Tech News Review Week 9-14 January 2021, by Stelios Iordanis
Energy
New nanostructured alloy for anode is a big step toward revolutionizing energy storage
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-nanostructured-alloy-anode-big-revolutionizing.html
Battery related breakthroughs are necessary as global energy needs are increasing, but the development of next-generation electrochemical energy storage systems with high energy density and acceptable cycling life are problematic.
Biotech
Rare quadruple-helix DNA found in living human cells with glowing probes
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-rare-quadruple-helix-dna-human-cells.html
G-quadruplexes have been in higher concentrations in cancer cells, so they may be linked to the disease, which shows us how ignorant we still are about cancer and dna biochemistry.
Scientists develop a cheaper method that might help create fuels from plants
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-scientists-cheaper-method-fuels.html
Creating biofuels and other bioproducts more cheaply is becoming even more economically competitive and sustainable due to this discovery which can help investments in the existing conventional car fleet become more eco-friendly and extend their lifetime.
Covid: Swansea Uni develops ‘world’s first’ vaccine smart patch – BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-55548670
An invention that will be demonized by conspiracy theorists, but still very useful and in the far future, people will wonder how we could live without it.
France’s Carmat Soars as Artificial Heart Hopes Become Reality – Bloomberg
Given that heart disease is the leading death cause, artificial hearts could be ubiquitous among elderly people in a few decades.
Machine learning
Machine learning at the speed of light: New paper demonstrates use of photonic structures for AI
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-01-machine-paper-photonic-ai.html
While traditional electronics, which usually work in the low GHz range, this optical modulation could operate within 50 to 100 GHz range and make AI training a thousand or even million times more efficient that the state of the art systems.
AutoML-Zero. It took us 60 years to discover a thing… | by Sahil Uppal | Towards Data Science
https://towardsdatascience.com/automl-zero-b2e065170941?gi=660d72152ede
The possibilities of AutoML-Zero are endless, as it demonstrates how machine learning can come up with mathematical methods on its own and gives us a preview of what’s coming within the next 50 years.
DALL·E: Creating Images from Text
https://openai.com/blog/dall-e/?s=03
DALL·E is an impressive 12-billion parameter version of GPT-3 trained to produce images from text descriptions, based on a dataset of text–image pairs coming up with curious anthropomorphized versions of animals and objects, mixing unrelated concepts in plausible ways, generating text, and applying transformations to existing images showing that AI can exhibit a vivid imagination.
New Quantum Algorithms Finally Crack Nonlinear Equations
https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-quantum-algorithms-finally-crack-nonlinear-equations-20210105/
Novel, concrete examples of quantum algorithms are part of the second era of computing emerging from quantum computing.
Materials
Wood-inspired cement with high strength and multifunctionality
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-wood-inspired-cement-high-strength-multifunctionality.html
Biomimetic man-made materials and AI inventions are a recurring pattern during the last decades; even cement can thus be enhanced and further optimized.
Computing
80 Times More Energy Prototype Superconducting Chips that Will Soon Reach 10 Ghz | NextBigFuture.com
At 4.2 Kelvin, these chips will only operate under extreme laboratory conditions, however, material science discoveries could make them more mainstream, very soon.