Breakthrough Technologies & Futurology

[nudge+]

8 minutes ago, Tommy said:

"What do you do for a living?" 

- "I work in the baby factory." 

 

[nudge+]

Alright, so I did some digging, and that video is made by Hashem Al-Ghaili, a biotechnologist, science communicator, video director and producer. 

He previously made an award-winning sci-fi short called simulation:

and then also wrote a novel based on it.

His new movie, Orbital, should be released soon, too: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15430152/

 

 

And finally, regarding that video about the baby factory concept - it's just another of his creations, and not an actual real-life concept (yet). He posted it on reddit, and here's the description of the project:

Quote

 

Hi Worldbuilders! I’m back with a new concept! It’s called EctoLife, which is an artificial womb facility that can support the growth of up to 30,000 babies. I utilized my academic background in biotechnology and molecular biology to develop this concept, and relied on over 50 years of groundbreaking scientific research. To some people, it may come across as a Sci-Fi idea, but it’s really beyond that! Every single feature mentioned in this concept has already been achieved by scientists and engineers around the globe. I combined all these breakthroughs into a single innovation that I call EctoLife. You can learn more about the concept here.

Lore: The world is facing a steady decline of global population. Countries like Japan, Bulgaria and South Korea are severely affected. The population growth in Germany and some other European nations have reached a plateau. In the not very distant future (2050s to 2060s), governments of the world decide to break the ethical barriers that have long put restriction to embryonic research. Scientists around the world make incredible progress in the field of ectogenesis. With the help of engineers, they create EctoLife, the world’s first womb facility, which can grow 30,000 babies a year. Building more facilities means growing more babies.

After constructing EctoLife, governments of the world begin increasing their population using a genetic database of their own citizens. In future Japan, thousands of lab-gown babies are born. They are sent to families to take care of them in exchange for a monthly allowance and social security benefits. In some other nations, the lab-grown babies are sent to special facilities that take care of them and help them integrate in the society later on. Global population growth reaches new heights as EctoLife helps the world recover from what could have caused human extinction.

You can find over 300 videos and images for EctoLife here.

Thank you and happy to answer your questions.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/zgursc/ectolife_the_worlds_first_artificial_womb_facility/

[Bluewolf]

27 minutes ago, nudge said:

Alright, so I did some digging, and that video is made by Hashem Al-Ghaili, a biotechnologist, science communicator, video director and producer. 

He previously made an award-winning sci-fi short called simulation:

and then also wrote a novel based on it.

His new movie, Orbital, should be released soon, too: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15430152/

 

 

And finally, regarding that video about the baby factory concept - it's just another of his creations, and not an actual real-life concept (yet). He posted it on reddit, and here's the description of the project:

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/zgursc/ectolife_the_worlds_first_artificial_womb_facility/

It's the future.... A Matrix for newborns... 

[nudge+]

6 minutes ago, Bluewolf said:

It's the future.... A Matrix for newborns... 

I have no doubts, to be honest.

[CaaC (John)+]

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Accidental breakthrough by Australian scientists could be key to large scale quantum computers being cheaper and more usable

Switching from magnetic to electrical fields described as “serendipitous.”

Quantum computers promise to revolutionise computing, but the technology is not without its problems.

Research coming out of Australia’s University of New South Wales (UNSW) might take us a step closer to tackling one of the major problems: how to control single quantum bits in a series of them.

Most quantum computers today run on a very small number of quantum bits (or qubits). Late last year, IBM announced that they had a quantum computer, IBM Osprey, with 433 qubits. This more than tripled the previous largest quantum processor which had 127 qubits, IBM Eagle.

As significant as these developments are, if we’re speaking honestly, a quantum computer with more than three or four qubits is a nightmare to run. The very same quantum effects which promise to make quantum computers so powerful, are also making it very difficult to build.

Quantum effects mean controlling individual qubits without interfering with the others is extremely difficult. Most quantum computer architectures are bulky and complicated in engineers’ attempts to either dampen the quantum interference, or compensate for it.

Research at UNSW involving the quantum computing start-up Diraq reveals a new way of precisely controlling single electrons within a series of qubits (sometimes referred to as “quantum dots” in certain architectures). The discovery is published in Nature Nanotechnology.

“This was a completely new effect we’d never seen before, which we didn’t quite understand at first,” says lead author Dr Will Gilbert, an engineer at Diraq. “But it quickly became clear that this was a powerful new way of controlling spins in a quantum dot. And that was super exciting.”

The team came across a strange effect while experimenting with the geometrical arrangement of devices nanometres in size.

“I was trying to really accurately operate a two-qubit gate, iterating through a lot of different devices, slightly different geometries, different materials stacks, and different control techniques,” explains co-author and Diraq engineer Dr Tuomo Tanttu. “Then this strange peak popped up. It looked like the rate of rotation for one of the qubits was speeding up, which I’d never seen in four years of running these experiments.”

What Tanttu and the team had discovered completely by accident was a new way of manipulating the quantum state of a single qubit using electrical fields. Previously, they had been attempting single qubit control using magnetic fields.

“Normally, we design our microwave antennas to deliver purely magnetic fields,” Dr Tanttu remarks. “But this particular antenna design generated more of an electric field than we wanted – but that turned out to be lucky, because we discovered a new effect we can use to manipulate qubits. That’s serendipity for you.”

Having made the discovery in 2020, Diraq engineers have since been refining their technique which they hope will eventually lead to the building of single chips with billions of qubits on them.

“This is a new way to manipulate qubits, and it’s less bulky to build – you don’t need to fabricate cobalt micro-magnets or an antenna right next to the qubits to generate the control effect,” adds Gilbert. “It removes the requirement of placing extra structures around each gate. So, there’s less clutter.”

“This is a gem of new mechanism, which just adds to the trove of proprietary technology we’ve developed over the past 20 years of research,” says Diraq founder and CEO Professor Andrew Dzurak. “It builds on our work to make quantum computing in silicon a reality, based on essentially the same semiconductor component technology as existing computer chips, rather than relying on exotic materials. Since it is based on the same CMOS technology as today’s computer industry, our approach will make it easier and faster to scale up for commercial production and achieve our goal of fabricating billions of qubits on a single chip.”

“We often think of landing on the Moon as humanity’s greatest technological marvel,” says Dzurak. “But the truth is, today’s CMOS chips – with billions of operating devices integrated together to work like a symphony, and that you carry in your pocket – that’s an astounding technical achievement, and one that’s revolutionised modern life. Quantum computing will be equally astonishing.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/quantum-computer-single-control/

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[CaaC (John)+]

Quote

Deciphering the Philosophers’ Stone: how we cracked a 400-year-old alchemical cipher

How do you crack a centuries-old cipher?

Richard Bean, The University of Queensland; Megan Piorko, Georgia State University, and Sarah Lang, University of Graz

What secret alchemical knowledge could be so important it required sophisticated encryption?

The setting was Amsterdam, 2019. A conference organised by the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry had just concluded at the Embassy of the Free Mind, in a lecture hall opened by historical-fiction author Dan Brown.

At the conference, Science History Institute Postdoctoral Researcher Megan Piorko presented a curious manuscript belonging to English alchemists John Dee (1527–1608) and his son Arthur Dee (1579–1651). In the pre-modern world, alchemy was a means to understand nature through ancient secret knowledge and chemical experiment.

Within Dee’s alchemical manuscript was a cipher table, followed by encrypted ciphertext under the heading “Hermeticae Philosophiae medulla” — or Marrow of the Hermetic Philosophy. The table would end up being a valuable tool in decrypting the cipher, but could only be interpreted correctly once the hidden “key” was found.

It was during post-conference drinks in a dimly lit bar that Megan decided to investigate the mysterious alchemical cipher — with the help of her colleague, University of Graz Postdoctoral Researcher Sarah Lang.

FULL REPORT