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A team of researchers has developed a new way to control light interactions using a specially engineered structure called a 3D photonic-crystal cavity that could enable transformative advancements in quantum computing, quantum communication and other quantum-based technologies.
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At first glance, the Bathhouse spa in Brooklyn looks not so different from other high-end spas. What sets it apart is out of sight: a closet full of cryptocurrency-mining computers that not only generate bitcoins but also heat the spa’s pools, marble hammams, and showers.
When cofounder Jason Goodman opened Bathhouse’s first location in Williamsburg in 2019, he used conventional pool heaters. But after diving deep into the world of bitcoin, he realized he could fit cryptocurrency mining seamlessly into his business. That’s because the process, where special computers (called miners) make trillions of guesses per second to try to land on the string of numbers that will earn a bitcoin, consumes tremendous amounts of electricity—which in turn produces plenty of heat that usually goes to waste.
“I thought, ‘That’s interesting—we need heat,’” Goodman says of Bathhouse. Mining facilities typically use fans or water
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As a child of an electronic engineer, I spent a lot of time in our local Radio Shack as a kid. While my dad was locating capacitors and resistors, I was in the toy section. It was there, in 1984, that I discovered the best toy of my childhood: the Armatron robotic arm.
A drawing from the patent application for the Armatron robotic arm.COURTESY OF TAKARA TOMY
Described as a “robot-like arm to aid young masterminds in scientific and laboratory experiments,” it was the rare toy that lived up to the hype printed on the front of the box. This was a legit robotic arm. You could rotate the arm to spin around its base, tilt it up and down, bend it at the “elbow” joint, rotate the “wrist,” and open and close the bright-orange articulated hand in elegant chords of
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A research team led by the recipient of a U.S. National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development grant used computer simulations to determine that white dwarf stars have greater potential to host habitable planets than previously realized. The team concluded that many more stars in the Milky Way galaxy might be home to planets that could support life.
There are approximately 10 billion white dwarf stars in the Milky Way. Because such stars are colder than others, scientists have thought they likely would not support habitable exoplanets. Led by Aomawa Shields, a University of California, Irvine professor of physics and astronomy, researchers used a supercomputer provided by the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, to simulate conditions on a theoretical rocky planet orbiting a white dwarf. Using data from real exoplanets orbiting the non-white dwarf star Kepler-62, the researchers found that their simulated rocky planet could have liquid water if it closely orbited a white dwarf and had certain rotational characteristics. Their findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal.
“Not much consideration has been given to these stars’ ability to host habitable exoplanets,” says Shields. “Our computer simulations suggest that if rocky planets exist in their orbits, these planets could have more habitable real estate on their surfaces than previously thought.”
