Lifeboat Foundation

The information security landscape is rapidly changing in response to quantum computing technology, which is capable of cracking modern encryption techniques in minutes, but a promising US government encryption algorithm for the post-quantum world was just cracked in less than an hour thanks to a decades-old math theorem.

In July 2022, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) chose a set of encryption algorithms that it hoped would stand up to the encryption-cracking power of quantum computers and tasked researchers with probing them for vulnerabilities, offering a $50,000 prize for anyone who was able to break the encryption.

Graphics Processing Units are not just resolution on a monitor.

The Graphics Processing Unit was first developed in the 1970s (think Pong)There are two types of GPUs, on a separate card and embedded in a CPU chip.

Today’s GPUs are so sophisticated they work in parallel to the CPU doing many tasks the CPU handles.

Continue reading “How GeForce changed graphics forever, the GPU: what to know” »

Mitigating and reversing the effects of climate change is the most important scientific challenge facing humanity. Carbon sequestration describes a range of technologies with the potential to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere. Most of these schemes involve storing the gas underground, however, this is not without risk, and scientists are concerned that underground storage could lead to increased seismic activity (a phenomenon known as “induced seismicity”).

Now, researchers in the US and Switzerland have studied microseismicity, the small seismic events caused by carbon injection into host rock, at the Illinois Basin Decatur Project (IBDP) in the midwestern US. In 2011–2014, the IBDP injected one million tonnes of CO₂ into an underground reservoir just above a rhyolite crystalline basin. Nikita Bondarenko and Roman Makhnenko at the University of Illinois and Yury Podladchikov at the University of Lausanne have used a combination of field observations and computer simulations to show how microseismicity at the IBDP is highly dependent on the microscale structure of the host rock.

A research group led by 2014 Nobel laureate Hiroshi Amano at Nagoya University’s Institute of Materials and Systems for Sustainability (IMaSS) in central Japan, in collaboration with Asahi Kasei Corporation, has successfully conducted the world’s first room-temperature continuous-wave lasing of a deep-ultraviolet laser diode (wavelengths down to UV-C region).

These results, published in Applied Physics Letters, represent a step toward the widespread use of a technology with the potential for a wide range of applications, including sterilization and medicine.

Continue reading “Scientists demonstrate world’s first continuous-wave lasing of deep-ultraviolet laser diode at room temperature” »

A new qubit to boost quantum computers for useful applications.

A recent study, affiliated with South Korea’s Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) has reported a scalable synthetic strategy to fabricate low-resistance edge contacts to atomic transistors using a thermally stable 2D metal, namely PtTe₂.

Developing cheaper, smaller, and better-performing semiconductors with materials other than silicon (Si), is expected to gain momentum, thanks to a recent study from UNIST. This will aid in reducing the space between semiconductors and metals within semiconductor devices to ∼1 nm, which could help maintain high performance.

Published in the August 2022 issue of Nature Communications, this study has been jointly led by Professor Soon-Yong Kwon and Professor Zonghoon Lee in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at UNIST.

Physicists have long struggled to explain why the universe started out with conditions suitable for life to evolve. Why do the physical laws and constants take the very specific values that allow stars, planets and ultimately life to develop? The expansive force of the universe, dark energy, for example, is much weaker than theory suggests it should be—allowing matter to clump together rather than being ripped apart.

A common answer is that we live in an infinite multiverse of universes, so we shouldn’t be surprised that at least one universe has turned out as ours. But another is that our universe is a computer simulation, with someone (perhaps an advanced alien species) fine-tuning the conditions.

Continue reading “How to test whether we’re living in a computer simulation” »

A new study has revealed how the glass-like shells of diatoms help these microscopic organisms perform photosynthesis in dim conditions. A better understanding of how these phytoplankton harvest and interact with light could lead to improved solar cells, sensing devices and optical components.

“The computational model and toolkit we developed could pave the way toward mass-manufacturable, sustainable optical devices and more efficient light harvesting tools that are based on diatom shells,” said research team member Santiago Bernal from McGill University in Canada. “This could be used for biomimetic devices for sensing, new telecommunications technologies or affordable ways to make clean energy.”

Continue reading “Glass-like shells of diatoms help turn light into energy in dim conditions” »

For the first time in experimental history, researchers at the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) have created a device that generates twisted neutrons with well-defined orbital angular momentum. Previously considered an impossibility, this groundbreaking scientific accomplishment provides a brand new avenue for researchers to study the development of next-generation quantum materials with applications ranging from quantum computing to identifying and solving new problems in fundamental physics.

“Neutrons are a powerful probe for the characterization of emerging quantum materials because they have several unique features,” said Dr. Dusan Sarenac, research associate with IQC and technical lead, Transformative Quantum Technologies at the University of Waterloo. “They have nanometer-sized wavelengths, electrical neutrality, and a relatively large mass. These features mean neutrons can pass through materials that X-rays and light cannot.”

While methods for the experimental production and analysis of orbital angular momentum in photons and electrons are well-studied, a device design using neutrons has never been demonstrated until now. Because of their distinct characteristics, the researchers had to construct new devices and create novel methods for working with neutrons.