Science

True Crystal Randomness

A research team at the University of Glasgow have developed a novel way to generate true random numbers. They built an automated robot to manage chemical reactions in crystals which produce inifintely possible physical changes. The robot detects and records the changes in the crystals across multiple variables such as size, location, colour and shape and then converts the images to binary sequences.

Modelling Knot Stability

Mathematicians and engineers at MIT have developed a model that predicts the stability of a knot. The model was created by observing the pressure on knots using fibres that change colour with pressure. A simulation was then created and tested against the real world results in order to validate the model.

Stem Cell Robots

Researchers in the U.S. have created the first organic robots which measure at less than 1mm long. The living programmable organisms are first simluated using evolutionary algorithms to create random designs using combinations of different stem cell types. Successful xenobot designs are then created in real life using frog stem cells.

3D Ken Burns Effect From Single Image

Researchers at Portland State University and Adobe have demonstrated being able to generate a 3D Ken Burns effect (parallax) using a single image. The system uses neural networks to generate depth predictions and object boundaries, and context aware in-painting to generate the missing pieces of the video to simluate a moving point of focus. We can tick another Star Trek TNG sci-fi concept off the list.

Radiative Sky Cooling

Researchers at UCLA have produced a prototype energy unit that takes advantage of radiative sky cooling to generate electricity at night. As heat is radiated from objects facing the sky at night, a thermoelectric generator can be used to generate electricity from the temperature difference, in this case 25 milliwatts per square metre using equipment costing $30.

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