/ en-us Â鶹ÒùÔº internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Â鶹ÒùÔºics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Solar power satellite (SPS) advocates have been dreaming of using space resources to build massive constructions for decades. In-space resource utilization (ISRU) advocates would love to oblige them, but so far, there hasn't yet been enough development on either front to create a testable system. A research team from a company called MetaSat and the University of Glasgow hope to change that with a new plan called META-LUNA, which utilizes lunar resources to build (and recycle) a fleet of their specially designed SPS. /news/2025-03-solar-power-satellite-moon.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Mon, 17 Mar 2025 14:56:03 EDT news661442161 Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have developed a novel Ising machine that utilizes surface acoustic waves as an effective carrier of dense information flow. This approach enables fast, energy-efficient solutions to complex optimization problems, offering a promising alternative to conventional computing methods based on von-Neumann architecture. The findings are published in the journal Communications Â鶹ÒùÔºics. /news/2025-03-acoustic-ising-machine-tackles-hard.html Condensed Matter Mon, 17 Mar 2025 13:09:05 EDT news661435741 In our data-driven era, solving complex problems efficiently is crucial. However, traditional computers often struggle with this task when dealing with a large number of interacting variables, leading to inefficiencies such as the von Neumann bottleneck. A new type of collective state computing has emerged to address this issue by mapping these optimization problems onto something called the Ising problem in magnetism. /news/2024-02-array-vcsels-optical-feedback.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 23 Feb 2024 13:43:31 EST news627918205 Like electronics or photonics, magnonics is an engineering subfield that aims to advance information technologies when it comes to speed, device architecture, and energy consumption. A magnon corresponds to the specific amount of energy required to change the magnetization of a material via a collective excitation called a spin wave. /news/2023-03-magnon-based-paradigm-shift.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Wed, 29 Mar 2023 11:22:18 EDT news599307733 Sunlight sparkling on water evokes the rich phenomena of liquid-light interaction, spanning spatial and temporal scales. While the dynamics of liquids have fascinated researchers for decades, the rise of neuromorphic computing has sparked significant efforts to develop new, unconventional computational schemes based on recurrent neural networks, crucial to supporting wide range of modern technological applications, such as pattern recognition and autonomous driving. As biological neurons also rely on a liquid environment, a convergence may be attained by bringing nanoscale nonlinear fluid dynamics to neuromorphic computing. /news/2022-07-neuromorphic-optically-driven-nonlinear-fluid.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 25 Jul 2022 15:00:05 EDT news577978901 Neuromorphic photonics/electronics is the future of ultralow energy intelligent computing and artificial intelligence (AI). In recent years, inspired by the human brain, artificial neuromorphic devices have attracted extensive attention, especially in simulating visual perception and memory storage. Because of its advantages of high bandwidth, high interference immunity, ultrafast signal transmission and lower energy consumption, neuromorphic photonic devices are expected to realize real-time response to input data. In addition, photonic synapses can realize non-contact writing strategy, which contributes to the development of wireless communication. /news/2022-06-photonic-synapses-power-consumption-high.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 30 Jun 2022 11:47:03 EDT news575808422 In a new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances the research group of Professor Xiaoyong Hu and Professor Qihuang Gong from School of Â鶹ÒùÔºics, Peking University, China, propose a new strategy to realize ultrafast and ultralow-energy-consumption all-optical computing chip scheme based on convolutional neural network (CNN), which supports the execution of multiple computing tasks. /news/2021-11-all-optical-based-convolutional-neural-networks.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 30 Nov 2021 11:40:47 EST news557494840 In a discovery published in the journal Nature, an international team of researchers has described a novel molecular device with exceptional computing prowess. /news/2021-09-molecular-device-unprecedented-reconfigurability-reminiscent.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 01 Sep 2021 16:43:54 EDT news549733429 Multifunctional and diverse artificial neural systems can incorporate multimodal plasticity, memory and supervised learning functions to assist neuromorphic computation. In a new report, Jinran Yu and a research team in nanoenergy, nanoscience and materials science in China and the US., presented a bioinspired mechano-photonic artificial synapse with synergistic mechanical and optical plasticity. The team used an optoelectronic transistor made of graphene/molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) heterostructure and an integrated triboelectric nanogenerator to compose the artificial synapse. They controlled the charge transfer/exchange in the heterostructure with triboelectric potential and modulated the optoelectronic synapse behaviors readily, including postsynaptic photocurrents, photosensitivity and photoconductivity. The mechano-photonic artificial synapse is a promising implementation to mimic the complex biological nervous system and promote the development of interactive artificial intelligence. The work is now published on Science Advances. /news/2021-03-bio-inspired-mechano-photonic-artificial-synapse.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Condensed Matter Fri, 26 Mar 2021 12:22:24 EDT news535980140 Scientists have given a fascinating new insight into the next steps to develop fast, energy-efficient, future computing systems that use light instead of electrons to process and store information—incorporating hardware inspired directly by the functioning of the human brain. /news/2021-01-photonics-artificial-intelligence-neuromorphic.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 29 Jan 2021 12:43:59 EST news531146635 In a paper published in Nano, researchers study the role of memristors in neuromorphic computing. This novel fundamental electronic component supports the cloning of bio-neural systems with low cost and power. /news/2020-11-neuromorphic-memristors.html Bio & Medicine Nanomaterials Mon, 30 Nov 2020 10:28:03 EST news525954481 Scalable nanoparticle-based computing architectures have several limitations that can severely compromise the use of nanoparticles to manipulate and process information through molecular computing schemes. The von Neumann architecture (VNA) underlies the operations of multiple arbitrary molecular logic operations in a single chip without rewiring the device. In a new report, Sungi Kim and a team of scientists at the Seoul National University in South Korea developed the nanoparticle-based VNA (NVNA) on a lipid chip. The nanoparticles on the lipid chip functioned as the hardware—featuring memories, processors and output units. The team used DNA strands as the software to provide molecular instructions to program the logic circuits. The nanoparticle-based von Neuman architecture (NVNA) allowed a group of nanoparticles to form a feed-forward neural network known as a perceptron (a type of artificial neural network). The system can implement functionally complete Boolean logical operations to provide a programmable, resettable and scalable computing architecture and circuit board to form nanoparticle neural networks and make logical decisions. The work is now published on Science Advances. /news/2020-09-nanoparticle-based-architecture-nanoparticle-neural-networks.html Nanophysics Wed, 02 Sep 2020 10:20:01 EDT news518259993 Organic-inorganic halide perovskite quantum dots (PQDs) form an attractive class of materials for optoelectronic applications. Their charge transport properties are, however, inferior compared to materials such as graphene. Conversely, graphene contains a charge generation efficiency that is too low for applications in optoelectronics. In a new report, Basudev Pradhan and a research team at the Nanoscience Technology Center, and the departments of Optics and Photonics, Materials Science Engineering, Â鶹ÒùÔºics and Chemistry at the University of Central Florida, U.S., Developed an ultrathin photon transistor and photonic synapses using graphene-PQD (graphene-perovskite quantum dot; G-PQD) superstructures. To prepare the superstructures they grew PQDs directly from a graphene lattice. Phototransistors made of G-QPDs exhibited excellent responsivity and specific detectivity. The light-assisted memory effects of the superstructures allowed photonic synaptic behavior for neuromorphic computing, which the team demonstrated through facial recognition applications with the assistance of machine learning. Pradhan et al. expect the G-PQD superstructure to bolster new directions to develop highly effective optoelectronic devices. /news/2020-02-ultrasensitive-ultrathin-phototransistors-photonic-synapses.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Wed, 26 Feb 2020 09:30:01 EST news501923660 An international team of scientists, including physicists from the University of Luxembourg, have reported a comprehensive view-point on how machine learning approaches can be used in Nanoscience to analyze and extract new insights from large data sets, and accelerate material discovery, and to guide experimental design. Moreover, they discuss some of the main physical challenging behind the realization of tailored memristive devices for machine learning. /news/2020-01-big-nanoscale.html Nanomaterials Mon, 27 Jan 2020 09:25:57 EST news499339507 Climate models are a success story, given that much of what they predicted has actually come true. Nevertheless, Reto Knutti points out in a blog post, researchers still need new models. /news/2019-08-climate.html Earth Sciences Environment Wed, 21 Aug 2019 09:50:43 EDT news485599837 In a white paper, Christoph Rosol, Benjamin Steininger, Jürgen Renn and Robert Schlögl outline the significance of digitalization in the Anthropocene and outline the background and goals of the new research field of geoanthropology. The researchers aim to analyse global change in a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach of natural sciences, humanities and technology, developing perspectives for the conservation of the Earth's habitat. /news/2018-12-age-epoch-humankind.html Social Sciences Thu, 06 Dec 2018 10:22:22 EST news463314121 IBM researchers are developing a new computer architecture, better equipped to handle increased data loads from artificial intelligence. Their designs draw on concepts from the human brain and significantly outperform conventional computers in comparative studies. They report on their recent findings in the Journal of Applied Â鶹ÒùÔºics. /news/2018-10-brain-inspired-architecture-advance-ai.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 03 Oct 2018 15:49:09 EDT news457800540 The brain and all its magnificent capabilities is powered by less than 20 watts. Stop to think about that for a second. As I write this blog my laptop is using about 80 watts, yet at only a fourth of the power, our brain outperforms state-of-the-art supercomputers by several orders of magnitude when it comes to energy efficiency and volume. Nature is truly remarkable. /news/2018-07-synaptic-architecture-brain.html Computer Sciences Mon, 09 Jul 2018 08:00:02 EDT news450341406 The Brain-Inspired Computing group at IBM Research-Almaden will be presenting at the 2018 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR 2018) our most recent paper titled "A Low Power, High Throughput, Fully Event-Based Stereo System." The paper describes an end-to-end stereo vision system that uses exclusively spiking neural network computation and can run on neuromorphic hardware with a live streaming spiking input. Inspired by the human vision system, it uses a cluster of IBM TrueNorth chips and a pair of digital retina sensors (also known as Dynamic Vision Sensors, DVS) to extract the depth of rapidly moving objects in a scene. Our system captures scenes in 3-D with low power, low latency and high throughput, which has the potential to advance the design of intelligent systems. /news/2018-06-stereo-vision-architecture-brain.html Computer Sciences Wed, 20 Jun 2018 09:54:04 EDT news448707233 U.S. Army Research Laboratory scientists have discovered a way to leverage emerging brain-like computer architectures for an age-old number-theoretic problem known as integer factorization. /news/2018-03-army-brain-like-closer-codes.html Computer Sciences Thu, 22 Mar 2018 03:56:24 EDT news440909766 One of the big challenges in computer architecture is integrating storage, memory and processing in one unit. This would make computers faster and more energy efficient. University of Groningen physicists have taken a big step towards this goal by combining a niobium doped strontium titanate (SrTiO3) semiconductor with ferromagnetic cobalt. At the interface, this creates a spin-memristor with storage abilities, paving the way for neuromorphic computing architectures. The results were published on 22 January in Scientific Reports. /news/2018-01-metal-semiconductor-interface-brain-inspired.html Condensed Matter Mon, 22 Jan 2018 06:48:31 EST news435826100 AI workloads are different from the calculations most of our current computers are built to perform. AI implies prediction, inference, intuition. But the most creative machine learning algorithms are hamstrung by machines that can't harness their power. Hence, if we're to make great strides in AI, our hardware must change, too. Starting with GPUs, and then evolving to analog devices, and then fault-tolerant quantum computers. /news/2017-12-future-hardware-ai.html Hardware Thu, 07 Dec 2017 09:30:01 EST news431859569 "In-memory computing" or "computational memory" is an emerging concept that uses the physical properties of memory devices for both storing and processing information. This is counter to current von Neumann systems and devices, such as standard desktop computers, laptops and even cellphones, which shuttle data back and forth between memory and the computing unit, thus making them slower and less energy efficient. /news/2017-10-ibm-scientists-in-memory-million-devices.html Nanophysics Tue, 24 Oct 2017 09:30:05 EDT news428055737 Toshiba Corporation continues to build on its commitment to promoting the Internet of Things and Big Data analysis with development of a Time Domain Neural Network (TDNN) that sues an extremely low power consumption neuromorphic semiconductor circuit to perform processing for Deep Learning. TDNN is composed of a massive number of tiny processing units that use Toshiba's original analog technique, unlike conventional digital processors. TDNN was reported on November 8 at A-SSCC 2016 (Asian Solid-State Circuits Conference 2016), an IEEE-sponsored international conference on semiconductor circuit technology held in Japan. /news/2016-11-toshiba-advances-deep-extremely-power.html Hardware Mon, 07 Nov 2016 07:09:57 EST news397724988 A collaborative of Russian and Italian scientists has created a neural network based on polymeric memristors, devices that can potentially be used to build fundamentally new computers. According to the researchers, these developments have applications in systems for machine vision, hearing, and other sensory organs, and also intelligent control systems for various devices, including autonomous robots. /news/2016-01-scientists-neural-network-plastic-memristors.html Computer Sciences Fri, 29 Jan 2016 06:46:20 EST news373272343 "Eureka!" is what Archimedes is supposed to have exclaimed after having made his extraordinary discovery in the bath tub. In reference to this event, the new supercomputer developed by Forschungszentrum Juelich together with the Russian manufacturer T-Platforms and the HPC software and support company ParTec is called JURECA. With its enormous computing power of 2.2 quadrillion operations per second, it is hoped to provide researchers from all over Germany with numerous 'Eureka' moments by permitting the investigation of complex issues in a multitude of fields. /news/2015-11-all-rounder-supercomputers.html Hardware Mon, 16 Nov 2015 09:58:14 EST news366890266 "Imagine a heart surgeon operating to repair a blocked coronary artery. Someday soon, the surgeon might run a detailed computer simulation of blood flowing through the patient's arteries, showing how millions of red blood cells jostle and tumble through the small vessels. The simulation would identify the best repair strategy. /news/2014-07-exascale.html Computer Sciences Wed, 23 Jul 2014 09:50:02 EDT news325323820 (Â鶹ÒùÔº) —If technology expertise can advance artificial intelligence, what can we imagine for artificial vision? An interesting development in artificial vision comes from a Swiss company iniLabs. They have developed a camera that behaves like the human eye, based on the wonders of the human retina. Just as robotics developers take their cues from biology, this Swiss team has recognized how biology can inspire an alternative to conventional machine vision. The workings of the human eye require far less power than a digital camera would require and leave less information to be processed. Borrowing from the way the eye functions, the company has built a more efficient digital camera. /news/2013-08-dynamic-vision-sensor-tech-human.html Engineering Mon, 26 Aug 2013 05:40:01 EDT news296709858 Scientists from IBM today unveiled a breakthrough software ecosystem designed for programming silicon chips that have an architecture inspired by the function, low power, and compact volume of the brain. The technology could enable a new generation of intelligent sensor networks that mimic the brain's abilities for perception, action, and cognition. /news/2013-08-ibm-foundation-synapse-chips-human.html Computer Sciences Thu, 08 Aug 2013 04:08:56 EDT news295153713 (Â鶹ÒùÔº) —The brain's repute took a big hit in 1997 when an IBM supercomputer defeated world chess champion Gary Kasparov in a match reported around the world. But in the second round, the brain is back. /news/2013-05-nice-brain-future-supercomputers.html Computer Sciences Tue, 14 May 2013 14:08:40 EDT news287759300