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    New Type of Computer Memory could greatly Reduce Energy use and Improve Performance

    June 26, 2023, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    New type of computer memory could greatly reduce energy use and improve performance
    Cross-sectional TEM images and energy-dispersive x-ray measurements from high-angle annular dark-field scanning TEM for different thin films. (A) Pure HfOx deposited at 400°C. Clear crystallites are visible in the film; red arrows indicate some of the grain boundaries. (B) Pure HfOx deposited at 30°C. While these films are not polycrystalline like pure HfOx deposited at 400°C, neither are they as uniform as the composite films presented in (C). (C) The thin films which resulted in stable electrical performance are amorphous or nanocrystalline. Some pillar-like structures can be discerned, indicated by red arrows. The addition of Ba to the films clearly leads to material uniformity by suppressing crystallization...
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    Our Galaxy’s Black Hole Not as Sleepy as thought

    June 26, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The first ever image of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole that sit at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy
    The first ever image of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole that sit at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy.

    The supermassive black hole lurking at the center of our Milky Way galaxy is not as dormant as had been thought, a new study shows.

    The slumbering giant woke up around 200 years ago to gobble up some nearby cosmic objects before going back to sleep, according to the study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

    NASA’s IXPE space observatory spotted an Xray echo of this powerful resurgence of activity, the researchers said.

    The supermassive black hole Sagittarius A—abbreviated to Sgr A—is four million times more massive than the Sun. It sits 27,000 light years from Earth at the center of the Milky Way’s spiral.

    Last year astronomers revealed the first...

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    Helping ‘Good’ Gut Bacteria and Clearing out the ‘Bad’ – all in one treatment

    June 26, 2023, Categories  Health/Medical, Biology/Biotechnology

    An illustration of several rod-shaped bacteria.
    Probiotic bacteria, like those illustrated here, could one day be delivered to the body on spherical microgels.
    Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock.com

    Probiotics can help maintain a healthy gut microbiome or restore populations of “good bacteria” after a heavy course of antibiotics. But now, they could also be used as an effective treatment strategy for certain intestinal diseases, such as Crohn’s disease. Researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have developed a microgel delivery system for probiotics that keeps “good” bacteria safe while actively clearing out “bad” ones. In mice, the system treated intestinal inflammation without side effects.

    In the digestive system, there’s a delicate balance of bacterial populations...

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    AI that uses Sketches to Detect Objects within an Image could Boost Tumor Detection, and Search for Rare Bird Species

    June 26, 2023, Categories  Physics, Biology/Biotechnology

    Flock of birds - pixabay source

    Teaching machine learning tools to detect specific objects in a specific image and discount others is a “game-changer” that could lead to advancements in cancer detection, according to leading researchers from the University of Surrey.

    Surrey is set to present its unique sketch-based object detection tool at this year’s Computer Vision, Pattern, and Recognition Conference (CVPR). The tool allows the user to sketch an object, which the AI will use as a basis to search within an image to find something that matches the sketch — while discounting more general options.

    Professor Yi-Zhe Song, leads this research at the University of Surrey’s Institute for People-Centred AI. He commented:

    “An artist’s sketch is full of individual cues that words cannot convey concisely, reiterating...

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