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Researchers have come up with a new and improved way to levitate objects using sound waves alone, an impressive feat of mixed-reality technology that could pave the way for some seriously futuristic hologram-like displays.

As seen in a new video, the researchers were able to levitate individual polystyrene beads and water particles inside a special enclosure, making them move in three dimensions by adjusting the output of hundreds of small speakers, set up in a grid.

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After a Sydney-based firm built the world’s first atomic-scale quantum integrated circuit.

Sydney-based firm Silicon Quantum Computing (SQC) built the first integrated silicon quantum computer circuit manufactured at the atomic scale, in what has been touted as a “major breakthrough” on the road to quantum supremacy, a press statement reveals.

The atomic-scale integrated circuit, which functions as an analog quantum processor, may be SQC’s biggest milestone since it announced in 2012 that it had built the world’s first single-atom transistor.

Microplastics are found nearly everywhere on Earth and can be harmful to animals if they’re ingested. But it’s hard to remove such tiny particles from the environment, especially once they settle into nooks and crannies at the bottom of waterways. Now, researchers in ACS’ Nano Letters have created a light-activated fish robot that “swims” around quickly, picking up and removing microplastics from the environment.

Because microplastics can fall into cracks and crevices, they’ve been hard to remove from aquatic environments. One solution that’s been proposed is using small, flexible and self-propelled robots to reach these pollutants and clean them up. But the traditional materials used for soft robots are hydrogels and elastomers, and they can be damaged easily in aquatic environments. Another material called mother-of-pearl, also known as nacre, is strong and flexible, and is found on the inside surface of clam shells. Nacre layers have a microscopic gradient, going from one side with lots of calcium carbonate mineral-polymer composites to the other side with mostly a silk protein filler. Inspired by this natural substance, Xinxing Zhang and colleagues wanted to try a similar type of gradient structure to create a durable and bendable material for soft robots.

The researchers linked β-cyclodextrin molecules to sulfonated graphene, creating composite nanosheets. Then solutions of the nanosheets were incorporated with different concentrations into polyurethane latex mixtures. A layer-by-layer assembly method created an ordered concentration gradient of the nanocomposites through the material from which the team formed a tiny fish robot that was 15-mm (about half-an-inch) long. Rapidly turning a near-infrared light laser on and off at a fish’s tail caused it to flap, propelling the robot forward. The robot could move 2.67 body lengths per second—a speed that’s faster than previously reported for other soft swimming robots and that is about the same speed as active phytoplankton moving in water. The researchers showed that the swimming fish robot could repeatedly adsorb nearby polystyrene microplastics and transport them elsewhere. The material could also heal itself after being cut, still maintaining its ability to adsorb microplastics.

Raytheon Intelligence & Space’s high-energy laser systems use photons, or particles of light, to carry out military missions and civil defense. This directed energy technology enables detection of threats, tracking during maneuvers, and positive visual identification to defeat a wide range of threats, including unmanned aerial systems, rockets, artillery and mortars.

Raytheon Intelligence & Space’s laser solutions are a set of technologies that use photons, or particles of light, to carry out military missions. They measure distance, designate targets and can defeat a wide range of threats, including UAS.

Inside NASA’s Cold Atom Lab, scientists form bubbles from ultracold gas, shown in pink in this illustration. Lasers, also depicted, are used to cool the atoms, while an atom chip, illustrated in gray, generates magnetic fields to manipulate their shape, in combination with radio waves.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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New scientific results confirm an anomaly seen in previous experiments, which may point to an as-yet-unconfirmed new elementary particle, the sterile neutrino, or indicate the need for a new interpretation of an aspect of standard model physics, such as the neutrino cross section, first measured 60 years ago. Los Alamos National Laboratory is the lead American institution collaborating on the Baksan Experiment on Sterile Transitions (BEST) experiment, results of which were recently published in the journals Physical Review Letters and Physical Review C.

“The results are very exciting,” said Steve Elliott, lead analyst of one of the teams evaluating the data and a member of the Los Alamos Physics division. “This definitely reaffirms the anomaly we’ve seen in previous experiments. But what this means is not obvious. There are now conflicting results about sterile neutrinos. If the results indicate fundamental nuclear or atomic physics are misunderstood, that would be very interesting, too.” Other members of the Los Alamos team include Ralph Massarczyk and Inwook Kim.

More than a mile underground in the Baksan Neutrino Observatory in Russia’s Caucasus Mountains, BEST used 26 irradiated disks of chromium 51, a synthetic radioisotope of chromium and the 3.4 megacurie source of electron neutrinos, to irradiate an inner and outer tank of gallium, a soft, silvery metal also used in previous experiments, though previously in a one-tank set-up. The reaction between the electron neutrinos from the chromium 51 and the gallium produces the isotope germanium 71.

According to Big Bang Theory, About 13.7 billion years ago, our entire universe existed as a singularity. It is really Difficult to imagine, how all the matter in the universe and space itself, existed in a form smaller than a subatomic particle.
But here, even more difficult question suddenly arises: What existed before the big bang?
Actually it doesn’t make any sense to ask, what happened before the big bang, as it is believed that time itself did not exist before the big bang!!! Space and time both were created after the big bang.
It is something like asking, what part of earth is north of the north pole. The north Pole is the most northern point on earth and so there is nowhere north of it.
But there is also possibility that something was there before the Big Bang happened
According to the “the big Bounce” theory, our universe is the recycled result of another universe, that dies and.
collapses in on itself. This collapsing universe would come back to a singularity before bouncing back out. It results in the big bang and a brand-new universe is again created.
But there is a problem with the big Bounce theory. Actually according to current observations, our universe is constantly expanding faster than ever before. But the big Bounce theory requires the universe to be contracted so that it can reach at the stage of singularity.
Another Possibility is of the parallel universe. According to this theory our universe is not the only Universe that exists. it is one of many universes in the Grand multiverse.
According to some scientists it may also be possible, our universe is at the other end of a black hole called a white hole.
A White hole has properties just opposite to that of the black hole.
In general relativity, a white hole is a hypothetical region of spacetime which cannot be entered from the outside, although matter and light can escape from it. In this sense it is the reverse of a black hole, which can only be entered from the outside from which matter and light cannot escape. Unlike black holes, white holes spew material into space rather than sucking material in.
All that we have discussed here, are the possibilities, what existed before the big bang. Actually we don’t really know, what really caused the big bang and what was present before it. Was there no space and time before Big Bang is also a mystery.

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Manufacturing with atoms has been the siren’s call for many researchers who believed it was the key that could unlock enormous new potential in how we build things. We could develop products that are perfectly precise, contain zero waste and that are 1000x more energy efficient. The problem has always been the same: How? Until now. Wolkow has taken a leading role in laying a new, stable foundation for the world to begin building on the tiniest of scales. Robert Wolkow is a Professor in the Department of Physics, iCORE Chair of Nanoscale Information and Communications Technology at the University of Alberta and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is also the Principal Research Officer and Nanoelectronics Program Coordinator at the NRC Nanotechnology Research Centre (NRC-NANO), AITF Industrial Chair in Atom Scale Fabrication and CTO of Quantum Silicon Inc.

An award-winning innovator, Wolkow has had a leading role in discovering, altering and deploying atom scale properties of silicon. His years of fundamental advances have laid a broad foundation for practical applications. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

Developed in collaboration with colleagues from China, Germany and Singapore, the new technology uses nanoparticles, so small that about 12,000 of them can fit within a cross-section of a human hair. These tiny particles are arranged into unique patterns on the slides.

Physicists at The Australian National University (ANU) have developed tiny translucent slides capable of producing two very different images by manipulating the direction in which light travels through them.

As light passes through the slide, an image of Australia can be seen, but when you flip the slide and look again, an image of the Sydney Opera House is visible. The pair of images created is just one example of an untapped number of possibilities.

Continue reading “Nanoparticles that control flow of light like road signs direct traffic” »