Lifeboat Foundation

Humane, a startup that is backed by OpenAI’s CEO and Microsoft, demoed its interface projecting device at TED 2023. Here’s a first look.

The plan: Ding could play a key role in helping China get its future lunar bases off the ground — his research team at HUST has designed several potential moon bases and developed technology that could be used to actually construct them on the moon.

One of those is the “Chinese Super Mason,” an autonomous robot designed to create structures out of bricks. Another is the bricks themselves — Ding’s team has come up with a LEGO-like design for the blocks, which it proposes to make using 3D printing, lasers, and lunar regolith.

They could get a chance to see their ideas put to the ultimate test as soon as 2028, as China reportedly plans to send a Super Mason to the moon to build a lunar brick as part of the Chang’e 8 mission, which is expected to launch in 2028.

A study using data from telescopes on Earth and in the sky resolves a problem plaguing astronomers working in the infrared, and could help make better observations of the composition of the universe with the James Webb Space Telescope and other instruments. The work is published April 20 in Nature Astronomy.

“We’re trying to measure the composition of gases inside galaxies,” said Yuguang Chen, a postdoctoral researcher working with Professor Tucker Jones in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Davis.

Most elements other than hydrogen, helium and lithium are produced inside stars, so the composition and distribution of heavier elements—especially the ratio of oxygen to hydrogen—can help astronomers understand how many and what kinds of stars are being formed in a distant object.

To improve upon this technology, researchers created a souped-up MRI outfitted with a high-powered 9.4-tesla magnet. (For comparison, most MRIs are equipped with a 1.5-to 3-tesla magnet.) They also added gradient coils that are 100 times stronger than current models and are what create the images, as well as a high-speed computer that is as powerful as approximately 800 laptops, according to the statement.

After scanning the mouse brain, the researchers sent tissue samples to be imaged using a technique called light sheet microscopy, which allowed them to label specific groups of cells in the brain that were then mapped onto the original MRI. These additional steps provided a colorful view of cells and circuits throughout the brain, according to the statement.

The researchers took one set of MRI images that captured how the mouse’s brain-wide connectivity evolved with age. A second group of images showcased brilliantly colored brain connections that highlighted the deterioration of neural networks in a rodent model of Alzheimer’s disease, according to the statement.

Interfacial superconductivity and the quantum anomalous Hall effect have been developed by layer-by-layer material fabrication.

A new method created by Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) researchers can help determine the origin of electronic states in designed materials.

Assistant Professor Shuolong Yang and his colleagues created a method for better understanding magnetic topological insulators, which have unique surface properties that could make them useful in quantum information science technologies.

Researchers should avoid the lure of proprietary models and develop transparent large language models to ensure reproducibility.

Alphabet Inc is combining Google Brain and DeepMind, as it doubles down on artificial intelligence research in its race to compete with rival systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.

The new division will be led by DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and its setting up will ensure “bold and responsible development of general AI,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post on Thursday (20 April).

Continue reading “Google merges Brain and DeepMind units to accelerate AI research” »

A giant orbital magnetic moment exists in graphene quantum dots, according to new work by physicists at the University of California Santa Cruz in the US. As well as being of fundamental interest for studying systems with relativistic electrons – that is those travelling at near-light speeds – the work could be important for quantum information science since these moments could encode information.

Graphene, a sheet of carbon just one atom thick, has a number of unique electronic properties, many of which arise from the fact that it is a semiconductor with a zero-energy gap between its valence and conduction bands. Near where the two bands meet, the relationship between the energy and momentum of charge carriers (electrons and holes) in the material is described by the Dirac equation and resembles that of a photon, which is massless.

These bands, called Dirac cones, enable the charge carriers to travel through graphene at extremely high, “ultra-relativistic” speeds approaching that of light. This extremely high mobility means that graphene-based electronic devices such as transistors could be faster than any that exist today.

Scientists have confirmed that intrinsic alignments of galaxies can probe dark matter and dark energy on a cosmological scale, supporting general relativity at vast spatial scales. However, the nature of dark energy and cosmic acceleration remains unresolved.

Einstein would nod in approval. General relativity may apply even in the farthest reaches of the universe.

Now, scientists from international research institutions, including Kyoto University, have confirmed that the intrinsic alignments of galaxies have characteristics that allow it to be a powerful probe of dark matter and dark energy on a cosmological scale.