News Feeds

Scientists have developed a new way to read the hidden states of Majorana qubits, which store information in paired quantum modes that resist noise. The results confirm their protected nature and show millisecond scale coherence, bringing robust quantum computers closer to reality.

Scientists have developed a new way to read the hidden states of Majorana qubits, which store information in paired quantum modes that resist noise. The results confirm their protected nature and show millisecond scale coherence, bringing robust quantum computers closer to reality.

It’s not easy being a futurist (which I guess I technically am, having written a book about the future of technology). It never was, judging by the predictions of past futurists, but it seems to be getting harder as the future is moving more and more quickly. Even if we don’t get to something like “The Singularity”, the pace of change in many areas of technology is speeding up. Actually it’s possible this may, paradoxically, be good for futurists. We get to see fairly quickly how wrong our predictions were, and so have a chance at making adjustments and learning from our mistakes.

We are now near the beginning of many transformative technologies – genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, additive manufacturing, robotics, and brain-machine interface. Extrapolating these technologies into the future is challenging. How will they interact with each other? How will they be used and accepted? What limitations will we run into? And (the hardest question) what new technologies not on that list will disrupt the future of technology?

While we are dealing with these big question, let’s focus on one specific technology – controllable robotic prosthetics. I have been writing about this for years, and this is an area that is advancing more quickly than I had anticipated. The reason for this is, briefly, AI. Recent advances in AI are allowing for far better brain-machine interface control than previously achievable. Recent advances in AI allow for technology that is really good at picking out patterns from tons of noisy data. This includes picking out patterns in EEG signals from a noisy human brain.

This matters when the goal is having a robotic prosthetic limb controlled by the user through some sort of BMI (from nerves, muscles, or directly from the brain). There are always two components to this control – the software driving the robotic limb has to learn what the user wants, and the user has to learn how to control the limb. Traditionally this takes weeks to months of training, in order to achieve a moderate but usable degree of control. By adding AI to the computer-learning end of the equation, this training time is reduced to days, with far better results. This is what has accelerated progress by a couple of decades beyond where I thought it would be.

But it turns out this AI-assisted control can be a double-edged sword. To understand why we need to quickly review how the human brain adapts to artificial bodies or body parts. The short answer is – quite well. The reason is that our sense of ownership and control is all a constructed illusion of the brain in the first place. Circuits in our brain create the subjective sensation that each part of our body is part of us, that we own that body part (the sense of ownership) and the we control that body part (a sense of agency). We know about this largely from studying patients who have damage in one or more of these circuits that causes them to feel like a body part is not theirs or that they don’t control it.

This means that this circuitry can be hacked to make the brain create the sensation that you own and control a robotic or virtual limb. Luckily, this hacking is actually pretty simple. The brain compares different sensory inputs to see if they match, while also comparing motor intentions with motor outputs. So – if you see and feel a limb being touched, your brain will interpret that as you owning the limb. It can be that simple. If you intend to make a movement, and you see and feel the limb make that movement, then you feel as if you control the limb. So a robotic limb with some sensation, with some haptic feedback, and that does what we want it to do, will feel as if it is naturally part of us. The research is moving now in this direction, to close these loops as much as possible.

This, however, is where we run into a snag with AI-controlled robotic limbs. Part of the advance is that AI can add fine motor control to an artificial hand, say. Quickly, robotic movement tends to fall into one of three categories. You can directly control the robot, the robot can carry out a pre-programmed sequence of movements, or the robot can determine its movements in real time based on sensory feedback. When seeing a robotic demonstration you should always ask – what type of control is being demonstrated?

For robotic limbs what we want is direct control of the robot. While this is advancing, it is still somewhat limited and clumsy. So we can refine the direct control by adding one or both of the other two types of control. This means to some extent the robotic limb is carrying out the desired movements of the user with internal control. This can greatly increase the functionality of the robotic limb, but it comes at a cost of the user’s sense of embodiment and agency. Imagine if your hand were executing movements all by itself. It would feel uncanny and unnerving.

This is a long windup to a new study which tries to address this issue. The researchers were looking at the effect of the movement speed of the AI-controlled robotic limb to see how that affected the user’s sense of ownership and agency. What they found was not surprising, but good to know that this variable is effective and needs to be taken into consideration. They varied the execution time of an AI-controlled movement from 125 ms to 4 seconds. A moderate speed, about 1 second, resulted in the best sense of ownership and agency (or we can say the least interference with these senses). The further you got to either extreme the more the user felt an uncanny sense of unease, as if they did not own or control the robotic limb. This is a Goldilocks effect – too fast or too slow is no bueno, but just right results in a good outcome.

This result also makes sense from the perspective that prior neurological research shows that our brains also evaluate the world by how it moves. We separate agents from non-agents by how they move (the latter moves in an inertial frame while the former does not). Neurologists also know this because diseases that are movement disorders can often be diagnosed (and sometimes at a glance) by how the patient moves. Our brains are finely tuned to what constitutes normal human movement. Too fast or too slow, hypokinetic or hyperkinetic, and our brains immediately register that something is wrong.

So if we see our robotic limb moving at a normal human pace, doing what we want it to do (even though the fine movements are enhanced by AI) that can still be good enough for us to accept the limb as belonging to us and that we control it. There is likely also a Goldilocks zone here as well – too much AI control will break the illusion of control, while too little is of no use, but just right will be the best compromise between functionality and acceptance.

The nuances of neurological control through a brain-machine interface of an AI-enhanced robotic limb is one of those futurism problems that would have been difficult to anticipate.

The post The Future of AI-Powered Prosthetics first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

Dark energy is one of those cosmological features that we are still learning about. While we can’t see it directly, we can most famously observe its effects on the universe - primarily how it is causing the expansion of the universe to speed up. But recently, physicists have begun to question even that narrative, pointing to results that show the expansion isn’t happening at the same rate our math would have predicted. In essence, dark energy might be changing over time, and that would have a huge impact on the universe’s expansion and cosmological physics in general. A new paper available in pre-print on arXiv from Dr. Slava Turyshev, who is also famously the most vocal advocate of the Solar Gravitational Lens mission, explores an alternative possibility that our data is actually just messy from inaccuracies in how we measure particular cosmological features - like supernovae.

Biologists have debated the reason why Homo sapiens evolved a prominent lower jaw, but this unique feature may actually be a by-product of other traits shaped by natural selection

For the first time, researchers have shown that self-assembled phosphorus chains can host genuinely one-dimensional electron behavior. Using advanced imaging and spectroscopy techniques, they separated the signals from chains aligned in different directions to reveal their true nature. The findings suggest that squeezing the chains closer together could trigger a dramatic shift from semiconductor to metal. That means simply adjusting density could unlock entirely new electronic states.

For the first time, researchers have shown that self-assembled phosphorus chains can host genuinely one-dimensional electron behavior. Using advanced imaging and spectroscopy techniques, they separated the signals from chains aligned in different directions to reveal their true nature. The findings suggest that squeezing the chains closer together could trigger a dramatic shift from semiconductor to metal. That means simply adjusting density could unlock entirely new electronic states.

We are used to heat flowing from hot objects to cool ones, and never the other way round, but now researchers have found it is possible to pull off this trick in the strange realm of quantum mechanics

Claiming that an inflammatory response to injury is inherently therapeutic is a massive leap of faith.

The post The Red Marks of Pseudo-Medicine: Gua Sha first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

New data from major dark-energy observatories suggest the universe may not expand forever after all. A Cornell physicist calculates that the cosmos is heading toward a dramatic reversal: after reaching its maximum size in about 11 billion years, it could begin collapsing, ultimately ending in a “big crunch” roughly 20 billion years from now.

New data from major dark-energy observatories suggest the universe may not expand forever after all. A Cornell physicist calculates that the cosmos is heading toward a dramatic reversal: after reaching its maximum size in about 11 billion years, it could begin collapsing, ultimately ending in a “big crunch” roughly 20 billion years from now.

The shape of the cosmos depends on a balance of two competing forces: the pull of gravity and the expansion driven by dark energy. Columnist Leah Crane explores what observations tell us about how much universe is out there and whether it’s shaped like a sheet, a saddle or something else entirely

The smell of rotten eggs has solved one of exoplanet science's most persistent mysteries. Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have detected hydrogen sulfide gas in the atmospheres of four massive Jupiter like planets orbiting the star HR 8799, marking the first time this molecule has been identified beyond our Solar System. The discovery settles a long standing debate about whether these enormous worlds are truly planets or failed stars called brown dwarfs because the sulfur had to come from solid matter accreted during planet formation, not gas!

Intermittent fasting appears to be no better than doing nothing when it comes to helping people who are overweight or have obesity lose weight

The third interstellar object detected in our Solar System (3I/ATLAS) has a unique and continually unfolding story to tell of its nature and origin. In a recent paper, scientists from the i4is show how a spacecraft performing a Solar Oberth Manoeuvre (SOM) could intercept 3I/ATLAS to learn its secrets.

Saturn's tiny moon Enceladus, famous for its water geysers, has been revealed as a giant electromagnetic powerhouse whose influence extends over half a million kilometres through the ringed planet's magnetosphere. Analysis of 13 years of Cassini data shows the 500 kilometre wide moon creates a lattice like structure of crisscrossing electromagnetic waves known as Alfvén wings, that bounce between Saturn's ionosphere and the plasma torus surrounding Enceladus's orbit, reaching distances 2,000 times the moon's own radius. It changes our understanding of how small icy moons can influence their giant planetary hosts, with implications for the moons of Jupiter and perhaps even distant exoplanetary systems.

Scientists have discovered a revolutionary way to measure Earth's radiation budget by observing our planet from the Moon. A team of astronomers have revealed that lunar observations capture Earth as a complete disk, filtering out local weather noise and revealing planet scale radiation patterns dominated by spherical harmonic functions, effectively creating a unique "fingerprint" of Earth's outgoing radiation. This Moon based perspective solves fundamental limitations of satellite observations, which struggle to achieve both temporal continuity and spatial consistency, offering a new tool for understanding global climate change with unprecedented clarity.

Designed for versatility, Ariane 6 can adapt to each mission: flying with two boosters for lighter payloads, or four boosters when more power is needed. In its four-booster configuration, Ariane 6 can carry larger and heavier spacecraft into orbit, enabling some of Europe’s most ambitious missions.

Well, I might as well reveal part of my very long list of “best music”.  This time I’ll post my choice of the best “songs about aging or dying” for Baby Boomers.  These aren’t necessarily all good (I’m not a fan of Mellencamp, for instance), but they’re all notable. And yes, I realize that “Long May You Run” is really about Neil Young’s car (a 1948 Buick Roadmaster hearse he called Mortimer Hearseburg), but it’s still appropriate.  Further, some of the songs are about lost love, but all refer to the sadness of passing time.

Father and Son                        Cat Stevens
Touch of Gray                        The Grateful Dead
When I’m Sixty-Four            The Beatles
Boys of Summer                     Don Henley
Cherry Bomb                          John Mellencamp
Long May You Run                Stills-Young Band
All Summer Long                   The Beach Boys
Caroline No                            The Beach Boys
Nick of Time                          Bonnie Raitt
When We Was Fab                 George Harrison
All those Years Ago                George Harrison
Rockin’ Chair                         The Band
Taxi                                         Harry Chapin
Cat’s in the Cradle                  Harry Chapin
Old Friends (Bookends)         Simon and Garfunkel
Don’t Fear the Reaper             Blue Öyster Cult
Wasted on the Way                 Crosby Stills & Nash

I welcome readers’ suggestions, and I’ll put up five of the songs that I think are particularly good and underappreciated:

“Boys of Summer” (1984). For some reason this song absolutely brings back my own teenage years, and quite vividly:

“Caroline, No” (1966), by the great Brian Wilson.

“All Those Years Ago” (1981).  Nobody seems to remember this song by George Harrison, but it’s not only great, but a moving tribute to his late fellow Beatle, John Lennon. It’s clear that despite their tiffs, Harrison really loved Lennon.

“Taxi” by Harry Chapin (1972).  I’m sure this song is long forgotten, but it’s among the very best ones on the list. The “soprano” part is sung by “Big John” Wallace, Chapin’s bassist; everybody thought that the original record used a female voice. You can end the song at 7:31; it just repeats with the lyrics shown.

“Nick of Time” by Bonnie Raitt (1989).  I love this song; the tune is excellent, with a good hook, and the words are wonderful:

I am SO tired of people demonizing J. K. Rowling for being a transphobe and a bigot without ever having paid attention to what’s she said and written.  In fact, she’s sympathetic to trans people, but, like me, thinks that trans rights on occasion clash with the rights of biological women, and in those cases the rights of natal women can take precedence (this occurs in sports, prisons, and a few other circumstances). And, like Rowling, I have been somewhat demonized by taking a stand identical to hers (I was, for example, recently branded “anti-trans” by the head of our department’s DEI Committee, clearly by people who have ignored what I’ve written, too).

But I kvetch. This Substack post by Katie Pinns tries to un-demonize Rowling by actually showing us what she wrote.  Now you know that won’t change the minds of those like Emma Watson who have parted ways with Rowling on no good grounds: gender ideologues are impervious to the facts.  But at least Pinns has Rowling’s statements down in black and white, and I’ve added one important link. Click screenshot to read:

I’ll give some quotes from Pinns (indented) who in turn quotes Rowling (doubly indented). There are several pages worth, so check for yourself if you think I’m cherry-picking.

Few public figures attract as much noise as J.K. Rowling. For many people, the controversy around her name has become so thick with slogans, screenshots, and second‑hand outrage that her actual words have been buried under the reaction to them. People repeat that she “hates trans people,” or that women’s crisis centres are “transphobic,” without ever checking what she has actually said.

So this piece goes back to the source. Not the discourse. Not the memes. Her words.

Rowling’s central point is simple: sex is real, and it matters. She has said:

“If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased… It isn’t hate to speak the truth.”

This is the foundation of her position. She argues that biological sex shapes women’s lives, especially in relation to male violence, discrimination, and safeguarding. She also says explicitly that recognising sex does not erase or demean trans people.

Her concern is that if society stops acknowledging sex, women lose the language they need to describe their experiences. That’s not a fringe view; it’s the basis of decades of women’s rights advocacy.

Rowling has repeatedly said she supports trans people’s right to live free from discrimination:

“I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans.”

She also describes feeling “kinship” with trans people because both women and trans people are vulnerable to male violence. Her objection is not to trans people themselves, but to the idea that acknowledging sex is inherently hateful.

And, as Pinns notes, Rowling makes these pronouncements not to “erase” or demonize trans people, but to prompt a discussion about clashes of “rights” as well as whether there’s a need for affirmative care, including surgery, on people below an age of consent. As Pinns says, “Much of the public anger directed at her is based on claims she never made. Her insistence on correcting the record is part of why she continues to speak.”

There are more quotes from Rowling, and you can read her longer explanations of her views at places like this one.  She has of course been subject to a multitude of threats of violence, but she’s stood her ground, responding with humor and not a small amount of snark, which makes her enemies even madder.  Here’s a quote from her sober and revealing essay linked in the first sentence of this paragraph:

Well, I’ve got five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism, and deciding I need to speak up.

Firstly, I have a charitable trust that focuses on alleviating social deprivation in Scotland, with a particular emphasis on women and children. Among other things, my trust supports projects for female prisoners and for survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. I also fund medical research into MS, a disease that behaves very differently in men and women. It’s been clear to me for a while that the new trans activism is having (or is likely to have, if all its demands are met) a significant impact on many of the causes I support, because it’s pushing to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender.

The second reason is that I’m an ex-teacher and the founder of a children’s charity, which gives me an interest in both education and safeguarding. Like many others, I have deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both.

The third is that, as a much-banned author, I’m interested in freedom of speech and have publicly defended it, even unto Donald Trump.

The fourth is where things start to get truly personal. I’m concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility. Some say they decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families.

. . . .Which brings me to the fifth reason I’m deeply concerned about the consequences of the current trans activism.

I’ve been in the public eye now for over twenty years and have never talked publicly about being a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor. This isn’t because I’m ashamed those things happened to me, but because they’re traumatic to revisit and remember. I also feel protective of my daughter from my first marriage. I didn’t want to claim sole ownership of a story that belongs to her, too. However, a short while ago, I asked her how she’d feel if I were publicly honest about that part of my life, and she encouraged me to go ahead.

I’m mentioning these things now not in an attempt to garner sympathy, but out of solidarity with the huge numbers of women who have histories like mine, who’ve been slurred as bigots for having concerns around single-sex spaces.

Finally, I’ll quote Pinns again:

Much of the backlash against Rowling spills over onto women’s crisis centres, rape support services, and safeguarding charities that maintain female-only spaces. These organisations often base their policies on:

– the reality of male violence

– the needs of traumatised women

– legal exemptions that allow single-sex services

– safeguarding obligations

Rowling’s position aligns with these long-standing principles. Calling such services “transphobic” erases the reasons they exist.

Despite the headlines, Rowling has not said that trans people shouldn’t exist, shouldn’t have rights, or are a threat. She has not argued against healthcare for trans adults. She has not advocated discrimination.

As the West starts to realize that it’s unfair for biological men, however they identify, to enter some women’s spaces, or to compete in women’s sports, or that there are dangers in “affirmative care” doled out to adolescents who aren’t of age, I’m hoping that Rowling will no longer be immediately dismissed by ideologues, but that her arguments will be taken seriously and answered.