Lifeboat Foundation

Changing minds and bridging worlds of Classic science and a Quantum World.

Strong coupling in specific light-matter interactions, previously believed to be a quantum phenomenon, is explained with classical models and experiments.

More on the new most powerful QC at USC.

Following a recent upgrade, the USC-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center (QCC) based at the USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI) with 1098 qubits, is now the leader in qubit capacity…

USC Viterbi School of Engineering Amy Blumenthal, 917.710.1897 amyblume@usc.edu

Excellent write up on a paper submitted to the International Association for Cryptologic Research, by a group of UK and Belgian researchers are offering up a dig-sig scheme to assist in the addressing of Digital signatures (one of the fundamental parts of cryptography) in a post-quantum world. Expect the heat to rise on QC security as China’s launch date nears for the new Quantum Satellite.

Boffins smokin’ idea to share parts of keys to cook quantum-proof crypto.

Nice.

When we think of synthetic biology, we often think of engineering a cell to give it some useful function. But SEED 2016 had quite a few speakers working outside of a biological cell. Some broke open cells to utilize just the cellular machinery to create “cell-free” systems. Others showed what could be done inside of the computer (in silico) to improve our understanding and prediction of synthetic gene networks. Here, we’re highlighting SEED speakers who showed how both of these approaches can advance synthetic biology.

Cell-free synthetic biology

Continue reading “SEED 2016: What can we do outside of a cell?” »

Laura D’Olimpio from the University of Notre Dame Australia explained the thinking behind the ‘brain in a vat’ idea and that, even if we are living in a simulation, we can be certain we exist.

Elon Musk has been a busy man lately as he works to transition the world to renewable energy and sustainable transportation with the goal of decarbonizing the global economy to meet the challenge of climate change. To meet that goal, Tesla will need to address “high passenger-density urban transport” – and Musk just confirmed plans to create a fully autonomous electric Minibus using the Model X chassis.

Listen to famed biogerontolgist Aubrey de Grey explain the OncoSENS approach to curing ALT-Cancer (https://www.lifespan.io/campaigns/sens-control-alt-delete-cancer/) and how this is a vital part of overcoming the ill-effects of aging. This presentation is part of the Designing New Advances conference held by the Institute of Exponential Sciences in the Netherlands.

Reason number 9,000 not to colonize Jupiter’s moon Io: not only is it a frigid hellscape covered in eruptive ice volcanoes and lashed by the gas giant’s powerful radiation belts, but the atmosphere just collapsed.

In fact, it collapses all the time, according to observations by astronomers at the Southwest Research Institute that are published today in the Journal of Geophysical Research. It turns out that every time Io is eclipsed by mighty Jupiter (which happens for about 2 hours a day), the surface temperature plummets and the moon’s sulfur dioxide (SO2)-rich atmosphere begins to deflate.

By the time Io is in full shadow, the atmosphere is like a punctured balloon, blanketing the moon’s surface in a thin coating of SO2 frost. As Io migrates back into the sun, this frost layer re-sublimates, and a new atmosphere develops.

Continue reading “Io’s Atmosphere Just Collapsed” »

Last year, OpenBCI burst onto the scene with a Kickstarter campaign to fund development of an open source brain-computer interface for makers. The company more than doubled its goal of raising $100,000 for its EEG platform and, as I write this, OpenBCI is preparing to ship its first run of finished products. Conor does a demo of the technology in the link below:

OpenBCI Demo by Conor Russomano

Recently, I had a chance to talk with OpenBCI co-founder Conor Russomanno to get his thoughts on how open source has changed the brain-computer interface (BCI) landscape and opened new opportunities in the present, and how it might affect future development opportunities as well.

“The one thing that we’re hoping to achieve with OpenBCI is to really lower the barrier of entry – both in terms of educational materials but also cost,” Russomanno said. “I think one really awesome implication is that, in a classroom or laboratory, where one research grade EEG system was used by a number students, now the same amount of money could be used to outfit every student with their own device. And we’ve seen that in our customer base, as a huge proportion of our customers are students, graduate-level researchers and professors who want to use OpenBCI as a learning tool.”

Continue reading “OpenBCI and the Future of EEG Technology” »