Tag: Quantum Stuff

The latest ambition of artificial intelligence research — particularly within the labs seeking “artificial general intelligence,” or AGI — is something called a world model: a representation of the environment that an AI carries around inside itself like a computational snow globe. The AI system can use this simplified representation to evaluate predictions and decisions… Continue reading ‘World Models,’ an Old Idea in AI, Mount a Comeback

A mere decade ago astronomers knew of just 62 moons around Saturn. Today the ringed planet boasts a staggering 274 official satellites. That’s more than any other world in the solar system—and far too many for most people to keep track of. Astronomer Edward Ashton is no exception, even though he has helped discover 192… Continue reading How One Astronomer Uncovered Nearly 200 Moons—Around Just One Planet

Ringbauer’s team was building a quantum computer that used not qubits but qudits — each with five possible states. The extra possibilities allowed each particle to hold more information, often reducing the number of steps needed for a complex computation. Not every simulation would benefit from being run with qudits, but the complexity of quantum… Continue reading Analog vs. Digital: The Race Is On To Simulate Our Quantum Universe

Bird Flu Vaccine for Cows Passes Early Test Researchers have tested an mRNA vaccine against avian influenza in calves with promising results By Humberto Basilio & Nature magazine As bird flu sweeps across US poultry and cattle farms, researchers are racing to find ways to contain the outbreaks before they ignite a human pandemic. Now,… Continue reading Bird Flu Vaccine for Cows Passes Early Test

How Much Ultraprocessed Food Do You Eat? Blood and Urine Record It A new study suggests blood and urine samples could provide an objective measure of diets and help unravel their connections to disease By Smriti Mallapaty & Nature magazine Diets rich in industrially manufactured food have been associated with several health conditions. Molecules in… Continue reading How Much Ultraprocessed Food Do You Eat? Blood and Urine Record It

CLIMATEWIRE | Public officials have started pleading with the Trump administration for help in recovering from deadly disasters as President Donald Trump triggers frustration in states struck by tornadoes, floods and storms by taking no action on requests for aid. Trump has left states, counties and tribes in limbo as he delays making decisions on… Continue reading Disaster-Struck States Waiting for Weeks for Trump’s Sign-Off on FEMA Aid

But in some ways, the proof was a bit unsatisfying. Jitomirskaya and Avila had used a method that only applied to certain irrational values of alpha. By combining it with an intermediate proof that came before it, they could say the problem was solved. But this combined proof wasn’t elegant. It was a patchwork quilt,… Continue reading ‘Ten Martini’ Proof Uses Number Theory to Explain Quantum Fractals

Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe, by Carl Zimmer, charts the history of the field of aerobiology: the science of airborne microorganisms. In this episode, we discover the story of two lost pioneers of the 1930s: physician and self-taught epidemiologist Mildred Weeks Wells and her husband, sanitary engineer William Firth Wells. Together,… Continue reading A Public Health Researcher and Her Engineer Husband Found How Diseases Can Spread through Air Decades before the COVID Pandemic