networks, a type of AI that learns to recognize patterns in data, began outperforming standard algorithms 10 years ago because we ultimately had enough data and processing capabilities to fully utilize them.

Today’s neural nets are even more data and power-hungry. Training them necessitates fine-tuning the values of millions, if not billions, of parameters that define these networks and represent the strength of interconnections between artificial neurons. The goal is to obtain near-ideal settings for them, a process called optimization, but teaching the networks to get there is difficult.

AI

Researchers develop new AI form that can adapt to perform tasks in changeable environments

April 24, 2022

Robot Tiego is ready to stack cubes.

by Sandra Tavakoli and Karin Wik, Chalmers University of Technology

Can robots adapt their own working methods to solve complex tasks? Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have developed a new form of AI, which, by observing human behavior, can adapt to perform its tasks in a changeable environment. The hope is that robots that can be flexible in this way will be able to work alongside humans to a much greater degree.

“Robots that work in human environments need to be adaptable to the fact that humans are unique, and that we might all solve the same task in a different way. An important area in robot development, therefore, is to teach robots how to work alongside humans in dynamic environments,” says Maximilian Diehl, Doctoral Student at the Department of Electrical Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology and main researcher behind the project.

drones

Spain hosts mass drone flight tests to prepare for a future where unmanned aircraft rule the skies

April 24, 2022

Image shows drones at sunset. Researchers in Spain have conducted a mass drone flight test to trial a new traffic management system for UAVs

By Aisling Ní Chúláin

Some bad news is in store for those irritated by the unmistakable buzzing of electric drones: they’re not going away anytime soon. In fact, they are set to become only more ubiquitous.

If estimates from SESAR – a European partnership tasked with overhauling European airspace and air traffic management – are to be believed, by 2050 there could be close to 7.5 million personal and commercial drones zipping through European skies.

To prepare for this new reality, researchers in Spain are testing out a new system that will, hopefully, keep these drones from crashing into each other.

Cancer

CAR T Cells “Loaded” with Oncolytic Viruses Boost Attack on Solid Tumors

April 24, 2022

A new cancer immunotherapy approach devised by Mayo Clinic researchers combines chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy with a cancer-killing virus. In animal models, the dual therapy, in the form of a virus-loaded CAR T cell, has been shown to target and treat solid cancer tumors more effectively than either the CAR T-cell therapy or the virus alone, or indeed, the CAR T-cell therapy and the virus administered sequentially.

Details about the new approach appeared in Science Translational Medicine, in an article titled, “Oncolytic virus–mediated expansion of dual-specific CAR T cells improves efficacy against solid tumors in mice.” The article indicates that virus-loaded CAR T cells can transfer and release an oncolytic virus in the vicinity of tumor cells, and that tumor cells subsequently become infected, suffer viral replication, and burst open. This sequence of events leads to a potent immune response.

“We show in an immunocompetent mouse model that coadministration of an oncolytic virus (OV) with CAR T cells expands dual-specific (DS) CAR T cells through presentation of viral antigens through their T-cell receptor (TCR),” the article’s authors wrote. “[This approach confers] a potent proliferative advantage, distinct memory phenotypes, and superior efficacy compared to virus alone or to CAR T cells without OV-mediated TCR stimulation.”

quantum computing

Photonic quantum computer made in Germany

April 24, 2022

Everyone is talking about quantum computers. With the help of high interconnection of as many qubits as possible, huge amounts of data are to be processed more easily, quickly and securely in the future.

By Kiera Sowery

In the PhoQuant project, a consortium led by the quantum startup Q.ANT is researching photonic quantum computer chips – made in Germany – which can also be operated at room temperature. One of the 14 consortium partners is the Dresden-based Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS.

In the project “PhoQuant” many years of experience in cutting-edge research and business come together to bring quantum technology to industry. Many quantum computers still operate at extremely low temperatures close to absolute zero (- 273.15 °C). Cooling requirements are correspondingly high, and direct on-chip coupling with classical computer architectures is not possible. In order to ensure a symbiosis of quantum computer chips and conventional mainframe computers, the new photonic chip process is being applied in the “PhoQuant” research project.

NASA

NASA Tests Spacesuits With New Cooling System To Save Astronauts From Moon Temperatures

April 24, 2022

According to NASA, the spacesuit technologies are being tested for the upcoming Artemis missions on the Moon, which are set to take place in 2025.

By Bhavya Sukheja

NASA tests spacesuits for upcoming Artemis missions on the Moon.

The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has recently revealed that it is developing spacesuit technologies for future astronauts on the Moon. In a new YouTube video, the US space agency informed that astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) are testing the new spacesuits with built-in water cooling systems in order to stay safe from Sun’s unfiltered rays. NASA has outlined its upcoming technologies in the clip titled “Keeping Cool in Space”.

“As NASA embraces commercial partnerships to optimize spacesuit technology as part of the Artemis program, the Spacesuit Evaporation Rejection Flight Experiment (SERFE) payload continues to be tested onboard the International Space Station,” NASA wrote in the caption of the clip.

quantum computing

Bank of Canada Using Quantum Computing to Simulate Crypto Adoption Scenarios

April 22, 2022

The researchers’ model can complete in half an hour what would take a regular PC longer than a human lifetime.

By Stacy Elliott

The Bank of Canada has become the first G7 country to turn to quantum computing to simulate scenarios where cryptocurrency and fiat currency can coexist.

This week, Multiverse Computing, the startup leading Canada’s research, hit a milestone: Its model can evaluate more than 1 octillion possible scenarios in 30 minutes. An octillion is a 10 followed by 30 zeros.

That means Multiverse Computing has completed its proof-of-concept, which combines blockchain data from stablecoin Tether (USDT), whose tokens are pegged to the U.S. dollar, and public data from up to 10 major financial institutions. It also consulted with experts from two major Canadian banks to come up with realistic parameters.

Multiverse Computing chose Tether for its model because the stablecoin, founded in 2014, had endured a variety of market scenarios in its eight years worth of blockchain data.

Most scenarios in the model showed that non-financial institution adoption of the cryptocurrency would be slow, since there was some upfront knowledge and cost associated with converting fiat to a digital asset. It was also able to simulate how banks might respond by reducing wire transfer fees to compete with the very low cost of crypto transactions.

drones

A new and outlandish delivery drone concept can carry 100 pounds up to 80 miles

April 22, 2022

It uses a cargo pod as an airfoil.

By Chris Young

The CCY-01Cyclotech

Is that a UFO?

Austria-based vertical propulsion company Cyclotech partnered with Japanese delivery firm Yamato to develop a concept for an unusual delivery drone using Cyclotech’s thrust vectoring propulsion system.

The concept aircraft, called CCY-01, flies using six of Cyclotech’s unique CycloRotors and the company says it will be capable of precision landing in confined space at the same time as handling challenging wind conditions.

Cyclotech’s cylindrical rotors spin around at high speeds while several blades alter their angle to direct thrust. The company has performed its first free flight test using its system, which allows aircraft to rapidly redirect thrust. During that flight test, it used four Cyclorotors arranged in a manner that made its aircraft look almost like a flying car with wheels instead of a traditional drone.