Scientists at Northwestern University have successfully transported entangled particles of light through a fiber optic cable without losing the entangled information.  

Entanglement is simply a term that describes an unexplainable phenomena between quantum particles. No matter how far apart two entangled particles are, they will always share the same physical state. Current day physics cannot explain how this instantaneous transfer of data happens. Einstein called entanglement, "The ghost in the machine."

Nonetheless, we don't have to understand any physical phenomena completely in order to exploit it. Who wouldn't want instantaneous communication?

Readers who remember basic high school computer science know that computer software is built on a vast foundation of 1's and 0's...binary code.

The attraction of quantum data, the basic unit being the qubit, is that it can simultaneously be 1 and 0, in addition to being 1 or 0. In addition, qubits contain ...

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According to this latest study, a metastatic cancer's resistance to chemotherapy contributes to 90% of treatment failures. Overcoming a cancer's ability to resist chemotherapy would dramatically increase survive rates. 

Enter nano-diamonds.

In earlier Logic-Cool posts, we’ve highlighted attempts to use nano-particles to treat cancer…in particular gold nano-particles. Now, diamond nano-particles have joined the fight.

This time, the effects are a little different. The diamond nano-particles enable chemotherapy to stay inside tumors for longer periods of time. In drug-resistant cancer, the body’s normal response to expel the drugs prevents chemotherapy treatment from having enough time to work on the disease.

Scientists found that diamond nano-particles allow chemotherapy drugs to stay inside the body 10 times longer. In addition, the drugs remained inside the tumors longer as well. The study suggests that diamond nano-particulars will enable them to substantially reduce the chemotherapy dosage required for treatment, lessening ...

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Apparently, the touchsceen interface of an iPad is able to bridge the communication gap between autistic children and their parents struggling to understand them. The iPad allows autistic children direct control over its interface, as opposed to a normal computer's keyboard and mouse, which they can suffer immense difficulty with.

There already exist 3 dozen iPad apps for autistic children.

Experts say the Apple iPad lessens the symptoms of the disorder, helping kids deal with life's sensory overload -- in a sense "curing" the disorder, one parent says.

That's what Laura Holmquist believes, at least. Her son Hudson was having 8 or 9 violent meltdowns per day. One morning he started screaming in his bedroom -- and didn't stop until late that evening. The family of eight could not go to public events or out to dinner and had a hard time communicating with him.

"The iPad has ...

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Malaysia seeks to build the world's largest refinery of strategic metals. When completed, the plant will be the first such refinery built outside of China in nearly three decades.

As the Times article states, the $230 million project is an enormous gamble because refining rare earth metals leaves behind thousands of tons of radioactive waste, and its still unsure how that reality will be dealt with. Since environmental political groups are very powerful in the West, we don't build refineries here. So up till now, the world has been content to leave the "dirty work" to China which operates many barely regulated refineries and has created vast toxic waste sites in its own territory. In return for this sacrifice, they now control around 97% of the world's supply of strategic materials crucial for almost every high-tech gadget imaginable, including smartphones, electric cars and the U.S. military ...

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The 2010 A.M. Turing Award has been announced and the recipient is Harvard professor Leslie Valiant. The Turing Award is basically considered equivalent to a Nobel Prize in computing. The prize is named after the famed British mathematician Alan M. Turing.

Geeky readers will recognize Turing's name, of course. He was a brilliant homosexual scientist responsible for breaking Nazi codes in World War II. He was also instrumental in building one of the world's first stored-program computers. Turing was later prosecuted by Britain for his homosexuality and forced to take female enzymes in an attempt to cure him. He later died of cyanide poisoning. The British government only recently formally apologized in 2009 for Turing’s treatment.

Turing is most famous for developing the Turing Test for Artificial Intelligence. In essence, the Turing Test is a language test. A human engages in a natural conversation with an ...

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The European Aerospace and Defense Group (EADS) has unveiled the world’s first “printed” bicycle using a 3D printing process. Made of nylon strong enough to replace steel, the bicycle requires no assembly or maintenance.

Technically, they call their process Additive Layer Manufacturing, but in essence is the same as the 3D printing process. Powdered metal (such as titanium, steel or aluminum) is sintered by laser, layer by layer, to form a solid mass until the product is finished.

Compared to a traditional, machined part, those produced by ALM are up to 65% lighter but still as strong…ALM also offers a glimpse of wider potential benefits. The process itself uses about one-tenth of the material required in traditional manufacturing and reduces waste. On a global scale, ALM offers potential for products to be produced quickly and cheaply on ‘printers’ located in offices, shops and houses. It would allow replacement ...

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Scientists at the Medical University of South Carolina have developed a prototype replacement disc by printing an organ scaffold and seeding it with living cells.  Their new spinal implant disc closely mimics the basic structure of a real spinal disc.

Currently, the only options for someone suffering chronic back pain from damaged discs would be 1) infuse the bones, which limit movement and risk damaging other discs, or 2) implant a metal or plastic disc which risks infection and has no shock absorption.

Either way, people who suffer chronic back pain injuries may soon find permanent relief in the coming years.

“Compared to the metal and plastic implants used today, an artificial scaffold swathed in living tissue could repair itself…Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina, led by Xuejun Wen, professor of bioengineering and regenerative medicine at Clemson University and the Medical University of South Carolina, tried to ...

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An international team led by engineers from the University of Queensland in Australia have overcome a key hurdle to the real-life applications of quantum computing. In essence, using current technology, engineers have no way of efficiently measuring the behavior of qubits. Like computer bits, "qubits" are the smallest measure of quantum information. According to the article, just an 8-qubit quantum computer would require over a billion measurements. The measuring tasks increase exponentially with the number of qubits.

Dr. Alessandro Fedrizzi, co-author of this study published in Physical Review Letters states:

“Imagine that you're building a car but you can't test-drive it.This is the situation that quantum engineers are facing at the moment.”

The team developed a "compressive sensing algorithm" that for the first time allowed drastic simplification for measuring quantum processes.

Quantum computing is the holy grail of computer technology. We've covered quantum technology developments a ...

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In a huge breakthrough for the treatment of Parkinson's Disease, researchers at the CU School of Medicine have found a drug that stops the disease from worsening. Current drugs only treat Parkinson symptoms.  

Led by Wenbo Zhou and Curt Freed, the team found that the drug Phenylbutyrate activates a gene called DJ-1 that protects brain neurons.

Mice with Parkinson's disease were able to move normally with no decline in mental function when Phenylbutyrate was placed in their drinking water. Human trials have already begun back in 2009 to test the drug's safety.

Their findings will be published later in 2011.

Freed and Zhou are now looking for other drugs that might turn on the DJ-1 gene. One drawback of phenylbutyrate is that patients must take very large doses, 16 grams per day or 32 large tablets taken at frequent intervals. While the drug is approved by the ...

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An intrepid cinematographer Stephen Van Vuuren has created a film by stitching together thousands of still shots taken by the space probe Cassini during its fly-by of the planet Saturn.

The video below is just a teaser animating part of Cassini's four year journey around Saturn.  Van Vuuren wants to to screen a larger feature in IMAX theatres.  

However...

The film needs $125,000 to take off the ground (bad pun intended). By releasing this demo, he hopes to raise funds. So far, the project has raised $32,000. If interested, you can make a donation here.

5.6k Saturn Cassini Photographic Animation from stephen v2 on Vimeo.

The 2nd man to step foot on the moon has teamed up with the smartest man in the world to create a "Unified Space Vision" which "seeks to define and obtain a Unified Space Vision that will continue the expansion of a human presence in space and ensure the perpetuation of the species."

Buzz Aldrin and Stephen Hawking hope their Vision gives nations around the world a list of definable goals and encourages global cooperation.

This unified vision will encourage global leadership," they said. "As nations approach the endeavor jointly, rather than in the competitive playing field of the past, each nation will contribute its own special strengths and resources."

I honestly think competition is the way to get to outer space. Global cooperation depends on global will, and most people don't care about space exploration. I support NASA's trend to outsource the job to private companies.

Check out the picture down below. See the guy on the right? He's not a guy. His name is Geminoid DK, the third of a series of androids created by professor Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University and his team at Japan's Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute.

Geminoid DK was constructed to resemble Henrik Scharfe, an associate professor of Aalborg University in Denmark.

Ishiguro maintains that the group's purpose for the Geminoid is to further understand the "emotional affordances" in human-robot interaction.

Oh Japan, is there no end to the robotic awesome you produce?

Time for another round of great news from all over the globe.

1) Swedish researchers make major breakthrough using yeast cells to create biological circuits that can eventually be used in a biological computer.

2) World's 1st bionic eye goes on the market in Europe partially restoring sight to the blind.

3) After a 6 month study, Trinity College in Australia has decided to give every student an iPad. Must be nice not lugging around those textbooks, dudes.

4) Facebook enables Samaritans to contact users who make suicidal posts.

5) Arnold Schwarzenegger considering roles in THE TERMINATOR and PREDATOR remakes. What's so great about this? I'm not sure, but I like Arnold in movies. There's something about listening to his goofy accent trying to act dramatic...

6) You'll soon be able to buy candy bars AND recharge your electric car in Japan.

I find it interesting how similar topic news always seems to cluster around each other. Two separate alcohol studies released today showcase the health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption.

First, a summary review of thousands of previous studies found alcohol consumption indicated a 25% reduction in cardiovascular disease, 29% for coronary heart disease, 25% for coronary heart disease mortality rates and a 13% reduction in mortality overall.

"The public health messages should (and in many countries do) acknowledge the reduced risk of incidence and mortality of coronary heart disease associated with moderate drinking. However, we should not expect official recommendations of light drinking on a par with exercise, vegetables, and not smoking. The caveats would be too many, and official recommendations should be based on prospective, randomized studies. The role of alcohol drinking is best discussed in a scenario of a patient taking medical advice from his personal physician."

Second ...

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Scientists at the National Institute of Materials Science in Japan found that by immersing iron compound pellots in alcohol such as red wine, sake and shochu they could induce superconductivity.

Superconductivity occurs when electricity passes through materials with zero resistance. Breakthroughs in superconduction will lead to Science Fiction goodies like levitating skateboards and other such devices. It would revolutionize electric motors and the energy industry. Currently, superconducting magnets are used in particle accelerators, like the Large Hadron Collider, MRI and NMR machines, and mass spectrometers.

Professor Yoshihiko Takano, Nano Frontier Materials Group at the National Institute for Materials Science, Japan, said, "The iron compound becomes superconductive by air exposure but the sample needs to be exposed to air for a few months to show superconductivity. This is a very, very long time.

"However, the sample immersed in the red wine becomes superconductive only in one day, much faster than air-exposure."

I'm not sure "stillborn" is the correct term, but that was the headline at News.com.au today.

British doctors are using an advanced method to save the lives of critically ill newborn babies. In this recent case, an infant named Ella had the mother's placenta rupture during the labor process, which starved the baby's brain of oxygen to the point of severe brain damage. Doctors had to work 25 minutes before reviving the heart beat.

However, using a new procedure, they froze the baby's body for 3 days. The news article doesn't explain how it works. The video does a better job. Basically, by slowing the metabolism of the brain, it gives the organ the ability to bring itself back from the shock of oxygen deprivation. After 8 days, Ella was able to return home happy and health.

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As readers are probably aware, researchers are currently using stem cells to create treatments for a breathtaking array of diseases. However, before scientists can be sure they're using "pluripotent" stem cells in their research, their cell lines must pass through an exhaustive quality control test that can take 6-8 weeks and involves animal testing.

No longer.

In a study published by Nature Methods, Scripps researchers have developed a way to test stem cells in 10 minutes or less, without using animals. The only task required of stem cell researchers is to upload thousands of DNA sequences from their cells online and compare them to an enormous database of genetic information compiled by Scripps.

By shaving roughly 2 months off of research time, we'll soon see even faster research breakthroughs in the use of stem cells.

The New York Times has a great article summarizing current trends in AI spreading throughout the economy. Computer AI has become so advanced that it's now starting to replace and automate higher-level jobs. Case in point, back in 1978 a lawsuit against CBS forced the company to spend $2.2 million to hire a team of lawyers and paralegals to sift through 6 million documents for several months.

Fast-forward to today.  In January 2011, a company called Blackstone Discovery in Palo Alto, helped analyze 1.5 million documents for less than $100,000 and, of course, taking FAR less time.

Some law bloggers have noted the difficulty for recent law graduates to find jobs, noting that perhaps the trend is due to the bursting of a higher education bubble combined with the current economy. That probably is also the case, but this truly cost-cutting technology probably foreshadows that those ...

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In research promising major breakthroughs in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, researchers at Northwestern University have successfully converted stem cells into brain cells that are crucial to sustain human memory.

Led by Dr. Jack Kessler, the research team reprogrammed ordinary skin cells to create pluripotent stem cells, which in turn, were used to create fresh brain cells.

Currently, there exist no treatments or drugs that prevent Alzheimer's disease from progressing. Dr. Kessler's work promises to change that fact in the next decade.

Working with a grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH), scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the SUNY Downstate Medical Center have learned how to promote and suppress long-term memories in rats using an enzyme called kinase M zeta.

Kinase M zeta is already known for maintaining long-term memories in the brain. This 5 year long experiment represents the very first attempts to use this in a therapeutic fashion. According to the article, the enzyme looks extremely promising because, unlike other memory treatments, the enzyme isn't dependent upon exploiting time windows between when a short-term memory becomes long-term. The enzyme will work at any time. 

The researchers used a virus to infect rat brain cells with an enzyme producing gene. 

“This pivotal mechanism could become a target for treatments to help manage debilitating emotional memories in anxiety disorders, and for enhancing faltering memories in disorders of ...

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