Lifeboat Foundation

Mathematical derivations have unveiled a chaotic, memristor-based circuit in which different oscillating phases can co-exist along six possible lines.

Unlike ordinary electronic circuits, chaotic circuits can produce oscillating electrical signals that never repeat over time—but nonetheless, display underlying mathematical patterns. To expand the potential applications of these circuits, previous studies have designed systems in which multiple oscillating phases can co-exist along mathematically-defined “lines of equilibrium.” In new research published in The European Physical Journal Special Topics, a team led by Janarthanan Ramadoss at the Chennai Institute of Technology, India, designed a chaotic circuit with six distinct lines of equilibrium—more than have ever been demonstrated previously.

Chaotic systems are now widely studied across a broad range of fields: from biology and chemistry, to engineering and economics. If the team’s circuit is realized experimentally, it could provide researchers with unprecedented opportunities to study these systems experimentally. More practically, their design could be used for applications including robotic motion control, secure password generation, and new developments in the Internet of Things—through which networks of everyday objects can gather and share data.

Kyiv will lose nearly two-thirds of its deposits if the Kremlin is successful in annexing Ukrainian territory.

At least $12.4 trillion worth of Ukraine’s essential natural resources, including energy and mineral deposits, are now under Russian control.

“The Kremlin is robbing Ukraine” of its natural resources, the backbone of it’s economy, according to an analysis by SecDev posted by Washington Post on August 10.

Two of America’s top chipmakers have been ordered to stop selling some of their technology to China that can be used for artificial intelligence.

Nvidia (NVDA) and AMD (AMD) said Wednesday that they had been told by the US government to halt exports of certain high-performance chips to the world’s second largest economy.

In a regulatory filing, Nvidia said that it had been told by US officials that the requirement was due to a potential risk of the products being used by, or diverted to, a “military end user.”

While having their own unique areas of expertise and resources, the NQISRCs are all aligned to the same mission—the advancement of quantum information science.

Five National Quantum Information Science Research Centers (NQISRCs) are leveraging the behavior of nature at the smallest scales to develop technologies for science’s most complex problems. Supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, the NQISRCs have been supporting DOE’s mission since 2020 to advance the energy, economic and national security of the United States. By building a national quantum ecosystem and workforce comprising researchers at roughly 70 institutions across the United States, the centers create a rich environment for quantum innovation and co-design.

The NQISRCs integrate state-of-the-art DOE facilities, preeminent talent at national laboratories and U.S. universities, and the enterprising ingenuity of U.S. technology companies.

“In June, our delegation was in South Korea, in July we went to France. Negotiations are ongoing with Chinese suppliers. Based on the results of an in-depth study of international experience, nuclear technology suppliers will be involved. I repeat, this will be an international project,” he reaffirmed, adding that the results of this experience is under study.

“In principle, the construction of a nuclear power plant is a long process, it takes about eight years. Without nuclear power, we will not be able to ensure energy security for ourselves… We will need such generation — the whole world is moving towards decarbonisation. We must move to clean technologies, and nuclear generation is the answer to the challenge of the times,” he stressed.

He stressed that the safety of NPP operation is of paramount importance. “We will choose the technology that is the safest, and those suppliers who can complete all the work in a timely manner. Related areas of our economy will also develop around this industry. There will be a big positive effect on the development of our country as a whole.”

Economists are turning more bearish about China’s economy, downgrading their growth forecasts further for 2022 and seeing lingering risks into next year as turmoil in the property market and Covid outbreaks persist.

The economy is now projected to grow just 3.5% this year, down from a previous forecast of 3.9%, according to Bloomberg’s latest quarterly survey of economists. Growth projections for the first three quarters of next year were also lowered — by 0.1−0.4 percentage points — although the median for the whole of 2023 remained unchanged at 5.2%.

According to the American Chemistry Council, in 2018 in the United States, 27.0 million tons of plastic ended up in landfills compared to just 3.1 million tons that were recycled. Worldwide the numbers are similarly bad, with just 9% of plastic being recycled according to a recent Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report.

The statistics are even worse for certain types of plastic. For example, out of 80,000 tons of styrofoam (polystyrene.

Polystyrene was discovered by accident in 1,839 by Eduard Simon, an apothecary from Berlin, Germany. As one of the most widely used plastics in the world, polystyrene is used for bottles, containers, packaging, disposable cutlery, packing peanuts, and more. It can be solid or foamed (Styrofoam is a brand name of closed-cell extruded polystyrene foam).

Kyiv will lose nearly two-thirds of its deposits if the Kremlin is successful in annexing Ukrainian territory.

At least $12.4 trillion worth of Ukraine’s essential natural resources, including energy and mineral deposits, are now under Russian control.

“The Kremlin is robbing Ukraine” of its natural resources, the backbone of it’s economy, according to an analysis by SecDev posted by Washington Post on August 10.

Continue reading “In the Ukraine war, a battle for the nation’s mineral and energy wealth” »

Plants use light waves from only a portion of the spectrum for photosynthesis—the remainder can be recovered and used to generate solar power. That’s the idea behind the solar modules developed by EPFL startup Voltiris. Following encouraging preliminary results, a new pilot installation was recently installed in Graubünden.

In Switzerland, growing tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and other light-and heat-intensive vegetables requires building a greenhouse—but operating one consumes a huge amount of power. Farmers have to carefully balance crop yields and economics with environmental concerns. “It costs more than CHF 1.5 million a year to heat a 5-hectare greenhouse,” says Nicolas Weber, the CEO of Voltiris. “And a greenhouse of that size emits roughly the same amount of CO₂ per year as 2,000 people.”

The Swiss federation of fruit & vegetable growers, which cultivate several thousand hectares across the country, has set a target of eliminating all fossil-fuel-based energy from its farming processes by 2040. The system developed by Voltiris can go a long way towards reaching that goal. Its technology is based on the fact that plants don’t use all of the waves contained in sunlight; the remaining ones can be concentrated onto photovoltaic (PV) cells to generate solar power. Voltiris’ system is lightweight and designed to track the sun’s movement across the sky, and boasts daily yields on par with conventional solar panels. The first vegetables grown under Voltiris’ system were harvested this summer through pilot tests carried out at two greenhouses, in the cantons of Valais and Graubünden.