Impact Lab – Page 316 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

New quantum storage technique could make quantum networking possible

March 1, 2022

Engineers at Caltech have developed an approach for quantum storage.

It could help pave the way for the development of large-scale optical quantum networks.

The new system relies on nuclear spins—the angular momentum of an atom’s nucleus—oscillating collectively as a spin wave.

This collective oscillation effectively chains up several atoms to store information.

The work, which is described in a paper published on February 16 in the journal Nature, utilizes a quantum bit (or qubit) made from an ion of ytterbium (Yb), a rare earth element also used in lasers.

Automobiles

Airless tyres could be a reality this decade

March 1, 2022

An upcoming electric car from one of the world’s biggest manufacturers could launch with puncture-proof tyres.

By William Davis

Airless tyres could be rolling out onto public roads before the end of this decade, according to a Michelin executive.

The concept of punctureless rubber has been around since the first motorists were confronted with the inconvenience of flats. However, a safe, durable, and cost effective example has never gone into mass-production.

The world’s biggest tyre maker now claims that’s all about the change, revealing US automotive giant General Motors is looking to offer an electric car fitted from the factory with its non-pneumatic spinners.

Medical Breakthrough

How sound waves could help regrow bones

March 1, 2022

Magnified image showing adult stem cells in the process of turning into bone cells after treatment with high-frequency sound waves. Green colouring shows the presence of collagen, which the cells produce as they become bone cells. Magnification: 60X.

by RMIT University

Researchers have used sound waves to turn stem cells into bone cells, in a tissue engineering advance that could one day help patients regrow bone lost to cancer or degenerative disease.

The innovative stem cell treatment from researchers at RMIT University offers a smart way forward for overcoming some of the field’s biggest challenges, through the precision power of high-frequency soundwaves.

Tissue engineering is an emerging field that aims to rebuild bone and muscle by harnessing the human body’s natural ability to heal itself.

A key challenge in regrowing bone is the need for large amounts of bone cells that will thrive and flourish once implanted in the target area.

To date, experimental processes to change adult stem cells into bone cells have used complicated and expensive equipment and have struggled with mass production, making widespread clinical application unrealistic.

Additionally, the few clinical trials attempting to regrow bone have largely used stem cells extracted from a patient’s bone marrow—a highly painful procedure.

In a new study published in the journal Small, the RMIT research team showed stem cells treated with high-frequency sound waves turned into bone cells quickly and efficiently.

Futurati Podcast, Science & Technology News

Futurati Podcast with Trent Fowler

February 28, 2022

Listen on Futurati Podcast

Watch Trent’s talk on Youtube.

Trent Fowler is a machine learning engineer, author, and co-host of the Futurati Podcast. As someone who’s worked at several crypto startups, he has years of experience dealing with blockchain data and thinking about the blockchain’s mechanics. This episode is adapted from a talk he recently gave explaining at a high level how this remarkable technology works and what it might mean for the future.

Robotics

Take a look inside a robot fast-food kitchen with fully autonomous ovens, freezers, and cleaning systems that don’t require any staff

February 28, 2022

Hyper Robotics’ kitchens.

By Kate Duffy

Hyper Robotics’ kitchens can make fast-food using autonomous robotic machines.
The 40-feet kitchens have ovens, freezers, and metal detectors that don’t need human help.
The first kitchen was built for a Pizza Hut location in Israel, which can make 50 pizzas an hour.

Hyper Robotics is building 40-feet robotic fast-food kitchens filled with fully autonomous machines which don’t require human staff.

Science & Technology News, Space Flight

This Hyperspeed Space Sail Could Take Us to Next-Door Star Systems

February 28, 2022

An artist’s conception of the Starshot Lightsail spacecraft during acceleration by a ground-based laser array.

By Monisha Ravisetti

For years, physicists have been trying to perfect a way to catapult space probes at a fifth the speed of light. One team is flagging an important section of the blueprint.

Only about 4 light-years away from our solar system lies Alpha Centauri, another bustling space neighborhood. It’s anchored by three stars with the same job as our sun, holds planets analogous to our eight famous orbs and may even have an Earth twin hanging out in the habitable zone.Almost like an alternate reality, the star system is a tantalizing region for space explorers.

There’s just one, glaring issue. With our present technology, spacecraft sent toward Alpha Centauri wouldn’t arrive until somewhere around the year 82022. That’s why, in 2016, late astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and investor Yuri Milner launched Breakthrough Starshot — an initiative to send microchip-size space probes over to Alpha Centauri at 20% the speed of light, reducing the whopping travel time to a mere 20 years.

DNA

Stanford University uses AI computing to cut DNA sequencing down to five hours

February 28, 2022

Speeding up the genome sequencing process has earned the project a Guinness World Record title.

By Aimee Chanthadavong

A Stanford University-led research team has set a new Guinness World Record for the fastest DNA sequencing technique using AI computing to accelerate workflow speed.

The research, led by Dr Euan Ashley, professor of medicine, genetics and biomedical data science at Stanford School of Medicine, in collaboration with Nvidia, Oxford Nanopore Technologies, Google, Baylor College of Medicine, and the University of California, achieved sequencing in just five hours and two minutes.

The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, involved speeding up every step of genome sequencing workflow by relying on new technology. This included using nanopore sequencing on Oxford Nanopore’s PromethION Flow Cells to generate more than 100 gigabases of data per hour, and Nvidia GPUs on Google Cloud to speed up the base calling and variant calling processes.

Blockchain

JPMORGAN UNVEILS RESEARCH ON QUANTUM RESISTANT BLOCKCHAIN NETWORK

February 26, 2022

“QKD is the only solution that has been mathematically proven to defend against a potential quantum computing-based attack,” JPMorgan emphasized in its announcement.

United States banking giant JPMorgan Chase has unveiled research on a quantum key distribution (QKD) blockchain network that is resistant to quantum computing attacks.

QKD utilizes quantum mechanics and cryptography to enable two parties to exchange secure data and detect and defend against third parties attempting to eavesdrop on the exchange. The technology is seen as a viable defense against potential blockchain hacks that could be conducted by quantum computers in the future.

According to a Thursday announcement, JPMorgan collaborated with Toshiba and Ciena to deploy and test the QKD blockchain.

“At this time, QKD is the only solution that has been mathematically proven to defend against a potential quantum computing-based attack, with security guarantees based on the laws of quantum physics,” the announcement read.

brain-computer interfaces, Science & Technology News

Egyptian researcher develops brainwave-controlled wheelchair for those with paralysis: All you need to know

February 26, 2022

An electric wheelchair for people with tetraplegia, a condition when patients are unable to move their upper or lower body, was designed by an Egyptian researcher

By Abdelrahman Omran

Egyptian researcher Abdelrahman Omran designed a wheelchair for people with tetraplegia which operates by receiving users’ brainwaves. Reuters

An electric wheelchair for people with tetraplegia, a condition when patients are unable to move their upper or lower body, has been designed by an Egyptian researcher Abdelrahman Omran, reported Reuters.

The device will help those with paralysis by using head movements or brainwaves to operate the chair.

Space Flight

Space balloon company to fly from Kennedy Space Center now accepts cryptocurrency

February 26, 2022

The Spaceship Neptune space balloon is seen in this rendering from Space Perspective, which looks to make its first flight with customers in late 2024 from Brevard County.

By RICHARD TRIBOU

A commercial spaceflight company that plans to fly a massive balloon from the Space Coast will let you pay with cryptocurrency.

Space Perspective, which aims to fly its first passengers on board its space balloon from the old Kennedy Space Center shuttle landing facility by late 2024 announced it is accepting Bitcoin, Ethereum and several other cryptocurrencies for deposits on the future flights.

The full price for the flights is $125,000, but deposits starting at $1,000 per person can be made with transactions that will go through coinbase.com.

“Space Perspective is revolutionizing space tourism, and that includes offering our customers the ability to reserve their once-in-a-lifetime journeys to space via crypto,” said company cofounder and co-CEO Taber MacCallum in a press release. “The flexibility to pay with crypto is another opportunity for us to differentiate the Space Perspective experience, and we are proud to lead the industry by accepting Coinbase.”

brain-computer interfaces

Inside the U.K. lab that connects brains to quantum computers

February 25, 2022

By Luke Dormehl

In a room at the United Kingdom’s University of Plymouth, a Ph.D. student is sitting at a computer, eyes closed as if he’s meditating. On his head is what looks like a black swimming cap, but is actually an electroencephalogram (EEG) reader that’s sensing the electrical activity passing over his scalp. In front of him, on the monitor, there’s an image of a wireframe globe with two points marked “1” and “0.” In the center of the globe, like a clock with a single hand, is an arrow that oscillates between the two points. As the student changes his expression from one of relaxation to one of wide-eyed agitation, the arrow twitches and moves. Every several seconds, he enters a new digit.

It might not look like much (and right now, it’s still very early days for this work), but it’s nonetheless fascinating stuff. As the student changes his brain patterns from calm to energized and back again, he produces alpha and beta waves that are then used to manipulate simulated qubits – the elemental unit in quantum computing, reflecting the math of quantum physics – using nothing more than the power of thought.

“If you train yourself to produce these two kinds of waves, then you can send some sort of Morse code to the computer,” professor Eduardo Miranda of the University of Plymouth told Digital Trends. “The problem is that it takes eight seconds to generate one command at the moment because the EEG is very slow. We need a lot of processing to analyze it. And this analysis is not so accurate, so we need to keep checking many times to see if the code really is what the person wants to produce.”

Welcome to the somewhat shaky, tentative steps of the world of quantum programming by way of brain-computer interface. According to its creators, it’s the start of construction of what the team calls the Quantum Brain Network (abbreviated to QBraiN). And it’s got the potential to do a bunch of things that are worth getting excited about.

Metaverse

HERE’S WHY AI-EQUIPPED NFTS COULD BE THE REAL GATEWAY TO THE METAVERSE

February 25, 2022

NFIs could be the next step for NFTs and ASM’s

By ALYSSA EXPOSITO

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) have been largely acquired as proof-of-profile pictures (PFPs) that represent a brand, embody culture or ultimately, reflect as a static status symbol. Blue-chip NFTs like the Bored Ape Yacht Club or Cool Cats were not originally backed by any tangible utility other than speculative value and hype, along with the promise of an illustrative roadmap, but in 2022, investors are looking for a little bit “more.”

However, nonfungible tokens are finding their use beyond branding and status symbols by attempting to build out an existence in the Metaverse and some are ambitious enough to start within it.

The Altered State Machine (ASM) Artificial Intelligence Football Association (AIFA) has introduced a novel concept to NFTs called nonfungible intelligence or NFI. By tokenizing artificial intelligence, the ASM AIFA has captured the attention of investors who are thinking long-term about the future of the Metaverse and decentralized play-to-earn (P2E) economies.

In fusing AI features to the three growing markets of gaming, decentralized finance (DeFi) and NFTs, the ASM AIFA has the potential to be a lucrative long-term bet.

As an investor, these are the strategies I’ve considered when thinking about investing in the ASM AIFA, while also factoring in the impending tokenomics that will be integrated into the nascent blockchain P2E game.