The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
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UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
22-03-2022
Israeli Drone and Robotics Companies Team to Introduce a Flying EOD Robot
Israeli Drone and Robotics Companies Team to Introduce a Flying EOD Robot
Heven Drones, a fast-growing Israeli drone technology company, has unveiled at ISDEF 2022 an integrated robotic solution combining an aerial multirotor and unmanned ground vehicle for land and air operation. Heven Drones and Roboteam, an Israeli tactical ground robotic systems provider, jointly developed the solution. The companies began working on the project responding to a specific requirement for defense and homeland security applications raised by a customer. They are now exploring additional use cases for land and air robots to maximize efficiency in other applications.
According to Bentzion Levinson, Heven Drone’s CEO, the new ‘flying robot’ can complete various tasks in the air and on the ground. “Our collaboration with Roboteam brings our vision one step closer with land and aerial robots working together to create a fully operational product that can complete tasks from the ground and the air.”
“This collaboration allows for one unmanned aerial & ground complete system for delivering a significant payload to the battlefield with Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) capabilities.” Matan Shirvi, Roboteam’s COO, said. “You can fly when you want to fly, drive when you want to drive, with one controller, one software, and one radio – a single interface for maximizing the operational range in the most difficult environments and complex terrains.”
The drone is fitted with a 30kg kit for this application that includes the MTGR, robot attachments, ramp, and toolbox supporting the MTGR. Photo: Defense-Update
The aerial platform selected for the combined solution uses Heven-Drones’ H100 Robo drone, a 71 kg Maximum takeoff weight drone that lifts a weight up to 30 kg for 36 minutes over a distance of 10 km. In its flying robot configuration, Roboteam’s Micro Tactical Ground Robot (MTGR) mounts the H-100 to hop over obstacles to land on rooftops or rapidly deploy to a location where it performs its mission. For this application, the drone is fitted with a 30kg kit that includes the MTGR, robot attachments, ramp, and toolbox supporting the MTGR, resulting in a first of a kind ‘flying robot’ that can be used which maximizes the time-to-lift capabilities of ground robots and flying robots.
In its flying robot configuration, Roboteam’s Micro Tactical Ground Robot (MTGR) can hop over obstacles to land on rooftops or rapidly deploy to a location where it performs its mission. Photo: Heven Drones
Heven Drones is an innovative drone solutions company that focuses on creating and commercializing multipurpose next-generation drone systems. Using proprietary technologies, the company makes fully customizable drones with superior stability, lifting capacities, and flight endurance. Founded in 2019 in Israel, Heven Drones rapidly expands into the global drone market.
Roboteam designs, develop, and manufactures cutting-edge, user-oriented, multipurpose unmanned platforms and controllers for Defense, Law Enforcement, and Public Safety missions. Their team includes dozens of highly experienced engineers dedicated to creating units that provide complete operational and tactical control, overall mission management, and enhanced force coordination.
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Israeli Drone and Robotics Companies Team to Introduce a Flying EOD Robot
Israeli Drone and Robotics Companies Team to Introduce a Flying EOD Robot
Defense-Update reports:
Heven Drones, a fast-growing Israeli drone technology company, has unveiled at ISDEF 2022 an integrated robotic solution combining an aerial multirotor and unmanned ground vehicle for land and air operation. The solution was jointly developed by Heven Drones and Roboteam, an Israeli tactical ground robotic systems provider. The companies began working on the project responding to a specific requirement for defense and homeland security applications raised by a customer. They are now exploring additional use cases for land and air robots to maximize efficiency in other applications.
Defense-Update.com provides a global coverage of military technology and defense news. Its monthly readership includes over 300,000 professionals worldwide
Some of Nikola’s facial action units (AUs). Row 1: (1) Inner brow raiser, (2) outer brow raiser, (4) brow lowerer, (5) upper lid raiser, (6) cheek raiser, (7) lid tightener. Row 2: (10) Upper lip raiser, (12) lip corner puller, (14) dimpler, (15) lip corner depressor, (16) lower lip depressor, (18) lip pucker. Row 3: (20) Lip stretcher, (22) lip funneler, (25) lips part, (26) jaw drop, (43) eyes closed. For AU 25, AU 25 + 26 is shown. Credit: RIKEN
Researchers from the RIKEN Guardian Robot Project in Japan have made an android child named Nikola that successfully conveys six basic emotions. The new study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, tested how well people could identify six facial expressions—happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust—which were generated by moving "muscles" in Nikola's face. This is the first time that the quality of android-expressed emotion has been tested and verified for these six emotions.
Rosie the robot maid was considered science fiction when she debuted on the Jetson's cartoon over 50 years ago. Although the reality of the helpful robot is currently more science and less fiction, there are still many challenges that need to be met, including being able to detect and express emotions. The recent study led by Wataru Sato from the RIKEN Guardian Robot Project focused on building a humanoid robot, or android, that can use its face to express a variety of emotions. The result is Nikola, an android head that looks like a hairless boy.
Inside Nikola's face are 29 pneumatic actuators that control the movements of artificial muscles. Another six actuators control head and eyeball movements. Pneumatic actuators are controlled by air pressure, which makes the movements silent and smooth. The team placed the actuators based on the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), which has been used extensively to study facial expressions. Past research has identified numerous facial action units—such as 'cheek raiser' and 'lip pucker'—that comprise typical emotions such as happiness or disgust, and the researchers incorporated these action units in Nikola's design.
Nikola the android expressing the six emotions. Pneumatic actuators move the 'muscles' in his face.
Credit: RIKEN
Typically, studies of emotions, particularly how people react to emotions, have a problem. It is difficult to do a properly controlled experiment with live people interacting, but at the same time, looking at photos or videos of people is less natural, and reactions aren't the same. "The hope is that with androids like Nikola, we can have our cake and eat it too," says Sato. "We can control every aspect of Nikola's behavior, and at the same time study live interactions." The first step was to see if Nikola's facial expressions were understandable.
A person certified in FACS scoring was able to identify each facial action unit, indicating that Nikola's facial movements accurately resemble those of a real human. A second test showed that everyday people could recognize the six prototypical emotions—happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust—in Nikola's face, albeit to varying accuracies. This is because Nikola's silicone skin is less elastic than real human skin and cannot form wrinkles very well. Thus, emotions like disgust were harder to identify because the action unit for nose wrinkling could not be included.
"In the short term, androids like Nikola can be important research tools for social psychology or even social neuroscience," says Sato. "Compared with human confederates, androids are good at controlling behaviors and can facilitate rigorous empirical investigation of human social interactions." As an example, the researchers asked people to rate the naturalness of Nikola's emotions as the speed of his facial movements was systematically controlled. They researchers found that the most natural speed was slower for some emotions like sadness than it was for others like surprise.
While Nikola still lacks a body, the ultimate goal of the Guardian Robot Project is to build an android that can assist people, particularly those which physical needs who might live alone. "Androids that can emotionally communicate with us will be useful in a wide range of real-life situations, such as caring for older people, and can promote human wellbeing," says Sato.
Wataru Sato et al, An Android for Emotional Interaction: Spatiotemporal Validation of Its Facial Expressions, Frontiers in Psychology (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.800657
Have you ever gotten emotional while texting? Was the emotion anger? Did that emotion cause you to do something you regretted later? To paraphrase an old meme, there’s a ‘bot for that. Specifically, engineers have developed a “handheld social robot” which they describe as a “mediator in text messaging between humans.” Does it work before the angry owner throws it against the wall?
“I’m sorry, I am late. The appointment slipped my mind. Can you wait another hour?”
How does that make you feel? That’s one of the questions researchers at Japan’s University of Tsukuba used to test OMOY — a handheld social robot developed to act as a buffer between an incoming text and the emotional response of the recipient. As he explains in the journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI, co-author and engineering professor Fumihide Tanaka says a text message has only written words to convey meaning – no facial expressions, vocal intonations, personal explanations or other means of controlling the emotional response of the receiver. Thus, what appears to be an upsetting message generates and upsetting or angry response that may be uncalled for.
Researchers at the University of Tsukuba create a handheld social robot that can appear to convey emotions by shifting an internal weight while reading out text messages, which may help improve digital interpersonal interactions.
Credit: University of Tsukuba
“(OMOY is) equipped with a movable weight actuated by mechanical components inside its body. By shifting the internal weight, the robot could express simulated emotions.”
Enter OMOY, the text message mediator. Instead of the recipient reading the text, OMOY reads it aloud and the recipient listens to the message. OMOY’s software then interprets the text message and gives a verbal opinion, a recommendation to stay calm, an expression of sympathy or some other response to control the recipient’s emotions. At the same time, the handheld robot makes physical movements which are designed to reinforce the calming response.
“The weight shift pattern used in this study makes the user feel strong intention of the robot.”
Ninety-four participants (51 males; 43 female) were recruited at the University of Tsukuba. Their level of anger caused by a text message was measured using ten questions with and without the OMOY mediator. The study found that with just the response and the movement of the weight shifts, most users perceived the ‘intention’ of the robot was to help them calm down and they did. This was done with a very simple robot – OMOY has no arms or legs or moveable face to make body gestures or facial expressions. Based on that, the study suggests the robot could be replaced in future tests with other handheld gadgets such as stuffed animals and cushions equipped with the movement mechanism.
Robot platform, named OMOY, used in this study. A 250 g tungsten weight is attached to the weight carrier unit, which allows the weight to move along a 2D planar space. We modified the weight carrier unit from the original version reported in Noguchi and Tanaka (2020): a linear guide rail and a Dynamixel motor were installed.
Credit: Frontiers in Robotics and AI (2022).
DOI: 10.3389/frobt.2022.790209
Can a simple handheld robot facilitate anger management during texting? Take a deep breath before responding.
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10-03-2022
How Small Can You Go? | RoboticsTomorrow
How Small Can You Go? | RoboticsTomorrow
Nanorobotics is about creating robots which are so small they are nearly invisible to the naked eye. Operating as a swarm, these tiny robots have the promise to do some really incredible things.
Nanorobots are so small that they actually interact on the same level as bacteria and viruses. Nanorobots or nanobots are measured in nanometers or a millionth of a millimeter. Nanobots are envisaged to be little machines, or tiny robots that rush around and do things like cleaning out blocked arteries or swimming through the ocean eating polluting chemicals.
Nanobots are no longer speculation, but unlike science fiction, they won't take over the world, at least, not yet. A hypothetical end of the world scenario involves molecular nanotechnology, in which out-of-control self- replicating robots consume all matter on Earth while building more of themselves because of a programming error.
Nanotechnology is an emerging field in robotics with a promise of different solutions to problems which have plagued mankind since our beginning. Nanobots can be one of the most important achievements humans have ever produced. Nanotechnology is the creation of microscopic objects, which are so small that they are constructed not with regular materials but with the very atomic building blocks of life. Nanorobotics is a part of this line of work, with its main focus on creating robots, which are so small they are nearly invisible to the naked eye. Operating as a swarm, these tiny robots have the promise to do some really incredible things.
There are various areas of science that can benefits from nanotechnology. These are medicine, environment, industrial manufacturing, and even warfare. The first real application in medicine will be in treating cancers. Nanobots are preferable to the existing means of fighting cancer because they can bring the medicine directly to the tumor, helping to avoid killing healthy cells along with the cancerous ones.
Nanobots, delivering a killing blow to cancer cells
Researchers from Columbia University announced a fleet of molecular nanobots that can deliver drugs to specific cells, and also identify certain genetic markers by using fluorescent labeling. This type of targeted therapeutic approach could prove beneficial, especially for cancer treatment, which presently sweeps up healthy cells along with malignant ones, very often doing more harm than good. We are about to see a new phase of pharmaceuticals where conventional drugs are incrementally replaced by nanodrugs.
In addition to cancer treatment, nanobots can potentially be used for other medical purposes, such as regulating diabetes. Diabetic patients have to test their blood several times daily to ensure stable glucose levels. Nanobots can be used to travel through patients’ bloodstreams and send data about glucose levels to external electronic sources. They could travel with the natural flow of the bloodstream, sensing blood sugar levels along the way.
Another potential application is the detection of toxic chemicals, and the measurement of their concentrations, in the environment. Since nanobots can change things at the molecular level, they could possibly solve our pollution troubles.
A swarm of nanobots released into the atmosphere could quickly set to work deconstructing the pollution molecules and turning them into harmless material, which could easily be eliminated from the air. These molecular scrubbers could remain in the air, cleaning, until the air was as fresh as it was eons ago.
The theoretical uses of nanobots are virtually endless, as their size would allow them to essentially rebuild matter. In this sense, properly programmed nanobots would be able to take raw materials and build them into anything, from proteins to foods to tiny microprocessors. If set up to do so, they could, in theory, build more nanobots, through the process of auto-replication. A small group of nanobots could quickly develop into a massive swarm, capable of large-scale projects.
A million nanobots can fit on the head of a pin.
The ability of nanobots to work on an atomic level has far reaching implications for industry as well. Industrial manufacturing requires many resources, equipment and manpower. This is due to the need to acquire resources, process them to a usable state and then assemble them into the products we use on a daily basis. Rather than building things piece by piece and then assembling the component parts, factories could employ nanotechnology to build complete products. Since they can use raw molecules, industrial nanobots would only need the most basic of raw materials to construct nearly anything. As long as they have enough raw materials, these factories could simply reprogram the nanobots to build something else. This would free them from the need to completely replace large portions of the factory just to change its output.
As nanoweapons, nanobots could be used for surveillance for the military, or for assassinations, even used to eat-up and destroy enemy armor. Inspired by colonies of bees, ants and locusts, army engineers are creating armies of nanobots, which are used to locate bombs, clean weaponry, or fly over remote regions of a battlefield. Each individual custom robot is quite basic, but the combined activity in the entire swarm is way more complex. The entire army of robots can be considered as one single customized system, just like a bee colony can be considered a super organism, exhibiting swarm intelligence.
The Nano-Hummingbird is a flying robot created through a program sponsored by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) that is meant to be used in future indoor and outdoor surveillance missions. DARPA requested a remote controlled nanobot that can fly, hover, move forward and backward and be controlled without an external power source. DARPA specifically asked AeroVironment to create a flying robot that had the body and wings of a bird. What better bird to use than the agile and tiny hummingbird?
AeroVironment employed biomimicry at a very small scale to create the nanobot, which flies just like the real thing. It can travel forward at eleven miles an hour; and resist a wind gust of 5 mph while hovering without being thrown more than three feet off track, and it can be controlled by a distant operator using only the information from an on-board camera.
Molecular nanotechnology (MNT), the umbrella science of nanomedicine, envisions nanobots manufactured in nanofactories no larger than the average desktop printer. The nanofactories would use nano-scale tools capable of constructing nanobots to exacting specifications. The design, shape, size and type of atoms, molecules, and computerized components included would be task-specific. Raw material for making the nanobots would be nearly cost-free, and the process virtually pollution-free, making nanobots an extremely affordable and highly attractive technology.
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THIS ROBOT IS SO TINY YOU COULD FIT TEN OF THEM ON A SINGLE PERIOD
THIS ROBOT IS SO TINY YOU COULD FIT TEN OF THEM ON A SINGLE PERIOD
ITS CREATORS HOPE THE MICROSCOPIC BOT WILL CRAWL AROUND INSIDE YOUR BODY TO FIGHT CANCER.
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
Jitterbug
A team of Cornell University scientists developed a new robot — so small that it’s invisible to the naked eye — that they hope will someday crawl around inside the human body and hunt for disease.
The robots themselves are little more than microchips attached to four origami-inspired legs, BBC News reports. But their simplicity — the engineers can manufacture 1 million of the bots every week, each one steered by beaming a laser at its feet — gives the team hope that they’ll become a useful medical tool. BBC News published a video of the robots wiggling around, and it’s highly recommended.
New Legs
The hardest part, the team told BBC News, wasn’t necessarily building a microscopic robot, but rather giving such a tiny machine a way to actually move around.
“People have become very good at shrinking computer chips to microscopic dimensions,” Cornell physicist Itai Cohen told BBC News. “The problem was that there weren’t any legs that would work at that scale that could connect to these microchips. We invented a new technology [that’s] essentially the legs for these robotic brains.”
Hunter Killers
So far, the team is celebrating the tiny robots as an achievement and development all of their own. But someday, Cohen hopes that they could serve as medical devices that root around for signs of disease.
“You could imagine having these as little microsurgery devices,” he told the BBC. “You inject these robots in, they locally track down either bacteria or maybe a tumor cell and then they go snip it up and destroy it.”
Barcelona-based startup Kreios Space wants to unleash the potential of very low Earth orbit (VLEO) satellite missions.
Its secret weapon? The company is developing a fuel-free propulsion system that enables satellites to orbit much closer to Earth.
"Right now, very low Earth orbit is an unused orbit simply because of the lack of propulsion systems capable of staying in this orbit," Jan Mataró, Kreios Space CTO told IE in an interview at the Mobile World Congress. "But it could allow for a huge increase in the resolution for both telecommunications and earth observation."
What is very low Earth orbit?
VLEO is roughly defined as any orbit in the range between 95 miles to 250 miles of altitude. As a point of reference, the Kármán Line, which some define as the boundary of space, is about 65 miles high. Most satellite missions currently operate at about 370 miles or much higher, where they can maintain an orbit that keeps them rotating around Earth with minimal thrust.
Operations in VLEO can provide substantial benefits, according to Kreios Space, but it is currently an unexploited orbit due to the fact that constant thrust is needed to prevent satellites from deorbiting because of the atmospheric drag effect at this relatively low altitude.
With current technologies, this constant orbital correction would simply be too costly, but Kreios Space thinks it has the solution — and it's one that could also help with the growing problem of space debris. Called ABEP, which stands for Air-Breathing Electric Propulsion, the company's system works by absorbing air to generate plasma, which is then accelerated through an IPT thruster and electromagnetic nozzle. And yes, there is still some air in the altitude at which ABEP will operate. The team at Kreios Space believes its system will lower the costs of VLEO operations enough to make them feasible.
There's no space debris in VLEO
But what are the main benefits of operating in VLEO? "Descending to VLEO would provide two major improvements," Mataró told IE. "The first one is a massive increase in resolution for satellite images, and the second comes from the fact that space debris does not accumulate at this altitude."
To be precise, Kreios Space says operating in VLEO will allow a 16x increase in resolution for Earth observation and telecommunications satellites. What's more, the firm claims its system "doesn't produce space debris" as satellites operating at such a low orbit will have to eventually make a planned deorbit. "When the satellite's lifetime is finished," Mataró said, "it will simply deorbit and disintegrate." More often than not, satellites are placed into a graveyard orbit at the end of their lifetime, which has resulted in a massive accumulation of orbital space debris over the years — according to the European Space Agency, there are approximately 98,000 tonnes worth of space objects currently hurtling around the planet.
According to a statement provided to IE, Kreios Space said it aims to have the first complete functional ABEP system ready by 2024. To do that, they hope to raise €2.5 million (approx. $2.7 million) over two upcoming investment rounds.
If Kreios Space — which is composed of six co-founding engineers from Barcelona — achieves its goal of making constant orbital corrections at such a low orbit affordable, it will open up a whole new avenue for satellite operators. This would reduce the cost of high-resolution images, making them more accessible to all. It would be of massive benefit to the scientific community, which is more reliant than ever on Earth observation.
Correction 09/03/22: An earlier version of this article incorrectly cited geostationary orbit and pointed to the effect of gravity on satellites as opposed to atmospheric drag. This was corrected.
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08-03-2022
WATCH AN AI TURN MUSIC INTO A BRAIN-MELTING VISUALIZATION
WATCH AN AI TURN MUSIC INTO A BRAIN-MELTING VISUALIZATION
"THE AI DOES NOT FULLY CREATE THE WORK, AND NEITHER DO I. IT IS VERY MUCH A COLLABORATION."
XANDER STEENBRUGGE
Neural Synesthesia
Synesthesia is the rare condition when our senses melt together — some say they can hear colors, others that they can taste words.
But what if we let the senses of an artificial intelligence overlap instead? Belgium-based machine learning researcher and educator Xander Steenbrugge has developed a neural network that can turn music into trippy visualizations.
It’s an impressive example of the synthesis between human-created artforms and AI algorithms.
Making Music
Steenbrugge’s project, called “Neural Synesthesia,” makes use of a generative adversarial network.
“This project is an attempt to explore new approaches to audiovisual experience based on Artificial Intelligence,” wrote Steenbrugge in a description of his project. ” I do not create these works, I co-create them with the AI models that I bring to life.”
First, Steenbrugge feeds an AI algorithm a basic dataset of images, then trains the model to replicate their visual style. Finally he allows the AI to twist and blend the visuals based on parameters Steenbrugge pulls out of different audio sources using a “custom feature extraction pipeline.”
“The AI does not fully create the work, and neither do I. It is very much a collaboration,” adds Steenbrugge.
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SCIENTISTS CREATE JET ENGINE POWERED BY ONLY ELECTRICITY
SCIENTISTS CREATE JET ENGINE POWERED BY ONLY ELECTRICITY
THE PROTOTYPE DEVICE DOESN'T USE ANY FOSSIL FUELS TO GENERATE THRUST.
PIXABAY/VICTOR TANGERMANN
Clean Air
A prototype jet engine can propel itself without using any fossil fuels, potentially paving the way for carbon-neutral air travel.
The device compresses air and ionizes it with microwaves, generating plasma that thrusts it forward, according to research published Tuesday in the journal AIP Advances. That means planes may someday fly using just electricity and the air around them as fuel.
Scaling Up
There’s a long way to go between a proof-of-concept prototype and installing an engine in a real plane. But the prototype was able to launch a one-kilogram steel ball 24 millimeters into the air. That’s the same thrust, proportional to scale, as a conventional jet engine.
“Our results demonstrated that such a jet engine based on microwave air plasma can be a potentially viable alternative to the conventional fossil fuel jet engine,” lead researcher and Wuhan University engineer Jau Tang said in a press release.
Air Jet
Air travel represents a small but not insignificant portion factor of climate change. The New York Timesreported in September that commercial air is responsible for 2.5 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions — though that excludes military jets.
“The motivation of our work is to help solve the global warming problems owing to humans’ use of fossil fuel combustion engines to power machinery, such as cars and airplanes,” Tang said in the release. “There is no need for fossil fuel with our design, and therefore, there is no carbon emission to cause greenhouse effects and global warming.”
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Scientists Create “Strange Metal” Packed With Entangled Electrons
Scientists Create “Strange Metal” Packed With Entangled Electrons
This could be the key to creating quantum technologies.
Image by Ahmed Neutron/Victor Tangermann
An international team of researchers has created what’s called a “strange metal” — and they say it could help harness the potential of the quantum world in a practical way.
Specifically, the metal provides evidence for the quantum entanglement nature of quantum criticality. But that’s a lot to unpack, so let’s start with something most of us probably learned about in elementary school: phase transitions.
We see evidence of classical phase transitions all the time — the ice in our drinks melts into a liquid at a certain temperature, for example, while the water we boil evaporates into a gas at another.
Simple enough.
Well, materials in the quantum world also undergo phase transitions under the right conditions, and when a quantum material is capable of transitioning from one phase to another, it’s called a state of “quantum criticality” — which brings us back to this new study, published this week in the journal Science.
Researchers Create "Strange Metal" Packed With Entangled Electrons
The researchers used the elements ytterbium, rhodium, and silicon to create a “strange metal,” a type of metal in which the electrons act as a unit rather than independently like they would in a regular metal, such as copper or gold.
When at the lowest temperature theoretically possible — absolute zero, or -273.15 degrees Celsius (-459.67 degrees Fahrenheit) — the team’s strange metal undergoes a transition from a quantum phase, in which it forms a magnetic order, to another phase in which is doesn’t.
While conducting experiments on ultrapure films made from the metal, the team noticed quantum entanglement among billions of billions of electrons in it.
So, why is this observation important? It could help in our efforts to create quantum technologies.
“Quantum entanglement is the basis for storage and processing of quantum information,” researcher Qimiao Si of Rice University said in a press release. “At the same time, quantum criticality is believed to drive high-temperature superconductivity. So our findings suggest that the same underlying physics — quantum criticality — can lead to a platform for both quantum information and high-temperature superconductivity.”
“When one contemplates that possibility,” he added, “one cannot help but marvel at the wonder of nature.”
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06-03-2022
THIS “QUANTUM BATTERY” NEVER LOSES ITS CHARGE
THIS “QUANTUM BATTERY” NEVER LOSES ITS CHARGE
THE BATTERIES OF THE FUTURE COULD EXPLOIT QUANTUM PHYSICS.
BERNDTHALLER/VICTOR TANGERMANN
Quantum Battery
A team of scientists from the universities of Alberta and Toronto have laid out the blueprints for a “quantum battery” that never loses its charge.
To be clear, this battery doesn’t exist yet — but if they figure out how to build it, it could be a revolutionary breakthrough in energy storage.
“The batteries that we are more familiar with — like the lithium-ion battery that powers your smartphone — rely on classical electrochemical principles, whereas quantum batteries rely solely on quantum mechanics,” University of Alberta chemist Gabriel Hanna said in a statement.
Dark State
A paper describing the research was published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C. in July. The battery works by harnessing the power of “excitonic energy” — the state in which an electron absorbs sufficiently charged photons of light.
The researchers found that their resulting battery model should be “highly robust to energy losses,” thanks to the fact that their battery is prepared inside a “dark state” where it cannot exchange energy — by absorbing or releasing photons — with its surroundings.
Large Charge
By breaking down this “dark state” quantum network, the researchers claim the battery could be able to discharge and release energy in the process.
But the team has yet to come up with viable ways of doing so. They will also have to figure out a way to scale the technology for real-world applications as well.
Researchers and scientists spoke to The Daily Beast this week to express horror at Musk’s goal of connecting human brains to computers. Ultimately, at the heart of their trepidation is the infusion of Big Tech into the human mind.
“I don’t think there is sufficient public discourse on what the big picture implications of this kind of technology becoming available are,” Dr. Karola Kreitmair, assistant professor of medical history and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, told the website.
“I worry that there’s this uncomfortable marriage between a company that is for-profit,” she added.
Indeed, the ethics surrounding technology such as the Neuralink is uncharted territory. As such, many are concerned about how these products — ostensibly meant to help those with disabilities — can ultimately be exploited for profit.
“If the ultimate goal is to use the acquired brain data for other devices, or use these devices for other things — say, to drive cars, to drive Teslas — then there might be a much, much bigger market,” Dr. L. Syd Johnson, associate professor at the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University, told the Daily Beast.
“But then all those human research subjects — people with genuine needs — are being exploited and used in risky research for someone else’s commercial gain,” she continued.
Kreitmair echoed the sentiment. While she believes that the technology could be “life-changing” for paralyzed people, she told the Daily Beast that its potential for consumer uses “raises such a slew of ethical concerns.”
Some experts are also worried that Musk is nothing but a carnival barker who’ll say anything and stop at nothing to make a buck — which, well, fair. He’s been known to make lofty promises before only to grossly underdeliver before. Who’s to say Neuralink won’t be the same?
“With these companies and owners of companies, they’re kind of showmen,” Dr. Laura Cabrera, a neuroethics researcher at Penn State, told the Beast. “They’ll make these hyperbolic claims, and I think that’s dangerous, because I think people sometimes believe it blindly.”
She later added, “I’m always cautious about what [Elon Musk] says.”
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05-03-2022
MIT STARTUP DRILLING 12 MILES INTO THE EARTH TO SUCK OUT ENERGY
MIT STARTUP DRILLING 12 MILES INTO THE EARTH TO SUCK OUT ENERGY
OKAY, THAT'S KINDA AWESOME.
GETTY IMAGES/FUTURISM
Fusion Drilling
An MIT spinoff has locked down significant funding for a literally groundbreaking project: using fusion power tech to drill 12 miles into the Earth and harvest the immense energy down there.
The startup is called Quaise, and it picked up $40 million in series A funding last month, according to a press release. It says the money is going toward its efforts to leverage fusion technology to drill one of the deepest holes of all time. If it proves viable, it could give humans access to nearly limitless and clean geothermal energy.
That’s right. Fusion drilling.
“We need a massive amount of carbon-free energy in the coming decades,” Mark Cupta, managing director at Prelude Ventures and one of the investors in the company, said in the release.
“Quaise Energy offers one of the most resource-efficient and nearly infinitely scalable solutions to power our planet,” he added. “It is the perfect complement to our current renewable solutions, allowing us to reach baseload sustainable power in a not so distant future.”
Potential Gamechanger
Aside from being just kinda awesome in a sci-fi-sounding way, using fusion tech to dig these ultra-deep holes could offer a number of notable benefits. For one, traditional drill bits are limited with how far they can go before the hot temperatures, gasses, and liquids prevent them from going further.
However, Quaise would use a machine called a gyrotron, which is typically used to create millimeter electromagnetic waves to superheat plasma in fusion reactors. Instead of plasma, though, the startup would point at the ground — and drill into it using energy beams.
The tech has the potential to take drilling to a depth we’ve never seen before. In theory, this could also allow people to access geothermal power from the Earth no matter where they are in the world.
Of course, this tech still has a long way to go. Quaise is slated to launch its first full-scale demonstration machines in 2024, with its first commercial operation by 2026. Plus, there’s a good chance that hiccups like running out of funding or pesky supply chain issues could prevent this from ever actually launching.
Still, the idea of a fusion drill tapping into the Earth for bountiful, clean energy is pretty dope.
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03-03-2022
Quantum Gravity Sensor Breakthrough Paves Way for Groundbreaking Map of World Under Earth’s Surface
Quantum Gravity Sensor Breakthrough Paves Way for Groundbreaking Map of World Under Earth’s Surface
ByUNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
A perspective of future gravity cartography being used with 0.5 m spatial resolution over a region, at an uncertainty level of 20 E. Expected signal sizes for a range of applications are shown.
Credit: Stray et al. 2022 Nature DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04315-3
An object hidden below ground has been located using quantum technology — a long-awaited milestone with profound implications for industry, human knowledge, and national security.
University of Birmingham researchers from the UK National Quantum Technology Hub in Sensors and Timing have reported their achievement in Nature. It is the first in the world for a quantum gravity gradiometer outside of laboratory conditions.
The quantum gravity gradiometer, which was developed under a contract for the Ministry of Defence and in the UKRI-funded Gravity Pioneer project, was used to find a tunnel buried outdoors in real-world conditions one meter below the ground surface. It wins an international race to take the technology outside.
The sensor works by detecting variations in microgravity using the principles of quantum physics, which is based on manipulating nature at the sub-molecular level.
The success opens a commercial path to significantly improved mapping of what exists below ground level.
This will mean:
Reduced costs and delays to construction, rail, and road projects.
Improved prediction of natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions.
Discovery of hidden natural resources and built structures.
Understanding archaeological mysteries without damaging excavation.
Professor Kai Bongs, Head of Cold Atom Physics at the University of Birmingham and Principal Investigator of the UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing, said: “This is an ‘Edison moment’ in sensing that will transform society, human understanding, and economies.
“With this breakthrough we have the potential to end reliance on poor records and luck as we explore, build and repair. In addition, an underground map of what is currently invisible is now a significant step closer, ending a situation where we know more about Antarctica than what lies a few feet below our streets.”
Current gravity sensors are limited by a range of environmental factors. A particular challenge is vibration, which limits the measurement time of all gravity sensors for survey applications. If these limitations can be addressed, surveys can become faster, more comprehensive, and lower cost.
How the quantum gravity sensor works
The quantum gravity sensor measures subtle changes in the pulling strength of gravitational fields when a cloud of atoms is dropped. The bigger the object and the greater the difference in density of the object from its surroundings, the stronger the measurable difference in pull. But vibration, instrument tilt and disruption from magnetic and thermal fields have made turning quantum theory into commercial reality challenging. The Birmingham quantum sensor breakthrough is the first to meet these real-world challenges and perform a high spatial resolution survey. The removal of noise due to vibration will unlock gravity mapping at high spatial resolution.
The sensor developed by Dr. Michael Holynski, Head of Atom Interferometry at Birmingham and lead author of the study, and his team at Birmingham is a gravity gradiometer. Their system overcomes vibration and a variety of other environmental challenges in order to successfully apply quantum technology in the field.
The successful detection, realized in collaboration with civil engineers led by Professor Nicole Metje of the School of Engineering, is the culmination of a long-term development program that has been closely linked to end-users from its outset.
This breakthrough will allow future gravity surveys to be cheaper, more reliable, and delivered 10 times faster, reducing the time needed for surveys from a month to a few days. It has the potential to open a range of new applications for gravity survey, providing a new lens into the underground.
Professor George Tuckwell, Director for Geoscience and Engineering at RSK, said: “Detection of ground conditions such as mine workings, tunnels, and unstable ground is fundamental to our ability to design, construct and maintain housing, industry, and infrastructure. The improved capability that this new technology represents could transform how we map the ground and deliver these projects”
Dr. Gareth Brown, joint Project Technical Authority for Quantum Sensing and Senior Principal Scientist at Dstl, said: “For national Defence and Security, accurate and rapid measurements of variations in microgravity open up new opportunities to detect the otherwise undetectable and navigate more safely in challenging environments. As gravity sensing technology matures, applications for underwater navigation and revealing the subterranean will become possible.”
Reference: “Quantum sensing for gravity cartography” by Ben Stray, Andrew Lamb, Aisha Kaushik, Jamie Vovrosh, Anthony Rodgers, Jonathan Winch, Farzad Hayati, Daniel Boddice, Artur Stabrawa, Alexander Niggebaum, Mehdi Langlois, Yu-Hung Lien, Samuel Lellouch, Sanaz Roshanmanesh, Kevin Ridley, Geoffrey de Villiers, Gareth Brown, Trevor Cross, George Tuckwell, Asaad Faramarzi, Nicole Metje, Kai Bongs and Michael Holynski, 23 February 2022, Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04315-3
The breakthrough is a collaboration between the University of Birmingham, environmental, engineering and sustainability solutions provider RSK, Dstl (the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, part of the UK Ministry of Defence), and technology company Teledyne e2v. The project is funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) as part of the UK National Quantum Technologies Program and under contract from the Ministry of Defence.
Theoretical inventions known as the “UFO patents” have been inflaming worldwide curiosity. A product of the American engineer Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais, the patents were filed during his work for the U.S. Navy and are so ambitious in their scope and imagination that they continue to draw interest despite any clear evidence that they are feasible. The patents include designs for a futuristic hybrid vehicle with a radical propulsion system that would work equally well in the air, underwater, and in space, as well as a compact fusion reactor, a gravitational wave generator, and even a “spacetime modification weapon”. The technology involved could impact reality itself, claims its inventor, whose maverick audacity rivals that of Nikola Tesla.
The patents
How real are these ideas? While you can read the patents for yourself, it's evident that the tech necessary to actually create the devices described is beyond our current capabilities. Yet research into many of these fields has gone on for years, which may explain why the Navy expressed an interest. Another likely influence is the fact that the Chinese government seems to be working to develop similar technology.
One of the most attention-grabbing designs by Dr. Pais is the2018 patent for a cone-shaped craft of unprecedented range and speed. The amazing vehicle would be able to zoom around with ease both high in the air and deep in the sea. It would travel through air, water, and space by generating a quantum vacuum with an energy field. This vacuum around its body would help it push away any molecules it encounters, regardless of the medium. The craft would also not leave any heat signature, making it virtually undetectable. Controlling the “quantum field fluctuations” in the vacuum would counteract inertia and resistance, resulting in “extreme speeds.” Reducing a craft’s inertial and gravitational mass in this way could be transformational for space travel. It sounds like an enticing design. However, as noted, it’s not something we could actually create with current technologies.
Another futuristic patent with far-reaching ramifications is Pais’ Plasma Compression Fusion Device. It would be relatively small, less than two meters in length, and house fusion reactions generating power in the gigawatt (one billion watts) to terawatt (one trillion watts) range. By comparison, a coal plant or a nuclear reactor generate energy in the one to two-gigawatt range.
Notes from researchers who worked on vetting Pais’ ideas indicate that a possible outcome of the plasma fusion device and the high energy levels it may generate is the "Spacetime Modification Weapon” (SMW). Research documents refer to it as “a weapon that can make the Hydrogen bomb seem more like a firecracker, in comparison."
Research notes from Navy’s experiments with Pais’s plasma fusion device. Source:FOIA / Department of Navy / The Drive
Among Pais’s other inventions with military applications is a patent for an electromagnetic field generator. It could create “an impenetrable defensive shield to sea and land as well as space-based military and civilian assets” which would be used against ballistic and cruise missiles that avoid radars and other defenses. The shield would also be a barrier against dangers from space like coronal mass ejections and wayward asteroids.
Pais’s electromagnetic field generator consists of a shell, an electrostatic generator, a power plant, a thermoelectric generator, and an electric motor.Source: Salvatore Pais / U.S Department of Navy
Another device that could deflect asteroids is the high-frequency gravitational wave generator conceived by Pais. It would work to intersect generated electromagnetic fields and create waves of gravity. These could be used to propel spaceships to the far reaches of the galaxy, among other uses.
The Pais Effect
The fantastical inventions devised by Dr. Pais largely build upon an idea that he calls “The Pais Effect.” In his patent write-ups and in an interview with The Drive, he described it as “the generation of extremely high electromagnetic energy fluxes (and hence high local energy densities) generated by controlled motion of electrically charged matter (from solid to plasma states) subjected to accelerated vibration and/or accelerated spin, via rapid acceleration transients.”
This effect amounts to the ability to spin electromagnetic fields to contain a fusion reaction. The electromagnetic energy fields would be so powerful that they could “engineer the fabric of our reality at the most fundamental level,” writes Pais.
In practical terms, this invention could lead to a veritable revolution in propulsion, quantum communications, and create an abundance of cheaply-produced energy. Certainly, an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence, as posits the Sagan standard.
The critics
The assertions by Dr. Pais have drawn a fair share of criticism and incredulity from fellow scientists. The nuclear engineer and researcher Carl Willis, who is also a reactor supervisor at the University of New Mexico, called Dr. Pais’s work, "a classic case of pathological science" that’s heavy on jargon and ”nonsensical statements” while providing little evidence that his ideas, which seem to contradict established physics, can bear fruit.
Physicist Stephen Webb of the University of Portsmouth in England was equally blunt, saying that, “I find it puzzling frankly that the patents were awarded.“ He called Pais’s ideas a, “wonderful wish list of things that we want,” which, “doesn’t make sense in terms of physics.”
Dr. Charles Collett, who teaches Physics at Muhlenberg College, did acknowledge that in theory, the Pais Effect may not be “outlandish” but in practice, there are "significant engineering challenges” in fashioning a device that would be able to produce the kind of electromagnetic forces Dr. Pais envisions in his patents.
The trials
Despite the well-founded unease at Dr. Pais’s inventions, the Navy took them seriously enough to run experiments for three years and even found some of them “operable”, although the extent of that alleged operability is under debate. In the patent documents, two Navy officials seemed to assert the operability of the inventions.
Furthermore, in correspondence with The Drive’s “War Zone,” Timothy Boulay of NAWCAD, stated that Pais’s High Energy Electromagnetic Field Generator was, in fact, tested from 2016 until 2019, at a cost of $508,000. The team working on the project consisted of at least 10 technicians and engineers and put in some 1,600 hours of work. But upon the conclusion of the testing, the Pais Effect “could not be proven,” shared Boulay.
What happened subsequently with the tested device and further investigations is not known at this point. There are indications in documents obtained by The Drive’s WarZone through the Freedom of Information Act that the inventions could be moved to another research department in the Navy or the Air Force, or possibly even to NASA or DARPA, but whether that really happened is not clear.
Pais's Electromagnetic Field Generator tested by the Navy researchers. Source: FOIA / U.S. Navy / The Drive
Who is Dr. Pais?
As a creator of such potentially pioneering designs, Dr. Pais has understandably drawn scrutiny from internet denizens and skeptical scientists but as he rarely gives interviews (partially due to classified research for the military), he has remained largely enigmatic.
His author bio in a 2019 concept paper on the Plasma Compression Fusion Device, published by the peer-reviewed engineering journal IEEE Transactions on Plasma Sciences, provides some clues. The paper proposes a compact plasma compression fusion device that seeks to generate tremendous energy through nuclear fusion and describes Dr. Pais as a mechanical and aerospace engineer who currently works for the Navy’s Strategic Systems Programs (SSP) in the Department of Defense in Washington, DC. According to its website, the SSP is “the Nation's premier provider of cost-effective, safe and secure sea-based strategic deterrent systems and related technologies.” It works to develop advanced submarines and weapons for the stated mission “to prevent nuclear war.”
Photo: Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais. Source: Pais / IEEE.
Dr. Pais’s education includes a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio and his prior credentials include work as a NASA Research Fellow, working for the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) in Maryland, and work as a general engineer as well as an advanced concept analyst for Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, one of the world’s top companies for next-generation aerospace and defense technologies.
Dr. Pais, claims the bio, utilizes his “advanced knowledge” in aerodynamics, with particular expertise in designing hypersonic missiles and vehicles. His wide-ranging research interests also extend to electrical engineering, room temperature conductivity, and new quantum technologies with a concentration on laser power generation and high-energy electromagnetic field generation.
The inventor’s credentials are definitely impressive. Did he come up with devices that not only defy known physics and physicists but will radically change our life through limitless energy and high-speed all-medium vehicles? Time will tell, but in his exchanges with The Drive, Dr. Pais stands by his technological visions and asks the skeptics to “try to keep an open mind in regard to my work.”
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25-02-2022
STARTUP TURNS “UNRECYCLABLE” PLASTIC INTO GIANT, INDESTRUCTIBLE CONSTRUCTION BRICKS
STARTUP TURNS “UNRECYCLABLE” PLASTIC INTO GIANT, INDESTRUCTIBLE CONSTRUCTION BRICKS
THIS SOUNDS MILDLY INGENIOUS.
BYFUSION
Block Heads
What if we told you that you could construct entire buildings out of trashed plastic bags and water bottles?
That future may be closer than you think, thanks to new tech from ByFusion Global, an LA-based startup that’s developed a way for governments, companies, and communities to recycle previously “unrecyclable plastics” into huge, virtually indestructible bricks.
Known as “ByBlocks,” the cinderblockish bricks are made using a steam-based compacting method that, per ByFusion’s website, “does not require any chemicals, additives, adhesives, or fillers.” The lego-like bricks made by the ByFusion process are said to be construction-grade and indestructible.
Plastic Urgency
In an interview with Waste360, ByFusion CEO Heidi Kujawa said that the company received a Dow grant and has partnered with the Hefty trash bag company’s EnergyBag recycling program to run a pilot program in Boise, Idaho that will give the community access to the Blocker system.
Along with providing the tech, the pilot program is slated to help Boise residents divert up to 72 tons of otherwise unrecyclable plastics from the local landfill and has already used the blocks to build a bench in a city park, with more planned structures set to built in the coming years.
Though there’s certainly room for criticism of the startup’s partnership with a company that manufactures plastic bags and an organization integral to the not-so-green financial industry, there’s no harm in ByFusion taking their money.
And one thing’s for sure: whoever figures out a way to implement this kind of system on a mass scale deserves the Nobel Prize.
An object hidden below ground has been located using quantum technology—a long-awaited milestone with profound implications for industry, human knowledge and national security.
University of Birmingham researchers from the UK National Quantum Technology Hub in Sensors and Timing have reported their achievement in Nature. It is the first in the world for a quantum gravity gradiometer outside of laboratory conditions.
The quantum gravity gradiometer, which was developed under a contract for the Ministry of Defense and in the UKRI-funded Gravity Pioneer project, was used to find a tunnel buried outdoors in real-world conditions one meter below the ground surface. It wins an international race to take the technology outside.
The sensor works by detecting variations in microgravity using the principles of quantum physics, which is based on manipulating nature at the sub-molecular level.
The success opens a commercial path to significantly improved mapping of what exists below ground level.
This will mean:
Reduced costs and delays to construction, rail and road projects.
Improved prediction of natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions.
Discovery of hidden natural resources and built structures.
Understanding archaeological mysteries without damaging excavation.
Professor Kai Bongs, head of cold atom physics at the University of Birmingham and principal investigator of the UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing, said: "This is an 'Edison moment' in sensing that will transform society, human understanding and economies.
"With this breakthrough we have the potential to end reliance on poor records and luck as we explore, build and repair. In addition, an underground map of what is currently invisible is now a significant step closer, ending a situation where we know more about Antarctica than what lies a few feet below our streets."
Current gravity sensors are limited by a range of environmental factors. A particular challenge is vibration, which limits the measurement time of all gravity sensors for survey applications. If these limitations can be addressed, surveys can become faster, more comprehensive and lower cost.
The sensor developed by Dr. Michael Holynski, Head of Atom Interferometry at Birmingham and lead author of the study, and his team at Birmingham is a gravity gradiometer. Their system overcomes vibration and a variety of other environmental challenges in order to successfully apply quantum technology in the field.
The successful detection, realized in collaboration with civil engineers led by Professor Nicole Metje of the School of Engineering, is the culmination of a long-term development program that has been closely linked to end-users from its outset.
This breakthrough will allow future gravity surveys to be cheaper, more reliable and delivered 10 times faster, reducing the time needed for surveys from a month to a few days. It has the potential to open a range of new applications for gravity survey, providing a new lens into the underground.
Professor George Tuckwell, director for geoscience and engineering at RSK, said: "Detection of ground conditions such as mine workings, tunnels and unstable ground is fundamental to our ability to design, construct and maintain housing, industry and infrastructure. The improved capability that this new technology represents could transform how we map the ground and deliver these projects."
The breakthrough is a collaboration between the University of Birmingham, environmental, engineering and sustainability solutions provider RSK, Dstl (the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, part of the UK Ministry of Defense), and technology company Teledyne e2v.
The quantum gravity sensor measures subtle changes in the pulling strength of gravitational fields when a cloud of atoms is dropped. The bigger the object and the greater the difference in density of the object from its surroundings, the stronger the measurable difference in pull. But vibration, instrument tilt and disruption from magnetic and thermal fields have made turning quantum theory into commercial reality challenging. The Birmingham quantum sensor breakthrough is the first to meet these real-world challenges and perform a high spatial resolution survey. The removal of noise due to vibration will unlock gravity mapping at high spatial resolution.
About the UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing
The UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing (led by the University of Birmingham) brings together experts from Physics and Engineering from the Universities of Birmingham, Glasgow, Imperial, Liverpool John Moores, Nottingham, Southampton, Strathclyde and Sussex, NPL, the British Geological Survey and over 75 industry partners. The Hub has a total of over 120 past and present projects, valued at approximately £200 million, and has 17 patent applications.
The UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing is part of the National Quantum Technologies Programme (NQTP), which was established in 2014 and has EPSRC, IUK, STFC, MOD, NPL, BEIS, and GCHQ as partners. Four Quantum Technology Hubs were set up at the outset, each focussing on specific application areas with anticipated societal and economic impact. The Commercialising Quantum Technologies Challenge (funded by the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund) is part of the NQTP and was launched to accelerate the development of quantum enabled products and services, removing barriers to productivity and competitiveness. The NQTP is set to invest £1B of public and private sector funds over its ten-year lifetime.
For commercial enquiries relating to the University of Birmingham’s patents in Quantum Technologies, please email: info@enterprise.bham.ac.uk
About the University of BIrmingham
The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top 100 institutions. Its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers, teachers and more than 6,500 international students from over 150 countries.
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22-02-2022
Scientists Reveal Device that Can Project Holograms Into Your Brain to Create New Experiences
Scientists Reveal Device that Can Project Holograms Into Your Brain to Create New Experiences
SCIENCE
R2-D2 being able to transmit a hologram of Princess Leia was the coolest thing ever back in the late 70s when “Star Wars: A New Hope” was first on the big screen. More recently, we have seen holograms in our cards or money.
In 2019, there are card game enthusiasts who are designing holographic images of the monsters in games such as Yu-Gi-Oh for use in tournaments. When we imagine our future, we might see holographic projections of cell phone apps in front of our faces as we walk down the street.
What if those same holographic images were able to create sensations such as touch, memory, or hearing things that weren’t actually real? What if certain sensations could be omitted, such as painful ones? Scientists recently revealed a device that can project holograms into your brain to create new experiences.
Neuron, Cell of the nervous system allowing information to be carried in the form of electrical and... [+]
How is a hologram created?
A hologram, according to Merriam-Webster, is “a three-dimensional image reproduced from a pattern of interference produced by a split coherent beam of radiation. A laser is a great example.” The scientific term for the process of making a hologram is holography.
Light travels in waves. A hologram records the light waves as they bounce off an object. When a light wave bounces off an object, its changed form is called an interference wave. Think of when you toss a pebble into a pond over your reflection; you see an image of yourself in the water but that image appears slightly distorted. In a light wave, due to the discovery of lasers, that distortion is minimal and can be projected onto an outside source.
Lasers help create 3D holographs due to how the light operates from a laser. Light from a laser has a constant flow of light that moves in consistent phases. Therefore, the entire area is getting consistent light waves, which then bounce off more equal to the original light source. Holography acts like photography. Original photograph images can be captured by allowing the light bouncing off an object to be reflected off a mercury-coated surface and then it is captured onto a different surface.
Real-world uses for holograms
Holograms have several uses, and their potential for changing how we interact in the world is impressive.
Use of holograms in the entertainment and marketing industry:
Various big-name brands are using holograms to invoke excitement for their products and to gain information about the users.
In Los Angeles, CA, September of 2017, an augmented reality company, VNTANA, partnered with an intelligent engagement company, Satisfi Labs, and created the first AI concierge. This concierge was designed to be interactive in its responses to the public. People could communicate with the hologram and ask questions related to the particular event it was hosting.
The Death Star hologram was made available to those who purchased a deluxe edition of the Star Wars soundtrack for the Star Wars’ 40th anniversary.
Coachella put on a holographic concert in 2017 of Tupac Shakur. The same company who put on that concert has also opened an all-holographic theatre in Hollywood.
In Chicago, Pepsi and Aquafina put on a hologram of a baseball player which allowed visitors to play baseball with it.
The benefits of these holograms for the industries:
Well, other than the coolness factor, here are some others:
The companies can request visitors’ names and email addresses either to gain access or to obtain a digital copy of the event after the fact.
With more involvement, the companies have better feedback on the crowd’s reaction.
Listening in on social sharing. In most instances, the public took pictures or video of themselves with the hologram and shared it on social media. Not only is that continued free advertising, but it also creates more comments and reactions.
It leaves an impression of the brand or company not easily forgotten.
Encourages longer engagement from the public at events.
On a more personal level, one company, 8i Studios in Culver City, Ca., is working on creating holographic images of people that can be recorded and then viewed through a VR headset or 8i’s app, Holo. The purpose of this is to create authentic, recorded memories; for example, recorded images of your parents while you were a child, or a favorite pet, or your newborn baby. Just imagine, re-experiencing people you have lost or who have grown up, all over again in the now. It would be like a photo album but with the sensation of the people truly being in the room.
How are holograms used in medicine?
The science of medicine began due to inquisitive individuals who wanted to know how our bodies worked and how we could heal people. In order to learn more about our bodies, scientists used cadavers. Now, medical students can peer at the holographic image of the human body. This also allows for a more intensive, in-depth study of how the neurological, vascular, and musculoskeletal systems are laid out and react with each other.
Other medical holographs are of the cell structure, organs, and our DNA. This then encourages further advancement in the biomedical field.
Holograms find their primary uses by scientists, biomedical professionals, and researchers. Through holographic imaging, these professionals can see what is going on in your body without having to undertake any risky procedure. It also allows for research and further understanding of the complexities of how our brain and neurological systems operate and react under various circumstances. They can trigger events without causing harm and see how it all reacts.
All of this increases the opportunity to make a more accurate diagnosis and treatment for patients in a far less obtrusive and risky manner.
The benefits of creating new experiences through holograms into the brain
Could you ever imagine that holographic images could project into our brains and target specific neurons in order to recreate a sensation? It could also potentially project a false memory for the betterment of an individual’s life.
Researchers at the University of Berkley are working on designing a way to create a hologram within the brain. They have found that this would allow them to read the activity of the neurons in the brain and then influence them.
The scientists had to match the speed of the pulsing neurons in our brain and then recreate the pattern with lasers. The goal was to mimic the brain’s activity in order to fool it into believing it was part of its own pattern. They then created a holographic image of a brain with a focus on the individual neurons to isolate the particular ones they wished to influence. The scientists then projected that image onto a thin slice of a brain.
They first did this to affect the touch, motor, and vision neurons of mice. While the mice did not demonstrate any change through behavior, a reading of the neurons did demonstrate that the stimuli were received by the brain. The next step in the process is to train the mice to alter their behavior depending upon the stimuli.
The hope of this experiment is to aid with many diseases or disorders.
The first they feel it would be most effective with is those who have lost a limb. It would help by allowing the body to respond the same with a prosthetic as one would with a limb. As technology and their knowledge advances, they hope to see areas where the brain misfires; examples include a seizure or schizophrenia. Then they may find a way to alter the brain’s neurons to fire correctly. They even believe it could offer a return of sight to those who lost their vision.
“But as basic neuroscientists, we are also primarily interested in using this system to ‘crack’ the neural codes of sensory perception.”
We want to understand how our brain builds perceptions of our external world all through the language of neurons …. We believe this new technology can address this fundamental question in neuroscience because we can attempt to generate artificial perceptions by writing specific patterns of activity into the brain and see what’ works.'”
Closing Thoughts
Can you believe it? Scientists have created a device that can project a hologram to create experiences in our brain! They have also found a way to isolate individual, tiny neurons. Amazing!
The capability of being able to communicate directly to the brain has many possibilities. Not only does this make feasible the ability to read what is happening in the brain, but it can also “write” changes onto your brain. The implied possibilities are awe-inspiring to even think about. They add more hope for those who would benefit.
ALL RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011
Holograms just got a lot more exciting with the news that a team of researchers in Japan has developed a 3D hologram projector that responds to a person’s touch, allowing it to completely change shape.
Dubbed ‘Fairy Lights’, and developed by researchers from five Japanese universities, the project was started as a means of improving existing 3D hologram technology and ones that react to touch in mid-air.
According to Hacked, the technology behind touchable holograms has been in existence for a number of years now, but has been nowhere near capable of being introduced to the commercial market because the laser beams, which generate the hologram, actually burn human skin on contact with it.
To fix this, the Japanese researchers decided to develop a system whereby their device will fire laser pulses that are fired at high frequencies, ionising the air molecules that exist in one particular spot.
The lasers in question are known as femtosecond lasers, which create pulses of light that last a few tens of femtoseconds, which to you and me means one millionth of one billionth of just one second.
This leads to the formation of the pixels, which respond to touch when the pulses are interrupted.
Scientists Reveal Device that Can Project Holograms Into Your Brain to Create New Experiences
From the video they have published to show their results, the minute scale of the holograms shows great promise for bringing the technology on a larger scale in the near future during a time when augmented reality (AR) is seen as being a realistic alternative to interactive hologram technology.
Researchers have developed a hologram that allows you to reach out and “feel” it — not unlike the holodecks of “Star Trek.”
University of Glasgow scientists have created hologram system that uses jets of air known as “aerohaptics” to replicate the sensation of touch, according to Ravinder Daahiya, a researcher who worked on the project. He said that the air jets can allow you to feel “people’s fingers, hands and wrists.” The team published a paper of their findings in Advanced Intelligent Systems.
“In time, this could be developed to allow you to meet a virtual avatar of a colleague on the other side of the world and really feel their handshake,” he said in his piece for The Conversation. “It could even be the first steps towards building something like a holodeck.”
No Gloves, No Problems
Similar to previous touch sensory holograms, the aerohaptic system doesn’t require a handheld controller or smart gloves in order to produce the sense of touch. Instead, a nozzle, which is able to respond to the movements of your hand, blows air with an appropriate amount of force onto you.
Daahiya and his team tested this with an interactive projection of a basketball, which he said “can be convincingly touched, rolled and bounced.”
“The touch feedback from air jets from the system is also modulated based on the virtual surface of the basketball, allowing users to feel the rounded shape of the ball as it rolls from their fingertips when they bounce it and the slap in their palm when it returns,” he said.
Welcome to the Holodeck
While it would be pretty cool to see this system fleshed out until we get an honest-to-God holodeck to live out our Sherlock Holmes fantasies, the system will be pretty limited for now.
However, Daahiya has hopes that it could eventually be used to create some pretty amazing video game experiences — as well as help doctors better treat patients no matter where they are on Earth.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
![Neuron, Cell of the nervous system allowing information to be carried in the form of electrical and... [+] chemical signals. (Photo by: QAI Publishing/UIG via Getty Images)](https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/dam/imageserve/648810892/960x0.jpg?fit=bounds&format=jpg&width=960)
/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/life/2015/11/30/japanese-scientists-create-holograms-you-can-reach-out-and-touch/hologram-butterflyjpg.jpg)
