05 Sci-Tech

Researchers in 3 cities in 3 different countries, China, Netherlands, and the United States, achieved a partial quantum entanglement between 3 quantum computers located in the three separate cities. The success of the experiment shows full quantum entanglement is possible in cost-effective ways, but there’s still a long way to go before quantum computers become an everyday part of our lives.

The studies were conducted by three separate research teams who coordinated their efforts to attempt the quantum entanglement.

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Excerpt from www.scientificamerican.com

Quantum Internet Milestone Takes Entanglement Out of the Lab and into Cities

It’s a “big deal” to demonstrate entangled quantum networks outside a lab

By Davide Castelvecchi & Nature magazine

Three separate research groups have demonstrated quantum entanglement — in which two or more objects are linked so that they contain the same information even if they are far apart — over several kilometres of existing optical fibres in real urban areas. The feat is a key step towards a future quantum internet, a network that could allow information to be exchanged while encoded in quantum states.

Together, the experiments are “the most advanced demonstrations so far” of the technology needed for a quantum internet, says physicist Tracy Northup at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. Each of the three research teams — based in the United States, China and the Netherlands — was able to connect parts of a network using photons in the optical-fibre-friendly infrared part of the spectrum, which is a “major milestone”, says fellow Innsbruck physicist Simon Baier.

A quantum internet could enable any two users to establish almost unbreakable cryptographic keys to protect sensitive information. But full use of entanglement could do much more, such as connecting separate quantum computers into one larger, more powerful machine. The technology could also enable certain types of scientific experiment, for example by creating networks of optical telescopes that have the resolution of a single dish hundreds of kilometres wide.

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Excerpt from etn.news

The US announced new levies on $18 billion worth of Chinese imports, largely in the clean energy space, including a 100 percent tax on Chinese electric vehicles imported into the country. The move had been expected, with news reports indicating such an announcement was likely this week.

The tax on EVs was raised four-fold to 100 percent from 25 percent, while rates on Chinese solar cells were bumped up to 50 percent from 25 percent. Tariffs on some steel and aluminum imports will increase more than three-fold to up to 25 percent this year. The tariff on lithium-ion batteries for EVs and lithium batteries meant for other uses was also tripled. Other items on which the US ramped up tariffs are medical needles and syringes, ship-to-shore cranes, rubber medical gloves and face masks.

The US said the new tax levies were necessary to protect American industries from unfair competition. A senior official was quoted as telling journalists on a call that “China is producing at a rate and with a trajectory that’s far in excess of any plausible estimate of global demand,” adding: “That is going to flood the global market with supply that undercuts our ability to build productive capacity at home and … leaves all of us across the world more vulnerable to economic coercion.”

AI ethicists Tomasz Hollanek and Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska have posited a theory based on a method of analysis called “design fiction” that has led them to conclude loved ones lost in the future, if they leave a digital footprint, including audio and video, can be recreated as an AI friend.

Nowaczyk-Basińska stated, “Rapid advancements in generative AI mean that nearly anyone with internet access and some basic know-how can revive a deceased loved one. At the same time, a person may leave an AI simulation as a farewell gift for loved ones who are not prepared to process their grief in this manner. The rights of both data donors and those who interact with AI afterlife services should be equally safeguarded.”

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Excerpt from www.popsci.com

AI ethicists and science-fiction authors have explored and anticipated these potential situations for decades. But for researchers at Cambridge University’s Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence, this unregulated, uncharted “ethical minefield” is already here. And to drive the point home, they envisioned three, fictional scenarios that could easily occur any day now.

In a new study published in Philosophy and Technology, AI ethicists Tomasz Hollanek and Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska relied on a strategy called “design fiction.” First coined by sci-fi author Bruce Sterling, design fiction refers to “a suspension of disbelief about change achieved through the use of diegetic prototypes.” Basically, researchers pen plausible events alongside fabricated visual aids.

For their research, Hollanek and Nowaczyk-Basińska imagined three hyperreal scenarios of fictional individuals running into issues with various “postmortem presence” companies, and then made digital props like fake websites and phone screenshots. The researchers focused on three distinct demographics—data donors, data recipients, and service interactants. “Data donors” are the people upon whom an AI program is based, while “data recipients” are defined as the companies or entities that may possess the digital information. “Service interactants,” meanwhile, are the relatives, friends, and anyone else who may utilize a “deadbot” or “ghostbot.”

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Excerpt from www.hindustantimes.com

Despite his ongoing legal woes, Donald Trump is not shying away from social media rants. As Stormy Daniels gives her very explicit bombshell testimony in the hush money trial, Trump is directing his focus to Joe Biden. Taking to his social media platform, Truth Social, the former US president said that Biden is “leading the world straight into World War III.” Trump’s scathing remarks come amid Biden’s declaration that the US will not be providing weapons to Israel for attacking Rafah, Hamas’ last major stronghold in Gaza.

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Excerpt from newscenter.lbl.gov

The spin of the electron is nature’s perfect quantum bit, capable of extending the range of information storage beyond “one” or “zero.” Exploiting the electron’s spin degree of freedom (possible spin states) is a central goal of quantum information science.

Recent progress by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) researchers Joseph Orenstein, Yue Sun, Jie Yao, and Fanghao Meng has shown the potential of magnon wave packets – collective excitations of electron spins – to transport quantum information over substantial distances in a class of materials known as antiferromagnets. Their work upends conventional understanding about how such excitations propagate in antiferromagnets. The coming age of quantum technologies – computers, sensors, and other devices – depends on transmitting quantum information with fidelity, over distance.

With their discovery, reported in a paper published in Nature Physics, Orenstein and coworkers hope to have moved a step closer to these goals. Their research is part of broader efforts at Berkeley Lab to advance quantum information by working across the quantum research ecosystem, from theory to application, to fabricate and test quantum-based devices and develop software and algorithms.

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Excerpt from www.newscientist.com

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Excerpt from arstechnica.com

The United States Marine Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) is currently evaluating a new generation of robotic “dogs” developed by Ghost Robotics, with the potential to be equipped with gun systems from defense tech company Onyx Industries, reports The War Zone.

While MARSOC is testing Ghost Robotics’ quadrupedal unmanned ground vehicles (called “Q-UGVs” for short) for various applications, including reconnaissance and surveillance, it’s the possibility of arming them with weapons for remote engagement that may draw the most attention. But it’s not unprecedented: The US Marine Corps has also tested robotic dogs armed with rocket launchers in the past.

MARSOC is currently in possession of two armed Q-UGVs undergoing testing, as confirmed by Onyx Industries staff, and their gun systems are based on Onyx’s SENTRY remote weapon system (RWS), which features an AI-enabled digital imaging system and can automatically detect and track people, drones, or vehicles, reporting potential targets to a remote human operator that could be located anywhere in the world. The system maintains a human-in-the-loop control for fire decisions, and it cannot decide to fire autonomously.

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Excerpt from www.newscientist.com

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Excerpt from globalnews.ca

Ultra-processed foods, such as processed meat, fizzy drinks, ice cream and sugary cereals are linked to a higher risk of early death, according to a recent study.

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Excerpt from eandt.theiet.org

A new report has found that for the first time 30% of electricity produced worldwide came from renewable energy sources, predominantly solar and wind.

UK climate think tank Ember has published a report – Global Electricity Review 2024 – that analysed electricity data from 215 countries, as well as examining data from the highest carbon emitting countries and regions of the world.

It finds that renewables generated a record 30% of global electricity in 2023. From the analysis, 2023 saw a 23% growth in solar generation, 10% growth in wind generation and only a 0.8% growth in fossil generation.

“The renewables future has arrived. Solar, in particular, is accelerating faster than anyone thought possible,” said Dave Jones, Ember’s director of global insights.

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Excerpt from phys.org

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Excerpt from www.science20.com

After Chris Wild took over the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a UN-funded body in France that looks for statistical links between food/chemicals and cancer, they made a switch in their policies regarding participation; an epidemiologist who had ever consulted for industry could no longer vote on what to label a carcinogen.Even though it was hypocritical – epidemiologists working for trial lawyers or environmental groups were recruited – few inside IARC objected. Nor did anyone think they might. Environmental groups have manufactured an ethical halo so well that even their lawyers look like better people than other lawyers. They are, they assure us, poorly paid evangelists for health and safety against Evil Corporations.

Except none of that is true. For that ethical halo to be punctured even slightly, someone like Tom Girardi, who turned the “Erin Brockovich” case, trace levels of hexavalent chromium in Hinckley, California, into hundreds of millions of dollars for himself, has to engage in such spectacular fraud it gets attention. And even then his environmental shakedowns are minimized, though they were the same tactics he used against Pacific Gas  &  Electric.