Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and Fujitsu have developed a new way of searching through ‘chemical space’ for materials with desirable properties.

The technique has resulted in a promising new catalyst material that could help lower the cost of producing clean hydrogen.

The discovery represents an important step toward more sustainable ways of storing energy, including from renewable but intermittent sources, such as solar and wind power.

So we designed CAR-T cells to produce IL-2 using synNotch. Now, when a CAR-T cell encounters a tumor, it produces IL-2 within the tumor instead of outside it, avoiding causing harm to surrounding healthy cells. Because synNotch is able to bypass the barriers tumors put up, it is able to help T cells amp up and maintain the amount of IL-2 they can make, allowing the T cells to keep functioning even in a hostile microenvironment.

We tested our CAR-T cells modified with synNotch on mice with pancreatic cancer and melanoma. We found that CAR-T cells with synNotch-induced IL-2 were able to produce enough extra IL-2 to overcome the tumors’ defensive barriers and fully activate, completely eliminating the tumors. While all of the mice receiving synNotch modified CAR-T cells survived, none of the CAR-T-only mice did.

Continue reading “Anti-cancer CAR-T therapy reengineers T cells to kill tumors — and researchers are expanding the limited types of cancer it can target” »

Balancing management ability and technical expertise is an active debate in the software industry, where, depending on whom you ask, an engineering manager’s interest or ability to code is dependent on whether the team is able to operate without them. Scott Berkun, the author of “Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management,” told SD Times he believed the two disciplines were somewhat oppositional: “Coding requires intense uninterrupted concentration, while management requires dealing with constant interruptions and context switching.”

“Being able to do both is not something that a lot of people can do in practice.”

Berkun isn’t wrong — the incredible focus and discipline one must have to constantly write, test, and execute code in production are very different attributes to those of a manager. And just because someone is a high-performing employee doesn’t mean they can or should become a manager. Being in charge of employees is a unique skill that requires its own form of training and knowledge. Switching between producing valuable work for the company and leading a team of employees is not for everyone. As I’ve suggested before, the ratio of managers to the people they manage should be much larger if the manager isn’t doing the actual labor — but even then, the lack of practical experience will make it harder for them to be effective. But because the managerial class has become the only avenue for real advancement at many companies, many organizations end up with a jumble of disconnected or micromanaging bosses who aren’t right for the job.

When the paradise tree snake flies from one tall branch to another, its body ripples with waves like green cursive on a blank pad of blue sky. That movement, aerial undulation, happens in each glide made by members of the Chrysopelea family, the only known limbless vertebrates capable of flight. Scientists have known this, but have yet to fully explain it.

For more than 20 years, Jake Socha, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics at Virginia Tech, has sought to measure and model the biomechanics of snake flight and answer questions about them, like that of aerial undulation’s functional role. For a study published by Nature Physics, Socha assembled an interdisciplinary team to develop the first continuous, anatomically-accurate 3D mathematical model of Chrysopelea paradisi in flight.

The team, which included Shane Ross, a professor in the Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, and Isaac Yeaton, a recent mechanical engineering doctoral graduate and the paper’s lead author, developed the 3D model after measuring more than 100 live snake glides. The model factors in frequencies of undulating waves, their direction, forces acting on the body, and mass distribution. With it, the researchers have run virtual experiments to investigate aerial undulation.

Japan wants to get back into the leading-edge semiconductor business and very recently a new company was formed to reboot its semiconductor industry. The company is named Rapidus, referring to rapid production of new chips, a clear reference to how the company plans to differentiate its business from other foundries such as TSMC, Samsung, and Intel. The company has announced a partnership with IBM Research to develop IBM’s 2nm technology in fabs that Rapidus plans to build in Japan during the second part of this decade. Previously, Rapidus announced a collaboration with the Belgium-based microelectronics research hub IMEC on advanced semiconductor technologies. Imec is collaborative semiconductor research organization working the world’s major foundries, IDMs, fabless and fablite companies, material and tool suppliers, EDA companies and application developers.

The IBM process uses gate-all-around transistors — IBM refers to them as nano sheet FETs — which is the next generation of transistor design that enables device scaling beyond today’s FinFETs. The 2nm structures will require Rapidus to use ASML’s EUV manufacturing equipment. Business details with IBM were not disclosed, but there’s likely two parts to the deal: a cross-licensing agreement for the intellectual property necessary to build the product and a joint development agreement. While the announcement is nominally for IBM’s 2nm process, it likely includes a long-term commitment to build advanced semiconductor chips going beyond the 2nm process node.

Rapidus was formed by semiconductor veterans such as Rapidus President Atsuyoshi Koike, with backing by leading Japanese technology and financial firms, including Denso, Kioxia, Mitsubishi UFJ Bank, NEC, NTT, Softbank, Sony, and Toyota Motor. The Japanese government is also subsidizing Rapidus. The big change for Japan compared to prior national efforts is the collaboration with international organizations. It’s a recognition Japan cannot go it alone. This appears to be a fundamental change in Japanese attitudes. Building a fab in Japan will be helped by Japan’s strong manufacturing ecosystem of materials, equipment, and engineering talent.

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Sources & further reading:
https://sites.google.com/view/sources-mars-terraforming.

Continue reading “How To Terraform Mars — WITH LASERS” »

A large universal quantum computer is still an engineering dream, but machines designed to leverage quantum effects to solve specific classes of problems—such as D-wave’s computers—are alive and well. But an unlikely rival could challenge these specialized machines: computers built from purposely noisy parts.

This week at the IEEE International Electron Device Meeting (IEDM 2022), engineers unveiled several advances that bring a large-scale probabilistic computer closer to reality than ever before.

Quantum computers are unrivaled for any algorithm that relies on quantum’s complex amplitudes. “But for problems where the numbers are positive, sometimes called stochastic problems, probabilistic computing could be quite competitive,” says Supriyo Datta, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University and one of the pioneers of probabilistic computing.

The ability to integrate fiber-based quantum information technology into existing optical networks would be a significant step toward applications in quantum communication. To achieve this, quantum light sources must be able to emit single photons with controllable positioning and polarization and at 1.35 and 1.55 micrometer ranges where light travels at minimum loss in existing optical fiber networks, such as telecommunications networks. This combination of features has been elusive until now, despite two decades of research efforts.

Recently, two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors have emerged as a novel platform for next-generation photonics and electronics applications. Although scientists have demonstrated 2D quantum emitters operating at the visible regime, single-photon emission in the most desirable telecom bands has never been achieved in 2D systems.

To solve this problem, researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory developed a strain engineering protocol to deterministically create two-dimensional quantum light emitters with operating wavelength tunable across O and C telecommunication bands. The polarization of the emissions can be tuned with a magnetic field by harnessing the valley degree of freedom.

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In the future humanity may build enormous structures, feats of mega-engineering that may rival planets or even be of greater scope. This episode catalogs roughly 100 major types of Megastructure, from those that are cities in space to those that rival galaxies.

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