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Category: computing

Green-synthesized zinc oxide nanoparticles from desert plants show broad antimicrobial activity

As drug-resistant infections continue to rise, researchers are looking for new antimicrobial strategies that are both effective and sustainable. One emerging approach combines nanotechnology with “green” chemistry, using plant extracts instead of harsh chemicals to produce metal oxide nanoparticles.

A new study published in Biomolecules and Biomedicine now reports that oxide nanoparticles (ZnONPs) biosynthesized from four desert plants with medicinal properties can inhibit a wide spectrum of bacteria, yeasts and filamentous fungi in laboratory tests. The work also links the plants’ rich phytochemical profiles to nanoparticle stability and potency, and uses computer modeling to explore how key compounds might interact with microbial targets.

The study is the first to produce ZnONPs from species that thrive in harsh, arid environments and are often under-used or even considered invasive. “By turning resilient desert plants into tiny zinc oxide particles, we were able to generate materials that are both eco-friendly to produce and surprisingly active against a range of microbes,” the authors write. “These green nanoparticles could form the basis for future antimicrobial formulations, pending further safety and efficacy testing.”

A unified model of memory and perception: How Hebbian learning explains our recall of past events

A collaboration between SISSA’s Physics and Neuroscience groups has taken a step forward in understanding how memories are stored and retrieved in the brain. The study, recently published in Neuron, shows that distinct perceptual biases—long thought to arise from separate brain systems—can, in fact, be explained by a single, biologically grounded mechanism.

The research, led by professors Sebastian Goldt and Mathew E. Diamond, and first author Francesca Schönsberg (now a junior research chair at the École Normale Supérieure), brings together , , and to bridge decades of fragmented research on perceptual . Yukti Chopra and Davide Giana carried out laboratory experiments to provide the empirical data that the model was tested against.

Lead-free alternative discovered for essential electronics component

Ferroelectric materials are used in infrared cameras, medical ultrasounds, computer memory and actuators that turn electric properties into mechanical properties and vice-versa. Most of these essential materials, however, contain lead and can therefore be toxic.

“For the last 10 years, there has been a huge initiative all over the world to find that do not contain lead,” said Laurent Bellaiche, Distinguished Professor of physics at the University of Arkansas.

The atoms in a ferroelectric material can have more than one . Where two crystalline structures meet is called a phase boundary, and the properties that make ferroelectric materials useful are strongest at these boundaries.

Unprecedented Perlmutter Simulation Details Quantum Chip

Designing quantum chips incorporates traditional microwave engineering in addition to advanced low-temperature physics. This makes a classical electromagnetic modeling tool like ARTEMIS, which was developed as part of the DOE’s Exascale Computing Project initiative, a natural choice for this type of modeling.

A large simulation for a tiny chip

Not every quantum chip simulation calls for so much computing capacity, but modeling the miniscule details of this tiny, extremely complex chip required nearly all of Perlmutter’s power. The researchers used almost all of its 7,168 NVIDIA GPUs over a period of 24 hours to capture the structure and function of a multi-layered chip measuring just 10 millimeters square and 0.3 millimeters thick, with etchings just one micron wide.

MIT Neuroscientist Proposes Brain Waves are the Hidden Engine Behind Thought and Consciousness

When it comes to understanding the mystery of human consciousness, scientists have long sought the hidden mechanism that transforms mere neural firing into the rich experience of thought.

Now, a leading MIT neuroscientist believes he’s found a clue that suggests the brain’s electrical waves don’t just reflect our thoughts, but actually create them.

At the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting on November 15, Dr. Earl K. Miller, a professor at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, will unveil a provocative proposal: that cognition and consciousness emerge from the fast, flexible organization of the brain’s cortex—powered by analog computations performed by traveling brain waves.

In other words, the rhythm of the brain may be more than background noise—it may be the very pulse of thought itself.

“The brain uses these oscillatory waves to organize itself,” Dr. Miller said in a press statement. “Cognition is large-scale neural self-organization. The brain has got to organize itself to perform complex behaviors. Brain waves are the patterns of excitation and inhibition that organize the brain, and this leads to consciousness because consciousness is this organized knitting together of the cortex.”

Dr. Miller’s theory revives the concept of analog computation. Unlike digital computers, which rely on discrete binary bits, analog systems process continuous information—waves interacting to produce a vast range of possible values.

Dr. Miller argues that the brain’s natural oscillations—electrical waves generated by millions of neurons—function as analog computers, sculpting information in a fast, flexible, and energy-efficient way.

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Intel’s ‘Advanced Packaging’ Attracts Attention From Apple and Qualcomm, Potentially Opening a New Frontier for the Foundry Business

Intel might have been lagging significantly behind in the chip business, but when it comes to advanced packaging, the firm has competitive options.

Ever since high-performance computing became the norm in the industry, the demand for robust compute solutions has increased at a pace that surpasses the improvements brought about by relying solely on Moore’s Law. But, to meet the industry’s demand, manufacturers like AMD and NVIDIA adopted advanced packaging technologies, which essentially brought in ‘multiple chips’ in a single package, boosting chip densities as well as platform performance. Advanced packaging solutions have become an integral part of the supply chain, and TSMC has dominated this segment for several years now, but this could change.

In new job listings by Qualcomm and Apple, it appears that both companies are seeking talent with expertise in Intel’s EMIB advanced packaging technology. The Cupertino giant is hiring a DRAM packaging engineer, requiring experience in “advanced packaging technologies such as CoWoS, EMIB, SoIC, and PoP”. Similarly, Qualcomm is recruiting a Director of Product Management for its Data Center Business Unit, which requires familiarity with Intel’s EMIB as well, indicating that interest is defintely there.

Cascaded nonlinear down-conversion in poling-free lithium niobate nanophotonic waveguides

Cascaded nonlinear optics has long enabled advances in short-wavelength generation, but equivalent approaches for long wavelengths remain underdeveloped. Here, the authors demonstrate a chip-based lithium niobate platform that delivers tunable mid-infrared light, opening new possibilities for sensing, spectroscopy, and communications.

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