Computers

Microswimmers are artificial, self-propelled, microscopic particles. They are capable of directional motion in a solution. The Molecular Nanophotonics Group at Leipzig University has developed special particles that are smaller than one-thirtieth of the diameter of a hair. They can change their direction of motion by heating tiny gold particles on their surface and converting … [Read more...] about How tiny machines become capable of learning: Team of physicists develop learning microswimmers

The heart of any computer, its central processing unit, is built using semiconductor technology, which is capable of putting billions of transistors onto a single chip. Now, researchers from the group of Menno Veldhorst at QuTech, a collaboration between TU Delft and TNO, have shown that this technology can be used to build a two-dimensional array of qubits to function as a … [Read more...] about Semiconductor qubits scale in two dimensions

The secret to building superconducting quantum computers with massive processing power may be an ordinary telecommunications technology -- optical fiber. Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have measured and controlled a superconducting quantum bit (qubit) using light-conducting fiber instead of metal electrical wires, paving the way to … [Read more...] about Optical fiber could boost power of superconducting quantum computers

Materials science likes to take nature and the special properties of living beings that could potentially be transferred to materials as a model. A research team led by chemist Professor Andreas Walther of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has succeeded in endowing materials with a bioinspired property: Wafer-thin stiff nanopaper instantly becomes soft and elastic at … [Read more...] about Wafer-thin nanopaper changes from firm to soft at the touch of a button: Bioinspired cellulose nanofibrils can be controlled by electricity / Strength and stiffness can be modulated via an electrical switch

Have you ever wondered why you are able to hear a sentence and understand its meaning -- given that the same words in a different order would have an entirely different meaning? New research involving neuroimaging and A.I., describes the complex network within the brain that comprehends the meaning of a spoken sentence. "It has been unclear whether the integration of this … [Read more...] about More than words: Using AI to map how the brain understands sentences

All viruses mutate as they make copies of themselves to spread and thrive. SARS-CoV-2, the virus the causes COVID-19, is proving to be no different. There are currently more than 4,000 variants of COVID-19, which has already killed more than 2.7 million people worldwide during the pandemic. The UK variant, also known as B.1.1.7, was first detected in September 2020, and is now … [Read more...] about How UK, South Africa coronavirus variants escape immunity

People are not very nice to machines. The disdain goes beyond the slot machine that emptied your wallet, a dispenser that failed to deliver a Coke or a navigation system that took you on an unwanted detour. Yet USC researchers report that people affected by COVID-19 are showing more goodwill -- to humans and to human-like autonomous machines. "The new discovery here is that … [Read more...] about People affected by COVID-19 are being nicer to machines

NIMS and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have jointly discovered that the chemical compound Ca3SiO is a direct transition semiconductor, making it a potentially promising infrared LED and infrared detector component. This compound -- composed of calcium, silicon and oxygen -- is cheap to produce and non-toxic. Many of the existing infrared semiconductors contain toxic … [Read more...] about Discovery of non-toxic semiconductors with a direct band gap in the near-infrared: New compound may replace toxic mercury cadmium telluride and gallium arsenide in near-infrared devices

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden, have developed a novel type of thermometer that can simply and quickly measure temperatures during quantum calculations with extremely high accuracy. The breakthrough provides a benchmarking tool for quantum computing of great value -- and opens up for experiments in the exciting field of quantum … [Read more...] about Novel thermometer can accelerate quantum computer development

Researchers developed a system of self-assembling polymer microparticles with adjustable concentrations of two types of attached residues. They found that tuning the concentration of each type allowed them to control the aggregation and resulting shape of the clusters. This work may lead to advances in 'smart' materials, including sensors and damage-resistant … [Read more...] about Tunable smart materials