A Message to 24th Century Engineers

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THINKING THREE HUNDRED YEARS AHEAD

A MESSAGE TO 24TH CENTURY ENGINEERS

Greetings! This message is to people who are engineers in the year 2321 A.D. This is a message from the past (actually from 300 years in the past). In the past, the year is 2021. My name is Clarence William Page. I write in order to make a contribution to your age, your society, your world. To many of you, the past is a long time ago. I lived during that “long time ago”. We thought we were “modern”. We thought we were “advanced”. We invented much of what you consider rudimentary and mediocre (if not “ancient”). We took pride in something we called the “Internet”. (You have probably discarded it by now.) I have a few suggestions for you. Why for you and not for my generation? My generation would just reject them out of hand and call me a kook. (“Kook” was a word we used to ...

National Institutes of Health’s TOPMed program publishes Data on over 53,000 diverse Genomes | site |



NIH says historic findings could boost precision medicine, reduce health disparities


(Information contained in National Institutes of Health [NIH] press release dated: February 10, 2021)

Researchers supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health, announced the publication of a groundbreaking study which analyzed more than 53,000 whole genomes, primarily from minority populations. The study, which appears in the Feb. 10 online issue of the journal Nature, examines one of the largest and most diverse data sets of high-quality whole genome sequencing—a person’s complete set of DNA. The genetic data could shed new light on how heart, lung, blood, and sleep disorders impact people with diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, who often are underrepresented in genetic...

Bringing Atoms to a Standstill: NIST Miniaturizes Laser Cooling | site |




(Information contained in National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST] press release dated: January 21, 2021)

It’s cool to be small. Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have miniaturized the optical components required to cool atoms down to a few thousandths of a degree Celsius above absolute zero, the first step in employing them on microchips to drive a new generation of super-accurate atomic clocks, enable navigation without GPS, and simulate quantum systems. Cooling atoms is equivalent to slowing them down, which makes them a lot easier to study. At room temperature, atoms whiz through the air at nearly the speed of sound, some 343 meters per second. The rapid, randomly moving atoms have only fleeting interactions with other particles, and their motion can make it difficult to measure transitions between ato...

NIST says Nanocylinder Vibrations Help Quantify Polymer Curing for 3D Printing | site |


(Information contained in National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST] press release dated: December 10, 2020)

In a step toward making more accurate and uniform 3D-printed parts such as personalized prosthetics and dental materials, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a method of measuring the rate at which microscopic regions of a liquid raw material harden into a solid plastic when exposed to light.

NIST’s custom atomic force microscope (AFM) with a nanometer-scale, cylinder-shaped tip revealed that the complex process of curing resins, as they ...

National Institute of Standards and Technology says New JILA Tools ‘Turn On’ Quantum Gases of Ultracold Molecules | site |



(Information contained in National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST] press release: December 9, 2020)


JILA researchers have developed tools to “turn on” quantum gases of ultracold molecules, gaining control of long-distance molecular interactions for potential applications such as encoding data for quantum computing and simulations.

The new scheme for nudging a molecular gas down to its lowest energy state, called quantum degeneracy, while suppressing chemical reactions that break up molecules finally makes it possible to explore exotic quantum states in which all the molecules interact with one another.

The research is described in a Nature paper published online Dec. 9. JILA is a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University...

Error-Prone Quantum Bits Could Correct Themselves, NIST Physicists Show | site |


Novel error-correction approach could address a long-standing issue with quantum computers.


(Information contained in National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST] press release: December 8, 2020)

One of the chief obstacles facing quantum computer designers — correcting the errors that creep into a processor’s calculations — could be overcome with a new approach by physicists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the University of Maryland and the California Institute of Technology, who may have found a way to design quantum memory switches that would self-correct.

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U.S. Department of Energy Awards $2 Million to American-Made Solar Prize Competitors
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(Information contained in U.S. Department of Energy [DOE] press release: December 4, 2020)

Washington, D.C. - - Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the winners of the American-Made Solar Prize Round 3 and the 20 semifinalist teams selected to advance to the next phase of Round 4. Through the Solar Prize, DOE works to bring hardware technology innovations to market faster and to bolster American competitiveness in solar hardware manufacturing.

“Since its launch in 2018, the Solar Prize has awarded $11 million to 80 teams to solve problems that transform the solar industry,” said Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Daniel Simmons. “We are excited to see what these winners will do.”

The two Round 3 winning teams will each receive a grand prize of $500,000 in cash and $75,000 in vouchers....

National Institute of Standards and Technology Sensor Experts Invent Supercool Mini-Thermometer | site |



(Information contained in National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST] press release: November 17, 2020)

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have invented a miniature thermometer with big potential applications, such as monitoring the temperature of processor chips in superconductor-based quantum computers, which must stay cold to work properly.

NIST’s superconducting thermometer measures temperatures below 1 kelvin (minus 272.15 C or minus 457.87 F), down to 50 ...

Envision color: Activity Patterns in the Brain are Specific to the Color You See | site |


NIH research findings reveal new aspects of visual processing.


(November 16, 2020) - - Today the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published the following information: Researchers at the National Eye Institute (NEI) have decoded brain maps of human color perception. The findings, published today in Current Biology, open a window into how color processing is organized in the brain, and how the brain recognizes and groups colors in the environment. The study may have implications for the development of machine-brain interfaces for visual prosthetics. NEI is part of the National Institutes of Health. “This is one of the first studies to determine what color a person is seeing based on direct measurements of brain activity,” said Bevil Conway, Ph.D., chief of NEI’s Unit on Sensation, Cognition and Action, who led the study. “The approach lets us get at...

Library of Congress to Host Experts on Mapping COVID-19 Pandemic for GIS Day 2020 | site |


(November 10, 2020) - - On November 10, 2020 the Library of Congress (LOC) published the following information: The Library of Congress will mark GIS Day on Nov. 18 with special programs featuring geographic information science professionals and analysts who are documenting the outbreak of COVID-19. For cartographers and epidemiologists tracking the spread, evolution and mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as well as the distribution of a potential vaccine and personal protective equipment, the outbreak of COVID-19 has presented a geospatial analysis challenge like none other. Experts from multiple institutions will discuss their findings and examine how mapping and geographic information science technologies are helping public health officials, emergency rooms, epidemiologists and the general public as they struggle to understand the spread of the disease and work to allocate...