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Archive for the ‘innovation’ category: Page 74

Mar 1, 2023

Unlocking the Mystery of Unconventional Superconductivity: A Breakthrough Experiment

Posted by in categories: innovation, materials

A team of scientists, including physicist Eugene Demler from ETH Zurich, for the first time, closely observed how magnetic correlations play a role in mediating hole pairing.

Superconductivity only occurs in pairs. Therefore, in order for conductance without electrical resistance to take place in specific materials, the charge carriers must pair up. In traditional superconductors, the current is made up of electrons and pairing is facilitated by the collective movements of the crystal lattice, referred to as phonons. This mechanism is well understood. However, in recent decades, a growing number of materials have been found that don’t fit within this conventional theoretical framework.

The leading theories for unconventional superconductors suggest that magnetic fluctuations, not phonons, lead to pairing in these systems, — and surprisingly, magnetic interactions arise from the repulsive Coulomb interaction between electrons. However, verifying these models in experiments is extremely difficult.

Feb 28, 2023

The tiny diamond sphere that could unlock clean power

Posted by in categories: energy, innovation

A diamond sphere made in Germany was key to December’s breakthrough fusion experiment in California.

Feb 25, 2023

Robots now have the sense of touch after electronic skin is created

Posted by in categories: innovation, robotics/AI

A team of scientists has developed electronic skin that could pave the way for soft, flexible robotic devices to assist with surgical procedures or aid people’s mobility.

The creation of stretchable e-skin by Edinburgh researchers gives soft robots for the first time a level of physical self-awareness similar to that of people and animals.

The technology could aid breakthroughs in soft robotics by enabling devices to detect precisely their movement in the most sensitive of surroundings, experts say.

Feb 25, 2023

Opinion: The King, Student-Loan Forgiveness, and the Supreme Court

Posted by in categories: innovation, robotics/AI

A new technology bids to transform the human cognitive process as it has not been shaken up since the invention of printing. The technology that printed the Gutenberg Bible in 1,455 made abstract human thought communicable generally and rapidly. But new technology today reverses that process. Whereas the printing press caused a profusion of modern human thought, the new technology achieves its distillation and elaboration. In the process, it creates a gap between human knowledge and human understanding. If we are to navigate this transformation successfully, new concepts of human thought and interaction with machines will need to be developed. This is the essential challenge of the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

The new technology is known as generative artificial intelligence; GPT stands for Generative Pre-Trained Transformer. ChatGPT, developed at the OpenAI research laboratory, is now able to converse with humans. As its capacities become broader, they will redefine human knowledge, accelerate changes in the fabric of our reality, and reorganize politics and society.

Feb 24, 2023

Nvidia predicts AI models one million times more powerful than ChatGPT within 10 years

Posted by in categories: innovation, robotics/AI

A million here, times a million there. Pretty soon you’re talking about big numbers. So Nvidia claims for its AI accelerating hardware in terms of the performance boost it has delivered over the last decade and will deliver again over the next 10 years.

The result, if Nvidia is correct, will be a new industry of AI factories across the world and gigantic breakthroughs in AI processing power. It also means, ostensibly, AI models one million times more powerful than existing examples, including ChatGPT, in AI processing terms at least.

Feb 23, 2023

New tech could transform phones into RFID readers

Posted by in categories: innovation, mobile phones

The devices would not need batteries because they can harvest power from LTE signals instead.

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. This is a feature that would allow you to, for instance, know everything that is in your fridge and when it expires.


A new technology developed by engineers at the University of California San Diego can allow that possibility, according to a press release published by the institution on Tuesday.

Continue reading “New tech could transform phones into RFID readers” »

Feb 23, 2023

First-of-its-kind e-bandage speeds wound healing

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, innovation

The transient electronic bandage reduces inflammation, and dissolves into your body after use.

Northwestern scientists have created a groundbreaking medical device with the potential to revolutionize healing: an electrotherapy patch that accelerates wound recovery and safely self-dissolves when no longer necessary.

Cost-effective solution for closing wounds.

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Feb 21, 2023

Brain wave study: Why a DMT trip is like entering an alternate reality

Posted by in categories: innovation, neuroscience

Year 2019 face_with_colon_three


Scientists can finally explain the ‘breakthrough’ experience.

Feb 19, 2023

NASA Funds Disruptive Space Tech To Detect Very Nearby ExoEarths

Posted by in categories: innovation, space

A disruptive new planet-hunting technology, now under study as part of NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, could literally detect and then look for biosignatures from every Earth 2.0 within a thirty-light-year radius of our solar system.

Known as DICER (The Diffractive Interfero Coronagraph Exoplanet Resolver), the key to this NIAC study’s revolutionary means of detecting these planets is that unlike conventional optical space telescopes — which use curved, highly polished mirrors to collect starlight — this mission would employ flat sets of what are known as diffraction gratings.


Who says you need a conventional telescope to find exoplanets? NASA has funded a ‘Phase I’ study for the development of a whole new means of detecting and then teasing spectra from very nearby exoplanetary earths.

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Feb 17, 2023

Toyota Research Institute’s robots leave home

Posted by in categories: innovation, robotics/AI

“I think I’m probably just as guilty as everybody else,” Toyota Research Institute’s (TRI) senior vice president of robotics, Max Bajracharya, admits. “It’s like, now our GPUs are better. Oh, we got machine learning and now you know we can do this. Oh, okay, maybe that was harder than we thought.”

Ambition is, of course, an important aspect of this work. But there’s also a grand, inevitable tradition of relearning mistakes. The smartest people in the room can tell you a million times over why a specific issue hasn’t been solved, but it’s still easy to convince yourself that this time — with the right people and the right tools — things will just be different.

In the case of TRI’s in-house robotics team, the impossible task is the home. The lack of success in the category hasn’t been for lack of trying. Generations of roboticists have agreed that there are plenty of problems waiting to be automated, but thus far, successes have been limited. Beyond the robotic vacuum, there’s been little in the way of breakthrough.

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