Lifeboat Foundation

For over 80 years, scientists all round the world have dreamt of converting hydrogen, the first element of the periodic table, into a metal. And now, after hundreds of failed attempts in the history, scientists from U.S. have finally managed the feat by compressing hydrogen so profoundly that it has turned into a metal!

Back in 1935, physicists Hillard Bell Huntington and Eugene Wigner proposed a theory that hydrogen, which normally exists in a gaseous state, could transform into metallic state once exposed to extreme pressure. Since then many scientists have tried to practically prove the theory — albeit unsuccessfully. However, this discovery, which was published in the journal ‘Science’ on Thursday, is the first confirmation of the theory.

The metallic hydrogen is a potential superconductor, a material with extraordinary electricity conducting capabilities, a quality which makes it a very expensive metal. But it holds the ability of revolutionizing the world of ultra fast super computers, high speed levitation trains, or any other thing which involves conduction of electricity.

Continue reading “U.S. scientists could have squeezed hydrogen all the way into a potentially superconducting metal” »

DARPA licenses embedded FPGA tech for U.S. government projects.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, also known as DARPA, just signed an agreement to work with Flex Logix, a semiconductor start-up, to develop the young company’s EFLX embedded FPGA technology for use by any company or government agency designing integrated circuits for the U.S. government.

FPGAs have been widely used in systems since the 1980s and, at the system level, provide flexibility and programmability different from what processors can do. Many years ago, ARM took the idea of a processor chip and offered a processor architecture, which could be embedded in chips. Although it took time, embedded processors are now nearly ubiquitous. Flex Logix is doing the same for embedded FPGAs.

Continue reading “DARPA teams with Flex Logix to develop FPGA technology for government agencies designing ICs” »

In Brief

• Two more teams of researchers have found ways to create time crystals, lattices that repeat not in space but in time, breaking time-translation symmetry.
• Though applications are unclear, the research could help us better understand quantum properties and solve the problem of quantum memory associated with quantum computing.

Time crystals are strange. At the very least, they are a contradiction. A time crystal is quantum phenomenon that demonstrates movement while remaining in its ground, or lowest energy, state. Essentially a non-equilibrium form of matter, time crystals are lattices that repeat not in space but in time, breaking time-translation symmetry.

When the idea of a time crystal was proposed in 2012 by physicist and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek, it was only a theoretical possibility that would challenge many of the laws of physics. Then, in October 2016, a team of researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) managed to make a “floquet time crystal.”

Continue reading “Quantum Breakthrough: Physicists Have Once More Created Time Crystals” »

For nearly 100 years, scientists have dreamed of turning the lightest of all the elements, hydrogen, into a metal.

Now, in a stunning act of modern-day alchemy, scientists at Harvard University have finally succeeded in creating a tiny amount of what is the rarest, and possibly most valuable, material on the planet, they reported in the journal Science.

For metallic hydrogen could theoretically revolutionise technology, enabling the creation of super-fast computers, high-speed levitating trains and ultra-efficient vehicles and dramatically improving almost anything involving electricity.

Continue reading “Hydrogen turned into metal in stunning act of alchemy that could revolutionise technology and spaceflight” »

For D-Wave, the path to quantum computers being widely accepted is similar to the history of today’s computers. The first chips came more than 30 years ago, and Microsoft’s Basic expanded the software infrastructure around PCs.

Quantum computers are a new type of computer that can be significantly faster than today’s PCs. They are still decades away from replacing PCs and going mainstream, but more advanced hardware and use models are still emerging.

“A lot of that is unfolding and will have a similar dramatic change in the computing landscape,” Vern Brownell, D-Wave’s CEO, said in an interview.

Continue reading “D-Wave’s $15 million quantum computer runs a staggering 2,000 qubits” »

Nice and will be very useful for many in QC.

Scotland-based route optimization specialist Route Monkey, a unit of telematics and big data company Trakm8, is working on a new generation of transport and mobility algorithms for quantum computers.

Route Monkey already works with Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh on creating and enhancing innovative algorithms for transport and travel (earlier post). The two are now joining forces with the Networked Quantum Information Technologies Hub (NQIT), led by the University of Oxford. Together, the three organizations will develop, test and commercialize quantum algorithms.

The leap forward in the capabilities offered by quantum computing opens up a whole new field. We can create algorithms that deliver even faster and more accurate answers, to ever more complex transport and mobility challenges.

Continue reading “Route Monkey working with NQIT to develop transport & mobility algorithms for quantum computers” »

As the world’s political and business leaders gathered at Davos, it fell to a professor from the University of Bristol to reveal to them the full implications of a ‘fourth industrial revolution’.

Professor Jeremy O’Brien, director of the Centre for Quantum Photonics at the University of Bristol, addressed some of the most powerful people in the world yesterday at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland – to tell them just how rapidly quantum computers could change the world.

Part of the European Research Council (ERC) Ideas Lab delegation, Professor O’Brien has been actively involved with the WEF over the past few years and recently took on the role of co-chair of the Global Future Council on Computing. Last year he presented a talk on working towards a quantum computer discussing the future of computing and how new fields of computer sciences are paving the way for the next digital revolution.

Continue reading “Bristol professor reveals quantum power behind new industrial revolution to world leaders at Davos” »

Synthetic chemicals commonly found in insecticides and garden products bind to the receptors that govern our biological clocks, University at Buffalo researchers have found. The research suggests that exposure to these insecticides adversely affects melatonin receptor signaling, creating a higher risk for metabolic diseases such as diabetes.

Published online on Dec. 27 in Chemical Research in Toxicology, the research combined a big data approach, using computer modeling on millions of chemicals, with standard wet-laboratory experiments. It was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Disruptions in human circadian rhythms are known to put people at higher risk for diabetes and other metabolic diseases but the mechanism involved is not well-understood.

The graphene temporary tattoo seen here is the thinnest epidermal electronic device ever and according to the University of Texas at Austin researchers who developed it, the device can take some medical measurements as accurately as bulky wearable sensors like EKG monitors. From IEEE Spectrum:

Graphene’s conformity to the skin might be what enables the high-quality measurements. Air gaps between the skin and the relatively large, rigid electrodes used in conventional medical devices degrade these instruments’ signal quality. Newer sensors that stick to the skin and stretch and wrinkle with it have fewer airgaps, but because they’re still a few micrometers thick, and use gold electrodes hundreds of nanometers thick, they can lose contact with the skin when it wrinkles. The graphene in the Texas researchers’ device is 0.3-nm thick. Most of the tattoo’s bulk comes from the 463-nm-thick polymer support.

The next step is to add an antenna to the design so that signals can be beamed off the device to a phone or computer, says (electrical engineer Deji) Akinwande.

Continue reading “Thinnest-ever electronic tattoos are capable of precision health monitoring” »