“On 27 March, a private jet arrived at London Luton Airport with some unusual, delicate cargo. Rather than designer luggage, the plane carried 18 ancient scrolls from the Vittorio Emanuele III National Library in Naples, Italy. The tightly rolled papyri were being transported to the Diamond Light Source particle accelerator near Oxford, where researchers used the synchrotron’s powerful X-rays to reveal the scrolls’ contents…

The mission is part of a huge scaling up of efforts to decipher the ‘Herculaneum scrolls’, burnt and buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, after text inside one of them was successfully deciphered using artificial intelligence (AI) last year…

A first look at the newest scans reveals that at least five of the scrolls show what look like clear signs of visible ink, researchers tell Nature. That’s ‘very promising’, says Stephen Parsons, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky who is also involved with efforts to read the scrolls. It means that the scrolls could be easier to read than previously thought, he adds. Meanwhile, a papyrus at the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford, scanned last year, is yielding unprecedented amounts of data, and dozens more scrolls are due to be scanned in France next month.”

From Nature.

“Georgia Tech researchers have developed an almost imperceptible microstructure brain sensor to be inserted into the minuscule spaces between hair follicles and slightly under the skin. The sensor offers high-fidelity signals and makes the continuous use of brain-computer interfaces (BCI) in everyday life possible…

A study of six people using the device to control an augmented reality (AR) video call found that high-fidelity neural signal capture persisted for up to 12 hours with very low electrical resistance at the contact between skin and sensor. Participants could stand, walk, and run for most of the daytime hours while the brain-computer interface successfully recorded and classified neural signals indicating which visual stimulus the user focused on with 96.4% accuracy. During the testing, participants could look up phone contacts and initiate and accept AR video calls hands-free as this new micro-sized brain sensor was picking up visual stimuli — all the while giving the user complete freedom of movement.”

From Georgia Tech.

“Researchers at Zhejiang University and their collaborators at the University of Cambridge showed that it is possible to make extremely small LEDs based on perovskite semiconductors, reaching a new size limit not achieved before with conventional LEDs. They created micro- and nano-perovskite LEDs (micro/nano-PeLEDs) with characteristic pixel lengths from hundreds of microns down to 90 nanometers. For their green and near-infrared PeLEDs, high external quantum efficiencies of ~20% are maintained across a wide range of pixel lengths (650 to 3.5 microns). Unlike the conventional micro-LEDs based on III-V semiconductors, the micro/nano-PeLEDs exhibit minimum performance reduction upon downsizing. The nano-PeLEDs with pixel lengths of 90 nanometers are the world’s smallest LEDs, enabling a record-high pixel density of 127,000 pixels per inch (PPI) amongst all classes of LED arrays.”

From Zhejiang University.

“Scientists have sent messages encrypted using principles of quantum physics over a 250km German commercial telecommunications network, in a milestone towards next-generation data security.

Toshiba Europe researchers have used so-called quantum key distribution (QKD) cryptography to transfer messages over traditional communication systems in a way that would be safe from hackers.

QKD exploits a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement. This refers to the way two subatomic particles’ characteristics can be related, even when separated by a vast distance.

By measuring data from one particle, you can infer information from the other. This allows the pair to serve as keys that can exchange coded messages but are unreadable to outsiders.

The researchers were able to send such quantum messages with standard optical fibre and without specialist ultra-low temperature cooling equipment usually used for these kind of communications. They claim this is the first time such an extensive simplified quantum information exchange has been run on a commercial telecoms network.”

From Financial Times.