Impact Lab – Page 305 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

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.

Robots

Your Next Surgeon Could Be a Slime Robot

April 22, 2022

Like an octopus, it wraps around objects. It can also swallow things inside your stomach and even “self heal.” This ooze could be the future of surgery.

By Claire Reilly

When you think of robotic surgery, you might think of remotely controlled robotic arms whirring over a patient, or tiny endoscopic cameras that help surgeons navigate with precise instruments.

You probably don’t think of a magnetically controlled slime robot slithering through your gastrointestinal tract and swallowing objects, like some kind of sci-fi ooze.

But that’s the exact idea behind the Reconfigurable Magnetic Slime Robot — a stretchy, sluglike robot that can squeeze through tight spaces, wrap around objects and even “self heal” after it’s been cut in two.

Energy

A new heat engine with no moving parts is as efficient as a steam turbine

April 21, 2022

A thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cell (size 1 cm x 1 cm) mounted on a heat sink designed to measure the TPV cell efficiency. To measure the efficiency, the cell is exposed to an emitter and simultaneous measurements of electric power and heat flow through the device are taken.

by Jennifer Chu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Engineers at MIT and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have designed a heat engine with no moving parts. Their new demonstrations show that it converts heat to electricity with over 40 percent efficiency—a performance better than that of traditional steam turbines.

The heat engine is a thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cell, similar to a solar panel’s photovoltaic cells, that passively captures high-energy photons from a white-hot heat source and converts them into electricity. The team’s design can generate electricity from a heat source of between 1,900 to 2,400 degrees Celsius, or up to about 4,300 degrees Fahrenheit.

The researchers plan to incorporate the TPV cell into a grid-scale thermal battery. The system would absorb excess energy from renewable sources such as the sun and store that energy in heavily insulated banks of hot graphite. When the energy is needed, such as on overcast days, TPV cells would convert the heat into electricity, and dispatch the energy to a power grid.

Medical Breakthrough

Scientists Use New Ultrasound Tech To Treat Type 2 Diabetes Without Insulin

April 21, 2022

By Bharat Sharma

Scientists claim to have found a way to treat diabetes without insulinA new study published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering in late March deployed a special type of ultrasound called peripheral focused ultrasound stimulationThe treatment was able to treat type 2 diabetes in three animal species without requiring any additional medicines

Scientists claim to have found a way to treat diabetes without insulin. Apparently, the treatment worked in animals and human trials are on the cards next.

A new study published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering in late March deployed a special type of ultrasound called peripheral focused ultrasound stimulation(pFUS) to treat diabetes. It focused on the livers of subjects to assess whether sugar levels could be reduced.

The treatment was able to treat type 2 diabetes in three animal species without requiring any additional medicines.

Crypto-Technology

Nexo, Mastercard Launch World’s First Crypto-Backed Card

April 21, 2022

The Nexo Card allows you to spend the value of your cryptocurrency without selling it.

By Matthew Humphries

If you dabble in cryptocurrency, a new payment card has just launched with the support of Mastercard that allows you to spend the value of your crypto without actually selling it.

As Reuters reports, the card was created through a partnership between Mastercard and digital finance lending company Nexo. The so-called Nexo Card is being touted as the world’s first “crypto-backed” payment card.

Futurati Podcast, Science & Technology News

Episode 81 with nathan young

April 20, 2022

Watch our interview with Nathan Young on Youtube or listen on the Futurati Podcast website.

Nathan Young. Nathan is a corporate strategist and marketing expert who has been exceptionally active in the Effective Altruism movement, the prediction markets community, and in discussions around designing good policy.

Related

Robots

Ford Accomplishes Lights-out Manufacturing with Javier, an Autonomous Robot

April 20, 2022

David Mantey

Javier is an autonomous mobile robot, specifically a KUKA robot on wheels. Named by Ford’s additive manufacturing operators, the mobile robot autonomously operates 3D Carbon printers without any human interaction.

Ford has filed several patents over the technology, which, unlike traditional stationary robots that tend a lone machine, can service multiple.

According to Jason Ryska, director of global manufacturing technology development at Ford, Javier is going to change the way the carmaker uses robotics in its manufacturing facilities. The robot will not only scale 3D printing operations but the technology will be moved into other parts of the manufacturing and assembly processes.

Ford is learning from the robot; improving accuracy by using Javier’s feedback to reduce errors. Ford has filed several patents regarding the robot’s communication interfaces and positioning. For example, Javier doesn’t need a camera vision system to see.

Robots

California Startup Bionaut Labs Wants to Send Tiny Robots Inside Human Skull to Treat Brain Disorders

April 20, 2022

Tiny robots can be carefully guided through the brain using magnets

By Agence France-Presse

BIONAUT LABS PLANS ITS FIRST CLINICAL TRIALS ON HUMANS IN JUST TWO YEARS.

The robit is a metal cylinder in the shape of a bullet
It will follow a pre-programed trajectory through a gel-filled container
Robots could offer advantages over existing treatments for brain disorder

Sending miniature robots deep inside the human skull to treat brain disorders has long been the stuff of science fiction — but it could soon become reality, according to a California start-up.

Bionaut Labs plans its first clinical trials on humans in just two years for its tiny injectable robots, which can be carefully guided through the brain using magnets.

“The idea of the micro robot came about way before I was born,” said co-founder and CEO Michael Shpigelmacher.

“One of the most famous examples is a book by Isaac Asimov and a film called ‘Fantastic Voyage,’ where a crew of scientists goes inside a miniaturised spaceship into the brain, to treat a blood clot.”

Just as cellphones now contain extremely powerful components that are smaller than a grain of rice, the tech behind micro-robots “that used to be science fiction in the 1950s and 60s” is now “science fact,” said Shpigelmacher.

“We want to take that old idea and turn it into reality,” the 53-year-old scientist told AFP during a tour of his company’s Los Angeles research and development center.

Medicine, Science & Technology News

Abundant “Secret Doors” on Human Proteins Could Be Game-Changer for Drug Discovery

April 20, 2022

A three-dimensional animation of the human protein PSD95-PDZ3 showing the binding partner CRIPT (yellow) in the active site with the blue-to-red color gradient indicating increasing potential for allosteric effects. Based on PDB accession 1BE9.

By CENTER FOR GENOMIC REGULATION

Identification of hidden vulnerabilities on surface of ‘undruggable’ proteins could transform treatment of disease.

The number of potential therapeutic targets on the surfaces of human proteins is much greater than previously thought, according to the findings of a new study in the journal Nature.

A ground-breaking new technique developed by researchers at the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona has revealed the existence of a multitude of previously secret doors that control protein function and which could, in theory, be targeted to dramatically change the course of conditions as varied as dementia, cancer and infectious diseases.

The method, in which tens of thousands of experiments are performed at the same time, has been used to chart the first ever map of these elusive targets, also known as allosteric sites, in two of the most common human proteins, revealing they are abundant and identifiable.Official HCP Treatment Website – Partial-Onset Seizure InfoA Therapy Option May Reduce Your Patient’s Seizures. Learn Treatment Info Now.Prescription Treatment Website

The approach could be a game-changer for drug discovery, leading to safer, smarter and more effective medicines. It enables research labs around the world to find and exploit vulnerabilities in any protein – including those previously thought ‘undruggable’.