New quantum materials could lead to devices with room temperature superconducting like properties

Physicists from MIT, Harvard University, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report that they have for the first time produced a kagome (japanese basketweaving-like structure) metal — an electrically conducting crystal, made from layers of iron and tin atoms, with each atomic layer arranged in the repeating pattern of a kagome lattice. When current flowed across …

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Superconductors used as an experimental model for blackholes

University of Rochester researchers are using superconductor-metal interfaces to model and learn the quantum physics of a black hole. They show that the metal-superconductor interface can be thought of as an event horizon and Andreev reflection from the interface is analogous to the Hawking radiation in black holes, giving a unitary description of black hole …

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Secret of Iron Superconductors discovered

Due to magnetism iron should – theoretically – be a poor superconductor. Nevertheless certain iron based materials possess fine superconducting properties. Why? Because the five unbound electrons found in iron – as a result of individual modes of operation, it turns out – facilitate superconductivity. “This may come in very handily in future attempts to …

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Nvidia’s $129000 170 TeraFlop minisupercomputer for Artificial Intelligence

Early customers of Nvidia’s DGX-1, which combines machine-learning software with eight of the chip maker’s highest-end graphics processing units (GPUs), say the system lets them train their analytical models faster, enables greater experimentation, and could facilitate breakthroughs in science, health care, and financial services. Data scientists have been leveraging GPUs to accelerate deep learning—an AI …

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China will need to subsidize and import natural gas to reach target of 10% of overall energy mix

China plans to boost natural gas from 6% of its energy usage to 10% by 2020. However, to affect a large-scale transition from coal to natural gas in China will be far more difficult than it has been in the U.S., where the price of natural gas per unit of energy output is much lower …

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Boeing 737 Max jets will launch the age of $69 one way trans-Atlantic fares and it should start in March 2017

Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA hopes to sell one-way tickets to Europe for $69 as early as 2017 by flying from U.S. airports that have low fees, Chief Executive Officer Bjørn Kjos said in an interview. Norwegian has 100 737 MAX jets from Boeing on order and expects to receive five in 2017. Boeing has said …

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New breakthrough steel with high strength and high formability

NanoSteel®, a leader in nanostructured steel materials, and the company’s joint development launch partner, AK Steel Corporation, have won the Platts Global Metals “Breakthrough Solution of the Year” Award. The Platts Global Metals Award recognizes the product’s groundbreaking properties, which offer the combination of both high strength (1200 MPa) and high formability (50% elongation), exceeding …

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Harvard creates three-dimensional actuated scalable snapology-origami-inspired transformable metamaterial

Imagine a house that could fit in a backpack or a wall that could become a window with the flick of a switch. Harvard researchers have designed a new type of foldable material that is versatile, tunable and self actuated. It can change size, volume and shape; it can fold flat to withstand the weight …

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Big step towards onchip photonic communication so computers would be a lot faster and more energy efficient

Using a new algorithm, Stanford engineers can design and build a prism-like silicon structure that can bend light at right angles. The goal is to transmit data faster and more efficiently via optical rather than electrical signals. The optical link is a tiny slice of silicon etched with a pattern that resembles a bar code. …

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Stephen Hawking says ‘There are no black holes’ in a research paper

In a paper posted online, the physicist Stephen Hawking, based at the University of Cambridge, UK, and one of the creators of modern black-hole theory, does away with the notion of an event horizon, the invisible boundary thought to shroud every black hole, beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape. Hawking’s radical proposal is …

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