Welcome to the March 18, 2022, edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
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Quantum Computers Get Smarter at Simulating Chemistry
IEEE Spectrum
Charles Q. Choi
March 17, 2022
A team of scientists from multiple institutions used Google's Sycamore quantum processor to conduct the largest chemistry simulations involving quantum computers to date, tapping a new method that may better handle quantum circuits' noise. The researchers ran a fermionic quantum Monte Carlo algorithm in a hybrid classical-quantum computation framework so it would scale well. They employed 16 quantum bits (qubits) on the 53-qubit Sycamore system to calculate the ground state of H4 molecules, molecular nitrogen, and solid diamond molecules. Google Quantum AI's William Huggins said the hybrid approach can produce very precise ground-state estimates with more noise than the previous holder of the record for chemical simulations with quantum computing, the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) algorithm, can tolerate.
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How MIT's Robot Cheetah Got Its Speed
ZDNet
Greg Nichols
March 17, 2022
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have designed a new version of the Mini Cheetah robot that can achieve high running speeds more efficiently than its predecessors. The robot learns in real time through an experiential model, and is capable of absorbing 100 days' worth of experience on diverse terrains in three hours by training its neural network in a simulator. "The intuition behind why the robot's running skills work well in the real world is: of all the environments it sees in this simulator, some will teach the robot skills that are useful in the real world," said MIT's Gabriel Margolis and Ge Yang. "When operating in the real world, our controller identifies and executes the relevant skills in real time."
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Simple Mathematical Trick Could Slash AI Development Time in Half
New Scientist
Matthew Sparkes
March 10, 2022
Researchers at the U.K.'s University of Oxford have cut the two-stage back-propagation process used to train artificial intelligence (AI) models to one stage, saving time, energy, and computing power. Back-propagation involves passing data from one side of the neural network to the other through every link in the chain of artificial neurons, then working backwards to the beginning to calculate the gradient. The new method calculates an approximation of the gradient during the first pass that is close enough to be effective. Numerous tests comparing their approach with back-propagation showed the AI's performance was comparable, and that the new approach potentially could halve the amount of time needed to train AI models.
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Drones Shed Light on Coastal Water Flows
KAUST Discovery (Saudi Arabia)
March 17, 2022
At Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), researchers used high-frequency images from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and flight surveys to monitor coastal water flows. The researchers tracked the movement of dye plumes released during an ebbing tide, mapping dye concentrations in aerial images and field measurements. The dye was released in seagrass and mangrove locations, with two drones hovering for 80 minutes and capturing photos every 10 seconds. Data was collected via UAV flight surveys as the plumes spread over a bigger area. KAUST's Aislinn Dunne said, "This method offers a more accessible and cost-effective way for regular monitoring of coastal water movement."
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Battery-free Devices Float on the Wind like Dandelion Seeds
University of Washington News
Sarah McQuate
March 16, 2022
University of Washington (UW) researchers have developed a tiny battery-free device that can be blown by wind currents, like dandelion seeds. The sensor-conveying devices can travel up to 100 meters (roughly 328 feet). Once they land, solar panels power their electronics, which can share sensor data wirelessly up to 60 meters (196 feet) away via backscattering. The devices feature bristles that bend inward, while a ring structure adds stiffness and slows their descent. "Our prototype suggests that you could use a drone to release thousands of these devices in a single drop," said UW's Shyam Gollakota. "They'll all be carried by the wind a little differently, and basically you can create a 1,000-device network with this one drop."
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'Self-driving' Lab Speeds Research, Synthesis of Energy Materials
NC State University News
Matt Shipman
March 16, 2022
Researchers at North Carolina State University (NC State) and the University at Buffalo have developed a "self-driving lab" that employs artificial intelligence (AI) and fluidic systems to gain insights about metal halide perovskite (MHP) nanocrystals. The tool also can be used to explore other semiconductor and metallic nanomaterials, "to advance both fundamental nanoscience and applied engineering," according to NC State's Milad Abolhasani. Abolhasani said MHP nanocrystals are not in industrial use yet, partly “because we’re still developing a better understanding of how to synthesize these nanocrystals in order to engineer all of the properties associated with MHPs and, in part, because synthesizing them requires a degree of precision that has prevented large-scale manufacturing from being cost-effective. Our work here addresses both of those issues.”
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The Robot Has the View
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (Germany)
March 16, 2022
A sensor developed by researchers at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering successfully captures three-dimensional views of transparent objects. Verified in tests on a robot, the Glass360Dgree sensor can reliably identify objects spatially despite reflective or light-absorbing surfaces . A high-intensity carbon dioxide laser and a mobile optical setup with special lenses beam a line moving over the measured object in fractions of a second. The object absorbs and emits the laser light's energy for perception by the two thermal imaging cameras. Software analyzes the images of the heat signature left by the infrared line on the object, and reconstructs the spatial coordinates from the two viewing angles and the deformation in the recorded fringe pattern. It then combines the data into the precise dimensions of the object.
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Scientists Discover How to 3D Print Testicular Cells
University of British Columbia (Canada)
March 16, 2022
Researchers at Canada's University of British Columbia (UBC) have produced human testicular cells using a three-dimensional (3D) printer, which could pave the way for new fertility treatments. UBC's Ryan Flannigan said, "We're 3D-printing these cells into a very specific structure that mimics human anatomy, which we think is our best shot at stimulating sperm production." The researchers collected stem cells from the testicles of a patient with non-obstructive azoospermia, the most severe form of male infertility. They grew and 3D-printed the cells onto a petri dish into a hollow tubular structure mimicking the seminiferous tubules where sperm is produced in human testicles. The researchers determined the cells had survived, matured, and showed early signs of sperm-producing capabilities just 12 days after printing.
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Here Come the AI Nutritionists
The New York Times
Sandeep Ravindran
March 14, 2022
A host of applications are using artificial intelligence to make personalized diet recommendations, based on research demonstrating that individual bodies respond differently to the same foods. The DayTwo app uses a machine learning algorithm based on research by scientists at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science to chart individual dietary regimes, in order to control blood sugar. The algorithm can identify patterns and learn from data with human assistance, analyzing information from individuals' blood sugar responses to tens of thousands of meals to recognize personal characteristics underlying certain glucose reactions. From these findings, DayTwo can forecast a specific food's effect on blood sugar, and assign scores to meals. Last year, DayTwo learned that in using the algorithm to match diet to an individual's microbiome and metabolism, it could control blood sugar more effectively than the Mediterranean diet.
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Computer Scientist Identifies JavaScript Vulnerability in Thousands of Websites
Johns Hopkins University Hub
Catherine Graham
March 14, 2022
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute analyzed a million Websites with JavaScript vulnerabilities and found more than 2,700 featured multiple flaws that could expose them to prototype pollution. Prototype pollution allows attackers to modify a prototype (a built-in property of a JavaScript object) to manipulate a site's URL, steal a user's profile information, or engage in other malicious activity. Of the Websites found to have multiple flaws, 10 were among the top 1,000 most-visited Websites of the year, including Weebly.com, CNET.com, and McKinsey.com. Johns Hopkins' Yinzhi Cao said, "Our ProbeTheProto tool can automatically and accurately detect a wide range of potential attacks, and we've found that many developers are happy that we are helping them stay ahead of cybersecurity threats."
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Could the Internet be Driven by Climate-friendly 'Natural Intelligence'?
NYU Tandon School of Engineering
March 15, 2022
The Solar Protocol project developed by New York University Tandon School of Engineering (NYU Tandon) researchers aims to highlight the impact, in terms of global emissions, of the Internet, the devices and systems that use it, and the servers that support it, as well as offering a potential solution for delivering climate-friendly Internet traffic coordination. Winner of the Mozilla Creative Media Award, the project is a Web platform hosted across a global network of solar-powered servers, which directs online traffic based on the sun's influence on daily behaviors, seasonal activities, and decision-making. The network routes traffic to wherever the sun is shining by factoring in the location of servers in different time zones and seasons, with different sun exposure and weather systems.
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Computational Biology Method Deciphers Gut Microbiome 'Chatter' to Fight IBD
News-Medical Life Sciences
March 14, 2022
A computational biology method developed by researchers at the U.K.'s Quadram Institute, Earlham Institute, and University of East Anglia could help create targeted clinical treatments for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). The method deciphers the interactions between gut cell types to determine how beneficial bacteria affect the immune system. The researchers used a previously published dataset about which genes actively make proteins in 51 types of colon cells, and analyzed and characterized the cargo proteins obtained from bacterial extracellular vesicles made by a common gut bacterium. They used the MicrobioLink computational pipeline to combine these datasets and predict the interactions between microbial and host proteins. Their resulting model offers a view of the constant interaction between gut bacteria and the immune system to understand the biological processes affected by microbial proteins.
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Intensity Control of Projectors in Parallel—Doorway to an Augmented Reality Future
Tokyo Tech News
March 16, 2022
Scientists at Japan's Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) have developed a method for interacting with dynamic objects in augmented reality (AR), while reducing latency. Dynamic projection mapping combines cameras and projectors that respectively detect and project onto target surfaces, and the researchers' technique can calculate the intensity of each pixel on a target in parallel. This reduces the need for a single large optimization calculation, significantly boosting mapping speed and shortening latency. "The presented high-speed multi-projection is expected to be a major part of important base technologies that will advance spatial AR to derive more practical uses in our daily life," explained Tokyo Tech's Yoshihiro Watanabe.
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