Science

Russia topped Global Skills Index as the best in tech and data science

According to the recent Coursera’s Global Skills Index 2020 report, Russians have the highest skill proficiency in technology and data science among Coursera’s 65 million learners from 60 countries.

In their second edition of the Global Skills Index, Coursera — a world-leading online learning platform — analyzed 12 months worth of data on their own 65 million learners and ranked the countries (where learners come from) based on their skill proficiency in the “fundamental skill domains of the future”: business, technology and data science — all three also turned out as the most popular disciplines on Coursera in terms of enrollments.

Giving credit to the authors of the report, Coursera’s data science team, who essentially collected data on its 1,800 courses in business, technology, and data science from top-ranked universities, matched them to 40,000 skills and competencies taught at these courses, aggregated data on learners themselves (taken courses, grades, countries of origin, career and education background and more), then split all learners with respective skills in groups (by countries, industries, fields of study, etc) and benchmarked groups to each other by segmenting in percentile ranking.

Science

The Pleasure and Pain of Scientific Predictions

n recent months, two gorgeous experiments have reported convincing evidence for the existence of anyons, a new type of particle that can exist only inside of certain materials. Their distinctive feature is that they have a kind of primitive memory, enabling them to preserve information about their past motions. This feature makes anyons an important building block for future quantum computers.

For many years, most physicists thought that all particles must be either bosons (a category that includes photons, the particles of light) or fermions (which includes protons and neutrons, located in an atom’s nucleus). But in the early 1980s, building on work by earlier researchers, I proposed the existence of a new type of particle, which I named anyons as a kind of joke, derived from “anything goes.” At the time, I expected the existence of anyons to be confirmed by observation within a few months—rather short of the four decades it actually took. In science, reality can be slow to meet our expectations.

Science

Open-access science funders announce price transparency rules for publishers

Science journals will have to disclose the costs of publishing articles in order for them to be paid for by a coalition of research funders pushing for open access.

The price transparency rules, which will take effect in July 2022, were announced today by cOAlition S, a group of 22 international organizations, European national research agencies, and foundations. In 2018, cOAlition S launched a scheme called Plan S that will require grantees’ work, beginning in January 2021, to be open access, meaning it can be read immediately upon publication, free of charge. One route to accomplish this is for authors to pay journals a fee for each article published this way.

cOAlition S wants the rules to help keep these fees reasonable. The rules require publishers to provide a break down of their prices: what percentages go to cover the cost of services such as proof-reading, copy-editing, and organizing peer review. If they don’t, “we will not meet any publication fees associated with that publisher,” says Robert Kiley, interim coordinator of cOAlition S and head of open research at the Wellcome Trust, one of the coalition’s members. “The intention is to provide more granular information about the value components of each journal article price point,” says Steven Inchcoombe, chief publishing officer at Springer Nature, which publishes the journal Nature.

Science

Is the universe conscious? It seems impossible until you do the maths

THEY call it the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics”. Physicist Eugene Wigner coined the phrase in the 1960s to encapsulate the curious fact that merely by manipulating numbers we can describe and predict all manner of natural phenomena with astonishing clarity, from the movements of planets and the strange behaviour of fundamental particles to the consequences of a collision between two black holes billions of light years away. Now, some are wondering if maths can succeed where all else has failed, unravelling whatever it is that allows us to contemplate the laws of nature in the first place.

It is a big ask. The question of how matter gives rise to felt experience is one of the most vexing problems we know of. And sure enough, the first fleshed-out mathematical model of consciousness has generated huge debate about whether it can tell us anything sensible. But as mathematicians work to hone and extend their tools for peering deep inside ourselves, they are confronting some eye-popping conclusions.

Not least, what they are uncovering seems to suggest that if we are to achieve a precise description of consciousness, we may have to ditch our intuitions and accept that all kinds of inanimate matter could be conscious – maybe even the universe as a whole. “This could be the beginning of a scientific revolution,” says Johannes Kleiner, a mathematician at the Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy in Germany.

Science

New Theory of Everything Unites Quantum Mechanics with Relativity ... and Much More

One of the goals of modern physics is to determine the underlying rules that govern our reality. Indeed, one of the wonders of the universe is that just a few rules seem to describe many aspects of our world. What’s more, scientists have found ways to combine these rules into simpler, more powerful ones.

That has tempted many thinkers to suggest there might be a single rule, or set of rules, from which all else emerges. This pursuit of a theory of everything has driven much of the thinking behind modern physics. We have built multibillion-dollar machines and observatories to test these ideas, generally with huge success.

Despite this success, one outstanding challenge is to unite two entirely different but fundamental pillars of modern science: the theory of relativity, which describes the universe on a large scale; and the theory of quantum mechanics, which describes it on the smallest scale.

Both theories almost perfectly explain the results of almost every experiment ever performed. And yet they are entirely at odds with each other. Numerous theorists have attempted a unification, but progress has been slow.

That sets the scene for the work of Stephen Wolfram, a physicist and computer scientist who has spent much of his career categorizing simple algorithms, called cellular automatons, and studying their properties. His main finding is that the simplest algorithms can produce huge complexity; some even generate randomness. And his main hypothesis is that the universe is governed by some subset of these algorithms.

Science

University of Tennessee scientists may have found coronavirus cure

As the coronavirus outbreak edges closer to East Tennessee, a possible cure could be closer to coming from the region. Two researchers have discovered a chemical compound, which will be further tested soon, could stop the virus and prevent it from spreading further.

Jeremy Smith, Director of the Center for Molecular Biophysics, a partnership between the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, explained their work is made possible by the “world’s most powerful computer,” or the Summit, at ORNL.

“It’s capable of doing calculations very, very, quickly. The response to the new coronavirus needs to be quick,” he said. Smith said the computer’s speed is equivalent to 100,000 laptops working at the same time. “The work it can do in one day,” he added, “would take months on a normal computer.”

Science

SCIENTISTS: SALAMANDER DNA COULD REGENERATE HUMAN BODY PARTS

For the first time, scientists have completely sequenced the genome of the axolotl, a bizarre salamander that’s capable of regenerating many of its body parts after an injury.

By unlocking the entirety of the axolotl’s genetic code, according to a press release, doctors from the University of Kentucky hope that they may be able to use it in human medicine. By developing new genetic treatments, they hope that someday humans may be able to regenerate missing limbs or reverse other damage, like salamanders do.

“It’s hard to find a body part they can’t regenerate: the limbs, the tail, the spinal cord, the eye, and in some species, the lens, even half of their brain has been shown to regenerate,” Kentucky researcher Randal Voss said in the release.

Sequencing the human genome has become more or less commonplace, but the team needed to come up with new techniques to sequence axolotl DNA, because the critter’s genetic code is ten times longer than a human’s.

Science

Researchers combine lasers and terahertz waves in camera that sees 'unseen' detail

A team of physicists at the University of Sussex has successfully developed the first nonlinear camera capable of capturing high-resolution images of the interior of solid objects using terahertz (THz) radiation.

Led by Professor Marco Peccianti of the Emergent Photonics (EPic) Lab, Luana Olivieri, Dr. Juan S. Totero Gongora and a team of research students built a new type of THz camera capable of detecting THz electromagnetic waves with unprecedented accuracy.

Images produced using THz radiation are called 'hyperspectral' because the image consists of pixels, each one containing the electromagnetic signature of the object in that point.

Lying between microwaves and infrared in the electromagnetic spectrum, THz radiation easily penetrates materials like paper, clothes and plastic in the same way X-rays do, but without being harmful. It is safe to use with even the most delicate biological samples. THz imaging makes it possible to 'see' the molecular composition of objects and distinguish between different materials—such as sugar and cocaine, for example.

Explaining the significance of their achievement, Prof Peccianti said: "The core challenge in THz cameras is not about collecting an image, but it is about preserving the objects spectral fingerprint that can be easily corrupted by your technique. This is where the importance of our achievement lies. The fingerprint of all the details of the image is preserved in such a way that we can investigate the nature of the object in full detail. "

Science

Empathy as a "Danger Antenna”

Rats are social animals, exquisitely attuned to the emotions of the rats around them. In a new study published in PLoS Biology, researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience show that rats may use this sense of empathy as a way to gauge danger.

Most studies of empathy conceive of it as a one-way phenomenon in which an observer “catches” the emotions of another. But in real life, it’s more of an interactive process in which information flows in two directions.

“Emotions develop in a social loop,” says neuroscientist Christian Keysers, lead author of the new study. For instance, when a child falls down, the parent reacts—either calmly or in a panic. The child looks to the parent and, based on his or her reaction, she might stand up and brush herself off or start sobbing.

Keysers and his colleagues scrutinized this social loop scientifically for the first time, using a paradigm that allowed them to capture social influences in two directions. They put two rats face to face and then startled one of them (the "demonstrator") with a brief electric shock to the feet. Then they observed the reactions of both rats. They found that the observer appears to “catch” the fear of the demonstrator, but the flow of information goes both ways: the reaction of the observer also influences how the shocked rat responds. Observers that were less scared reduced fear in the demonstrators.

Science

Plants have awareness and intelligence, argue scientists

Do plants have feelings? Not in a poetic, metaphorical sort of way but real feelings? Can they hate, love, or be bored? If you go around plucking flowers or mowing grass down with your lawnmower, are you causing these organisms real pain? A rising field of plant neurobiology may answer these provocative questions.

This area of study was perhaps jolted into existence by the series of experiments carried out in 1966 by a former C.I.A. polygraph expert namedCleve Backster. He was, in turn, inspired by the work physicist Jagadish Chandra Bose, who found that playing different kinds of music near plants made them grow faster

Backster hooked up a galvanometer to a houseplant and found that the plant's varying electrical activity seemed to correspond to the thoughts from Backster and his colleagues. The experiment appeared to show that the plants reacted to whether the thoughts were positive or negative.

Science

Researchers shed new light on atomic 'wave function'

Physicists have demonstrated a new way to obtain the essential details that describe an isolated quantum system, such as a gas of atoms, through direct observation. The new method gives information about the likelihood of finding atoms at specific locations in the system with unprecedented spatial resolution. With this technique, scientists can obtain details on a scale of tens of nanometers—smaller than the width of a virus.

Experiments performed at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), a research partnership between the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland, use an optical lattice—a web of laser light that suspends thousands of individual atoms—to determine the probability that an atom might be at any given location. Because each individual atom in the lattice behaves like all the others, a measurement on the entire group of atoms reveals the likelihood of an individual atom to be in a particular point in space.

Science

Physicists set a new record of quantum memory efficiency

Like memory in conventional computers, quantum memory components are essential for quantum computers—a new generation of data processors that exploit quantum mechanics and can overcome the limitations of classical computers. With their potent computational power, quantum computers may push the boundaries of fundamental science to create new drugs, explain cosmological mysteries, or enhance accuracy of forecasts and optimization plans. Quantum computers are expected to be much faster and more powerful than their traditional counterparts as information is calculated in qubits, which, unlike the bits used in classical computers, can represent both zero and one in a simultaneous superstate.

Photonic quantum memory allows for the storage and retrieval of flying single-photon quantum states. However, production of such highly efficient quantum memory remains a major challenge as it requires a perfectly matched photon-matter quantum interface. Meanwhile, the energy of a single photon is too weak and can be easily lost into the noisy sea of stray light background.

Science

Remote connections? Detangling entanglement in quantum physics

Quantum computers, quantum cryptography and quantum (insert name here) are often in the news these days. Articles about them inevitably refer to entanglement, a property of quantum physics that makes all these magical devices possible.

Einstein called entanglement "spooky action at a distance," a name that has stuck and become increasingly popular. Beyond just building better quantum computers, understanding and harnessing entanglement is also useful in other ways.

For example, it can be used to make more accurate measurements of gravitational waves, and to better understand the properties of exotic materials. It also subtly shows up in other places: I have been studying how atoms bumping into each other become entangled, to understand how this affects the accuracy of atomic clocks.

Science

This Quantum Computer Can See the Future — All 16 of Them

When Mile Gu boots up his new computer, he can see the future. At least, 16 possible versions of it — all at the same time.

Gu, an assistant professor of physics at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, works in quantum computing. This branch of science uses the weird laws that govern the universe's smallest particles to help computers calculate more efficiently.

Unlike classical computers, which store information as bits (binary digits of either 0 or 1), quantum computers code information into quantum bits, or qubits. These subatomic particles, thanks to the weird laws of quantum mechanics, can exist in a superposition of two different states at the same time.

Just as Schrödinger's hypothetical cat was simultaneously dead and aliveuntil someone opened the box, a qubit in a superposition can equal both 0 and 1 until it's measured. Storing multiple different outcomes into a single qubit could save a ton of memory compared to traditional computers, especially when it comes to making complicated predictions. [Twisted Physics: 7 Mind-Blowing Findings]

Science

Mind-boggling experiment suggests multiple realities can exist at the SAME TIME

In a new paper, researchers say they've proved that two realities can exist at once, at least when it comes to the quantum world.

To investigate their hypothesis, researchers at the Department of Experimental Physics at the University of Innsbrück in Austria tackled one of the world's most confounding thought experiments, called 'Wigner's Friend.' 

The experiment, named after its progenitor, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Eugene Wigner, was posited in 1961 and involves two people observing the same thing — in this case, a single photon.

When the photon is observed, it is displayed in either a horizontal or vertical state, but according to quantum mechanics, before that observation is made, it exists in a state of 'superposition' meaning that it is in both states at once — horizontal and vertical. 

In Wigner's experiment, one person in a laboratory observes the photon, sending it to either a vertical or horizontal state, while Wigner, who is outside of the laboratory, runs a simple test called an 'interference experiment' to prove that the photon is still in a state of superposition. 

Science

Scientists 'reverse time' in quantum computer, possibly breaking laws of physics

Physicists may have discovered a real-life time machine — of sorts.

Although scientists have yet to replicate the futuristic scenes of The Jetsons or the 1985 sci-fi classic Back to the Future, researchers from Moscow's Institute of Physics and Technology partnered with scientists in the U.S. and Switzerland to "experimentally demonstrate time reversal — sending a qubit from a more complicated state to a simpler one," writes Newsweek.

The findings, which were published in Scientific Reports were almost like "magic," the study's author, Andrei Lebedev, told Newsweek.

Researchers, however, are far from achieving "time travel, or going back to the past, or reversing the principle of cause and effect," says scientist Henning Bostelmann at the U.K.'s University of York, which he acknowledged may be a "disappointment to science-fiction fans," per Newsweek. Instead, researchers managed to send quantum bits back into their states from a split second earlier, which could demonstrate the "possibility of violating the second law of thermodynamics," lead author Gordey Lesovik said, per Phys.org.

Science

Minister: China to strengthen funding of basic scientific research

Stakeholders at all levels must pay sufficient attention to funding basic research, Wang Zhigang, Chinese Minister of Science and Technology, said during a press conference on Monday.

China's investment in basic research only accounts for five percent of the total Research and Development (R&D) spending, while in the U.S. the figure is 15 percent, Wang noted.

However, Wang pointed out that in the U.S., the federal government, local governments, enterprises, and social entities all invest in basic research, while in China, the five-percent funding mainly comes from the central government.

Science

Trump once again requests deep cuts in U.S. science spending

For the third year in a row, President Donald Trump’s administration has unveiled a budget request to Congress that calls for deep spending cuts at many federal science agencies, including a 13% cut for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a 12% cut for the National Science Foundation (NSF), while providing hefty increases for the military.

But the $4.7 trillion request for the 2020 fiscal year that begins 1 October, released today, is already drawing bipartisan pushback from lawmakers in Congress and—as with past Trump administration requests—many of the cuts are unlikely to be enacted into law.

The president’s science adviser, Kelvin Droegemeier, calls the request “an important down payment on America’s future.” A statement from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), which he leads, says the president’s budget “promotes responsible spending [by] prioritizing high-impact programs that have been shown to be effective.”

Science

The Real Cost of Knowledge

This past Thursday, the University of California, one of the largest research institutions in the world, blew up negotiations with Elsevier, one of the largest publishers of research articles in the world. The university would no longer pay Elsevier millions of dollars a year to subscribe to its journals. It simply walked away.

Not so long ago, blowing off a publisher as important as Elsevier would have been unthinkable. But academics have been joining in an open revolt against Elsevier’s extremely profitable business model. In 2012, mathematicians started a petition to boycott the publisher that has since been signed by more than 17,000 researchers. In December 2016, universities in Germany stopped paying for Elsevier’s journals. In 2018, the same thing happened in Sweden and then Hungary.

Elsevier still made $1.17 billion in publishing in 2017, which is precisely the problem, according to its critics. At its loftiest, academic publishing is supposed to be about disseminating hard-won knowledge. But publishers charge hefty subscription fees, making that knowledge often inaccessible to researchers at all but the wealthiest institutions. Last year, the University of California paid Elsevier $11 million.

Science

DNA pioneer stripped of honors over 'reprehensible' race comments

A Nobel Prize-winning American scientist who co-discovered DNA has been stripped of his honorary titles at the laboratory he once led after repeating racist comments in a documentary.

James Watson, who discovered the double-helix structure of DNA alongside Francis Crick in the 1950s based on the work of British chemist Rosalind Franklin, said in a PBS film that genes cause a difference in intelligence between white and black people in IQ tests.

The 90-year-old's comments were labeled "reprehensible" by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) on New York's Long Island, where Watson had been the director from 1968 to 1993.

The laboratory said it "unequivocally rejects the unsubstantiated and reckless personal opinions Dr. James D. Watson expressed," noting the statements were "reprehensible [and] unsupported by science."