Lifeboat Foundation

Although universal fault-tolerant quantum computers – with millions of physical quantum bits (or qubits) – may be a decade or two away, quantum computing research continues apace. It has been hypothesized that quantum computers will one day revolutionize information processing across a host of military and civilian applications from pharmaceuticals discovery, to advanced batteries, to machine learning, to cryptography. A key missing element in the race toward fault-tolerant quantum systems, however, is meaningful metrics to quantify how useful or transformative large quantum computers will actually be once they exist.

To provide standards against which to measure quantum computing progress and drive current research toward specific goals, DARPA announced its Quantum Benchmarking program. Its aim is to re-invent key quantum computing metrics, make those metrics testable, and estimate the required quantum and classical resources needed to reach critical performance thresholds.

“It’s really about developing quantum computing yardsticks that can accurately measure what’s important to focus on in the race toward large, fault-tolerant quantum computers,” said Joe Altepeter, program manager in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office. “Building a useful quantum computer is really hard, and it’s important to make sure we’re using the right metrics to guide our progress towards that goal. If building a useful quantum computer is like building the first rocket to the moon, we want to make sure we’re not quantifying progress toward that goal by measuring how high our planes can fly.”

Electronic oscillators lie at the heart of virtually all microelectronic systems, generating the clock signals used in digital electronics and the precise frequencies that enable radio frequency (RF) sensors and communications. While an ideal oscillator provides a perfect signal at a single frequency, imperfections degrade the spectral purity of real-world components.

Such impairments, broadly quantified as phase noise, ultimately limit the performance of many military radars and commercial 5G systems. The issue is becoming increasingly burdensome as the airways become more congested and defense needs evolve.

Based on the recommendations of weather forecasters, Operation Overlord’s June 5 D-Day was postponed due to a weather front. However, the operation was launched one day later when analysis projected a short period of acceptable weather. Germany’s forecasters missed this break, and the results were cataclysmic for German forces.

The Korean and Vietnam conflicts highlighted a growing need for “weather superiority” as enemy forces learned to take advantage of periods of bad weather that limited the effectiveness of U.S. air forces. Even in Desert Storm, the first item in planning the daily air operations began with a weather forecast.

Today, superior knowledge of environmental conditions is a force multiplier for all the services in an era where concepts like Joint All-Domain Command and Control are accelerating the speed and precision at which war is conducted. The outcome of future conflict will depend on rapid, accurate and more fully informed decisions. If a commander lacks an assured source of high-fidelity intelligence about the environment, then tools, tactics and timing cannot be aligned to achieve desired outcomes.

NGAD is the Navy’s effort to replace the Super Hornet. Note: It’s a completely separate program from the Air Force’s own NGAD—which recently designed, tested, and flew a secret new fighter jet—and will produce a completely separate plane. The two aircraft will almost certainly be quite different, with the Air Force’s jet more optimized for air superiority. It’s likely the two fighters, developed roughly within the same time period, will share much of the same technology.

The U.S. Navy elaborated on its plans to replace the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, saying the service’s next strike fighter will “most likely be manned.” The jet will probably fly alongside robotic allies, and remotely crewed aircraft could eventually account for six out of 10 planes on a carrier flight deck.

“As we look at it right now, the Next-Gen Air Dominance [NGAD] is a family of systems, which has as its centerpiece the F/A-XX—which may or may not be manned—platform. It’s the fixed-wing portion of the Next-Gen Air Dominance family of systems,” said Rear Adm. Gregory Harris, the head of the Chief of Naval Operations’ air warfare directorate, during a Navy League event.

Continue reading “The Navy Reveals Plans for Its New Fighter Jet” »

Russia is amassing unprecedented military might in the Arctic and testing its newest weapons in a region freshly ice-free due to the climate emergency, in a bid to secure its northern coast and open up a key shipping route from Asia to Europe.

Weapons experts and Western officials have expressed particular concern about one Russian ‘super-weapon,’ the Poseidon 2M39 torpedo. Development of the torpedo is moving fast with Russian President Vladimir Putin requesting an update on a “key stage” of the tests in February from his defence minister Sergei Shoigu, with further tests planned this year, according to multiple reports in state media.

This unmanned stealth torpedo is powered by a nuclear reactor and intended by Russian designers to sneak past coastal defences — like those of the US — on the sea floor.

An Iranian military ship linked to alleged spying activities was attacked Tuesday by Israeli forces as it was stationed in the Red Sea, according to U.S. and Iranian officials.

Pentagon spokesperson Commander Jessica L. McNulty said in a statement to The Hill that the U.S. was “aware of media reporting of an incident involving the Saviz in the Red Sea.”

“We can confirm that no U.S. forces were involved in the incident,” McNulty continued, adding, “We have no additional information to provide.”

Russia’s upgrading its arctic military arsenal! Check out its latest tactical nuclear weapon.

Exosonic isn’t the only aviation trailblazer to receive investment from the US Air Force.

Atlanta-based Hermeus Corporation is working on a hypersonic 20-seater that promises to deliver passengers from New York to London in 90 minutes.

California start-up Exosonic is developing a supersonic jet designed to one day carry the leaders of the US Executive Branch and their guests. CNN Travel got a sneak peek inside the plane.

Continue reading “Exclusive look inside the US supersonic presidential jet” »

Researchers at Tel Aviv University were able to reconstruct the nutrition of stone age humans.

In a paper published in the Yearbook of the American Physical Anthropology Association, Dr. Miki Ben-Dor and Prof. Ran Barkai of the Jacob M. Alkov Department of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, together with Raphael Sirtoli of Portugal, show that humans were an apex predator for about two million years. Only the extinction of larger animals (megafauna) in various parts of the world, and the decline of animal food sources toward the end of the stone age, led humans to gradually increase the vegetable element in their nutrition, until finally they had no choice but to domesticate both plants and animals — and became farmers.

“So far, attempts to reconstruct the diet of stone-age humans were mostly based on comparisons to 20th century hunter-gatherer societies,” explains Dr. Ben-Dor. “This comparison is futile, however, because two million years ago hunter-gatherer societies could hunt and consume elephants and other large animals — while today’s hunter gatherers do not have access to such bounty. The entire ecosystem has changed, and conditions cannot be compared. We decided to use other methods to reconstruct the diet of stone-age humans: to examine the memory preserved in our own bodies, our metabolism, genetics, and physical build. Human behavior changes rapidly, but evolution is slow. The body remembers.”