Smaller than a flea, robot can walk, bend, twist, turn and jump. Northwestern University engineers have developed the smallest-ever remote-controlled walking robot — and it comes in the form of a tiny, adorable peekytoe crab. Just a half-millimeter wide, the tiny crabs can bend, twist, crawl, walk, turn and even jump. The researchers also developed millimeter-sized robots resembling inchworms, crickets and beetles. Although the research is exploratory at this point, the researchers believe their technology might bring the field closer…

Smart devices are supposed to make our everyday lives easier. At the same time, however, they are a gateway for passive eavesdropping. To prevent possible surveillance of the movement profile within one’s home, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, the Horst Görtz Institute for IT Security at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the Cologne University of Applied Sciences have developed a novel system for protecting privacy in wireless communication. The method, based on the technology of intelligent reflective…

For the first time TU Graz’s Institute of Theoretical Computer Science and Intel Labs demonstrated experimentally that a large neural network can process sequences such as sentences while consuming four to sixteen times less energy while running on neuromorphic hardware than non-neuromorphic hardware. The new research based on Intel Labs’ Loihi neuromorphic research chip that draws on insights from neuroscience to create chips that function similar to those in the biological brain. The research was funded by The Human Brain…

Machine learning, meaning the ability to recognize important patterns in data sets and to generate solutions with the help of algorithms, is a research field of rapidly growing importance. In physics, chemistry and biology with complex molecular structures, classical machine learning is reaching its limits. In order to better understand and use molecular data, new models must be developed. This is what the DFG’s Priority Program “Use and Development of Machine Learning for Molecular Applications – Molecular Machine Learning” aims…

As robots increasingly join people on the factory floor, in warehouses and elsewhere on the job, dividing up who will do which tasks grows in complexity and importance. People are better suited for some tasks, robots for others. And in some cases, it is advantageous to spend time teaching a robot to do a task now and reap the benefits later. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute (RI) have developed an algorithmic planner that helps delegate tasks to humans and robots….

A high-fidelity iToffoli gate … Berkeley Lab team demonstrates a three-qubit native quantum gate with high fidelity. High-fidelity quantum logic gates applied to quantum bits (qubits) are the basic building blocks of programmable quantum circuits. Researchers at the Advanced Quantum Testbed (AQT) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) conducted the first experimental demonstration of a three-qubit high-fidelity iToffoli native gate in a superconducting quantum information processor and in a single step. Noisy intermediate-scale quantum processors typically support one- or…

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have boosted the sensitivity of their atomic radio receiver a hundredfold by enclosing the small glass cylinder of cesium atoms inside what looks like custom copper “headphones.” The structure — a square overhead loop connecting two square panels — increases the incoming radio signal, or electric field, applied to the gaseous atoms in the flask (known as a vapor cell) between the panels. This enhancement enables the radio receiver to…

Nearly half of Sun-size stars are binary. According to University of Copenhagen research, planetary systems around binary stars may be very different from those around single stars. This points to new targets in the search for extraterrestrial life forms. Since the only known planet with life, the Earth, orbits the Sun, planetary systems around stars of similar size are obvious targets for astronomers trying to locate extraterrestrial life. Nearly every second star in that category is a binary star. A…

Pairing two waveguides, one with an ill-defined topology, another with a well-defined one, can lead to a topological singularity, with potential for extreme wave phenomena, energy harvesting, and enhancing nonlinear effects. Topological ideas have recently taken the center stage of modern electromagnetics. Typical topological photonic systems are based on nonreciprocal materials, a class of materials that enables asymmetric light–matter interactions. In particular, nonreciprocal platforms, may support unidirectional channels that allow propagation in a given direction of space—let’s say from left…

User-friendly deep learning model analyzes bioacoustics signals from whales, dolphins. Lurking beneath the ocean’s surface, marine mammals use sound for navigation, prey detection, and a wide range of natural behaviors. Passive acoustic data from underwater environments can provide valuable information on these animals, such as their presence or absence within an area, their density and abundance, and their vocal response to anthropogenic noise sources. As the size and number of acoustic datasets increase, accurately and quickly matching the bioacoustics signals…

Diamonds can withstand the heat from high-powered, continuous beam lasers. Just about every car, train and plane that’s been built since 1970 has been manufactured using high-power lasers that shoot a continuous beam of light. These lasers are strong enough to cut steel, precise enough to perform surgery, and powerful enough to carry messages into deep space. They are so powerful, in fact, that it’s difficult to engineer resilient and long-lasting components that can control the powerful beams the lasers…

Newfound black holes in dwarf galaxies shed light on the origin of our galaxy’s supermassive black hole. A team led by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found a previously overlooked treasure trove of massive black holes in dwarf galaxies. The newly discovered black holes offer a glimpse into the life story of the supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. As a giant spiral galaxy, the Milky Way is…

HZDR team comes across unexpected flow behavior in liquid metals. Some metals are in liquid form, the prime example being mercury. But there are also enormous quantities of liquid metal in the Earth’s core, where temperatures are so high that part of the iron is molten and undergoes complex flows. A team at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has now simulated a similar process in the laboratory and made a surprising discovery: Under certain circumstances, the flow of liquid metal is…

Unlike fictional laser swords, real laser beams do not interact with each other when they cross – unless the beams meet within a suitable material allowing for nonlinear light-matter interaction. In such a case, wave mixing can give rise to beams with changed colors and directions. Wave-mixing processes between different light beams are one cornerstone of the field of nonlinear optics, which is firmly established since lasers have become widely available. Within a suitable material such as particular crystals, two…

Room-temperature superconductors could transform everything from electrical grids to particle accelerators to computers – but before they can be realized, researchers need to better understand how existing high-temperature superconductors work. Now, researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the University of British Columbia, Yale University and others have taken a step in that direction by studying the fast dynamics of a material called yttrium barium copper oxide, or YBCO. The team reports May 20 in Science that YBCO’s superconductivity…

Study published in Nature reveals an elaborate linked quantum structure. As physicists delve deeper into the quantum realm, they are discovering an infinitesimally small world composed of a strange and surprising array of links, knots and winding. Some quantum materials exhibit magnetic whirls called skyrmions — unique configurations described as “subatomic hurricanes.” Others host a form of superconductivity that twists into vortices. Now, in an article published in Nature a Princeton-led team of physicists has discovered that electrons in quantum…