Lifeboat Foundation

Photosynthesis drives all life on Earth. Complex processes are required for the sunlight-powered conversion of carbon dioxide and water to energy-rich sugar and oxygen. These processes are driven by two protein complexes, photosystems I and II. In photosystem I, sunlight is used with an efficiency of almost 100%. Here a complex network of 288 chlorophylls plays the decisive role.

A team led by LMU chemist Regina de Vivie-Riedle has now characterized these chlorophylls with the help of high-precision quantum chemical calculations—an important milestone toward a comprehensive understanding of energy transfer in this system. This discovery may help exploit its efficiency in artificial systems in the future.

The chlorophylls in photosystem I capture sunlight in an antenna complex and transfer the energy to a reaction center. There, the solar energy is used to trigger a redox process—that is to say, a chemical process whereby electrons are transferred. The quantum yield of photosystem I is almost 100%, meaning that almost every absorbed photon leads to a redox event in the reaction center.

A newly proposed propulsion system could theoretically beam a heavy spacecraft to outside the confines of our Solar System in less than 5 years – a feat that took the historic Voyager 1 probe 35 years to achieve.

The concept, known as ’pellet-beam’ propulsion, was awarded an early-stage US$175,000 NASA grant for further development earlier this year.

To be clear, the concept currently doesn’t exist much beyond calculations on paper, so we can’t get too excited just yet.

Evolutionary biologists often argue that vertebrate embryos develop in highly similar manners, reflecting their common ancestry.

Using their non-invasive sensors, Professor Francesca Iacopi from the University of Technology Sydney and her colleagues have demonstrated hands-free communication with a quadruped robot through brain activity.

Researchers have discovered a way to “translate” quantum information between different kinds of quantum technologies, with significant implications for quantum computing, communication, and networking.

The research was published in the journal Nature on Wednesday. It represents a new way to convert quantum information from the format used by quantum computers to the format needed for quantum communication.

Photons—particles of light—are essential for quantum information technologies, but different technologies use them at different frequencies. For example, some of the most common quantum computing technology is based on superconducting qubits, such as those used by tech giants Google and IBM; these qubits store quantum information in photons that move at microwave frequencies.

On Thursday, OpenAI announced a plugin system for its ChatGPT AI assistant. The plugins give ChatGPT the ability to interact with the wider world through the Internet, including booking flights, ordering groceries, browsing the web, and more. Plugins are bits of code that tell ChatGPT how to use an external resource on the Internet.

Basically, if a developer wants to give ChatGPT the ability to access any network service (for example: “looking up current stock prices”) or perform any task controlled by a network service (for example: “ordering pizza through the Internet”), it is now possible, provided it doesn’t go against OpenAI’s rules.

Holographic receptionists, robots and tea-delivering drones may be part of the workplace in just 30 years, according to new findings.

Employees may soon be spared from carrying out mundane tasks around the office as futuristic technologies blend into our daily lives.

Continue reading “Experts reveal what workplaces will look like in 2050” »

Hugely powerful lasers are shining light on the cosmos and can generate energy using the same process that occurs in the scorching interior of stars.

ChatGPT now supports plug-ins that let the chatbot tap new sources of information, including the web and third-party sites like Expedia and Instacart.

OpenAI is adding support for plug-ins to ChatGPT — an upgrade that massively expands the chatbot’s capabilities and gives it access for the first time to live data from the web.

Up until now, ChatGPT has been limited by the fact it can only pull information from its training data, which ends in 2021. OpenAI says plug-ins will not only allow the bot to browse the web but also interact with specific websites, potentially turning the system into a wide-ranging interface for all sorts of services and sites.

Continue reading “OpenAI is massively expanding ChatGPT’s capabilities to let it browse the web and more” »