Lifeboat Foundation

Recent research suggests that a number of neuronal characteristics, traditionally believed to stem from the cell body or soma, may actually originate from processes in the dendrites. This discovery has significant implications for the study of degenerative diseases and for understanding the different states of brain activity during sleep and wakefulness.

The brain is an intricate network comprising billions of neurons. Each neuron’s cell body, or soma, engages in simultaneous communication with thousands of other neurons through its synapses. These synapses act as links, facilitating the exchange of information. Additionally, each neuron receives incoming signals through its dendritic trees, which are highly branched and extend for great lengths, resembling the structure of a complex and vast arboreal network.

Continue reading “Redefining Brain Function: Physicists Overturn Long-Standing Assumptions” »

In the vast realm of scientific discovery and technological advancement, there exists a hidden frontier that holds the key to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. This frontier is Pico Technology, a domain of measurement and manipulation at the atomic and subatomic levels. The rise of Pico Technology represents a seismic shift in our understanding of precision measurement and its applications across diverse fields, from biology to quantum computing. Pico Technology, at the intersection of precision measurement and quantum effects, represents the forefront of scientific and technological progress, unveiling the remarkable capabilities of working at the picoscale, offering unprecedented precision and reactivity that are reshaping fields ranging from medicine to green energy.

Unlocking the Picoscale World

At the heart of Pico Technology lies the ability to work at the picoscale, a dimension where a picometer, often represented as 1 × 10^−12 meters, reigns supreme. The term ‘pico’ itself is derived from the Greek word ‘pikos’, meaning ‘very small’. What sets Pico Technology apart is not just its capacity to delve deeper into smaller scales, but its unique ability to harness the inherent physical, chemical, mechanical, and optical properties of materials that naturally manifest at the picoscale.

This article introduces new approaches to develop early fault-tolerant quantum computing (early-FTQC) such as improving efficiency of quantum computation on encoded data, new circuit efficiency techniques for quantum algorithms, and combining error-mitigation techniques with fault-tolerant quantum computation.

Yuuki Tokunaga NTT Computer and Data Science Laboratories.

Noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computers, which do not execute quantum error correction, do not require overhead for encoding. However, because errors inevitably accumulate, there is a limit to computation size. Fault-tolerant quantum computers (FTQCs) carry out computation on encoded qubits, so they have overhead for the encoding and require quantum computers of at least a certain size. The gap between NISQ computers and FTQCs due to the amount of overhead is shown in Fig. 1. Is this gap unavoidable? Decades ago, many researchers would consider the answer to be in the negative. However, our team has recently demonstrated a new, unprecedented method to overcome this gap. Motivation to overcome this gap has also led to a research trend that started at around the same time worldwide. These efforts, collectively called early fault-tolerant quantum computing “early-FTQC”, have become a worldwide research movement.

Japanese chip maker Rohm is collaborating with venture company Quanmatic to improve electrical die sorting (EDS) in what appears to be the first use of quantum computing to optimize a commercial-scale manufacturing process on semiconductor production lines.

After a year of effort, the two companies have announced that full-scale implementation of the probe test technology can begin in April in Rohm’s factories in Japan and overseas. Testing and validation of the prototype indicate that EDS performance can be improved by several percentage points, improving significantly productivity and profitability.

Headquartered in Kyoto, Rohm produces integrated circuits (ICs), discrete semiconductors and other electronic components. It is one of the world’s leading suppliers of silicon carbide wafers and power management devices used in electric vehicles (EVs) and various industrial applications.

New device can recognize similar patterns and operates at room temperatures.

A physicist writes an article in The Conversation exploring when quantum computers might achieve quantum advantage.

Solid-state qubits: Forget about being clean, embrace mess, says a new recipe for dense arrays of qubits with long lifetimes.

New findings debunk previous wisdom that solid-state qubits need to be super dilute in an ultra-clean material to achieve long lifetimes. Instead, cram lots of rare-earth ions into a crystal and some will form pairs that act as highly coherent qubits, shows a paper in Nature Physics.

Clean lines and minimalism, or vintage shabby chic? It turns out that the same trends that occupy the world of interior design are important when it comes to designing the building blocks of quantum computers.

South Korea unveils a $473B plan for the world’s largest semiconductor hub by 2047, led by Samsung and SK Hynix, aiming for global chip dominance and 3M job creation.

South Korea’s $473B mega cluster vision! 🚀 Samsung & SK hynix spearhead the world’s largest semiconductor hub by 2047, creating 3M jobs!

A Harvard and QuEra research team conceives the quantum computer as a error-corrected quantum commuting superhighway for qubits.