systems

Researchers from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and TMOS, an Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence, have taken the fight to online hackers with a giant leap towards realizing affordable, accessible quantum communications, a technology that would effectively prevent the decryption of online activity. Everything from private social media messaging to banking … [Read more...] about Can a piece of sticky tape stop computer hackers in their tracks? New steps towards quantum communications say ‘yes’

For millennia, humanity has observed the changing phases of the Moon. The rise and fall of sunlight reflected off the Moon, as it presents its different faces to us, is known as a "phase curve." Measuring phase curves of the Moon and Solar System planets is an ancient branch of astronomy that goes back at least a century. The shapes of these phase curves encode information on … [Read more...] about New mathematical solutions to an old problem in astronomy

Increasingly, movies featuring humanoid robots, like Terminator or Ex Machina, are showing the titular "robot" akin to humans not only in intelligence but also appearance. What if Terminator-esque robots became the norm, making it difficult for us to tell them apart from actual human beings? This is the premise of a new study published in PLOS ONE, which evaluated how human … [Read more...] about Unease beyond the uncanny valley: How people react to the same faces: Researchers examined people’s emotional response to cloned faces, which could soon become the norm in robotics

The Human Cell Atlas is the world's largest, growing single-cell reference atlas. It contains references of millions of cells across tissues, organs and developmental stages. These references help physicians to understand the influences of aging, environment and disease on a cell -- and ultimately diagnose and treat patients better. Yet, reference atlases do not come without … [Read more...] about AI helps to spot single diseased cells

Researchers from the Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka City University have succeeded in storing electricity with the voltage generated from the conversion phenomenon of ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) using an ultra-thin magnetic film of several tens of nanometers. The research was conducted under the leadership of Prof. Eiji Shikoh. "We are interested in efficiently using … [Read more...] about Scientists develop an energy harvesting technology based on ferromagnetic resonance

Scientists from the Division of Sustainable Energy and Environmental Engineering at Osaka University used an established machine learning technique called generative adversarial networks to digitally remove clouds from aerial images. By using the resulting data as textures for 3D models, more accurate datasets of building image masks can be automatically generated. When setting … [Read more...] about Digitally removing clouds from aerial images using machine learning

Ultrafast electron microscope opens up new avenues for the development of sensors and quantum devices. Everyone who has ever been to the Grand Canyon can relate to having strong feelings from being close to one of nature's edges. Similarly, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have discovered that nanoparticles of gold act unusually … [Read more...] about Ultrafast electron microscopy leads to pivotal discovery

From small committees to national elections, group decision-making can be complicated -- and it may not always settle on the best choice. That's partly because some members of the group do research on their own, and others take their cues from the people around them. That distinction is readily observed around election time. "Many voters couldn't tell you the policy platforms … [Read more...] about A new model for group decision-making shows how ‘followers’ can influence the outcome

"Skin electronics" are thin flexible electronics that could be mounted onto the skin. While it may sound like something out of science fiction, it is anticipated that soon such devices can serve as next-generation devices with a wide range of applications such as health monitoring, health diagnosis, virtual reality, and human-machine interface. As it is expected, creating such … [Read more...] about Highly conductive and elastic nanomembrane for skin electronics: A float assembly method enables the fabrication of highly conductive, stretchable, and ultrathin nanomembranes